The Jerzual Gate in Dinan

For centuries this gate was the way into Dinan from the river. The walled town sits high above the Rance in northern Brittany, and the rue du Jerzual climbs steeply up to it from the port. That street was the road by which leather, cloth, grain and timber came up from the quays, and the gate in the town walls dates from the Middle Ages. Corot painted it in August 1860, during a summer of studies around Saint-Malo, Saint-Servan and Dinan. He looks through the gate and down the hill. The round arch frames a second, pointed one, and through it the roofs of the street fall away toward wooded slopes. A lantern hangs from the vault, and a figure with a touch of red stands in the shadow of the passage.