Entry of the Village

The Louvre's full title places this road precisely. It leads into a village on the outskirts of Beauvais, north of Paris, on the side towards Voisinlieu. Corot stayed in the area more than once in his later years as the guest of friends, and the museum dates the canvas broadly, between 1850 and 1875. It is an upright picture. A single big tree fills most of it, with roofs tucked in behind, a white wall catching the light and a small figure in red on the path below. The signature is at the lower right. The painting came to the Louvre in 1902 in the bequest of George Thomy Thiéry, a collector born in Mauritius who had made his fortune in trade and finance. Voisinlieu is no longer a separate place. It is now a district of Beauvais.