Farm at Recouvrières, Nièvre

Corot gave this canvas to the man who owned the farm in it, a Monsieur Pons of the Nièvre, the westernmost department of Burgundy. Thatched roofs and a tall stone chimney stand on the right, a loaded hay wagon waits behind a white horse and a brown one, and a man comes in from the left with a bundle of sticks on his back. At the edge of the water one woman holds a small child while another kneels to rinse linen, and more washing lies spread out on the grass to dry. Far off on the left a church spire marks the next village. Corot was in his mid-thirties in 1831, three years back from his first long stay in Italy. At the lower right he scratched his name and the year into the paint, COROT.1831, and a second COROT stands beside it.