Lady with Daisies

By 1870 Corot was in his seventies and the most imitated painter in France, forged so widely that copies were circulating while he was still alive. Dealers wanted the silvery landscapes and got them by the hundred. In the studio he was doing something he barely showed to anyone, half-length pictures of women in loose Italian or eastern costume, painted for himself and for the friends who dropped in. He died in 1875, and it took decades before those figures were taken seriously. X-rays of this canvas show he shifted the arms and the head several times before he let it be. She is adjusting her hair, daisies in it, turning as though someone had just come through the door.