The Bath of Diana

1855 was a high point for Corot. At the Exposition Universelle, the world's fair held in Paris, his poetic landscapes won praise from critics and public alike. One of the pictures he showed there was a large canvas of Diana and her nymphs bathing in the early light, which the city of Bordeaux bought three years later. Success brought orders. This smaller version, less than a metre wide, repeats the composition, and the Dallas Museum of Art believes it was probably commissioned by the Paris dealers Cadart and Luquet for an eager collector in Toulouse. Small pale women wade in the water under tall dark trees. On the bank at the right, two figures stand beside a pair of white hounds, the companions of the goddess of the hunt. The painter's name is lettered in the lower right corner.