The Philippe le Bel Tower, Villeneuve-lès-Avignon

Between 1293 and 1307 King Philip the Fair of France built this tower at the western end of the great bridge over the Rhône at Avignon. The river was then a frontier, and anyone crossing from the far bank came up against a French gatehouse. By the time Corot painted it, in 1843 according to the Louvre, that crossing had long been broken and the tower stood guard over nothing but the small town of Villeneuve. He looks at it across the river. Poplars line the water, the tower rises square and pale among the houses, and the walls of the hilltop fort run off to the right. The stone arches in the lower corner are most likely what survives of that bridge. It is painted in oil on paper, later laid down on canvas.