Lake Nemi

Nemi is a small, round lake in the hills south of Rome, filling the crater of an extinct volcano. In ancient times a sanctuary of Diana stood on its wooded shore, and the Romans called the water Diana's mirror. Corot came to these hills in the summer of 1843, on his third and last journey to Italy, and made a study of the lake. Around 1845 he turned that study into this canvas, almost two metres high, as part of the decoration of a friend's house at Mantes, west of Paris. The lake itself takes up only a gap between rocks and tall trees. Two small figures sit on the rocks at the foot of the trees, and a thin crescent moon hangs in the blue sky at the top. It hangs in Room 947 with the other panels from that house.