The Schoolboy

Two things about this boy are uncertain, his name and the year. Corot signed the small panel at the lower right and added a date, but the figures after the 18 have been rubbed away. The year usually given, 1854, comes from Alfred Robaut, the friend who spent decades compiling the catalogue of Corot's work. The Louvre suggests, with a question mark, that the sitter is Abel Chambaud. What the picture does make clear is his situation. He is a collégien, a pupil at a French secondary school, and he wears its dark uniform tunic, a single row of brass buttons down the front and a buckled belt at the waist. He leans against a table covered with a dark cloth, hands folded, looking straight out. It is painted on a wooden panel only 32 centimetres high.