The Tanneries of Mantes

Tanning needs running water, and at Mantes, on the Seine west of Paris, the tanners had settled along the Vaucouleurs, a small stream that joins the river just below the town. There they laid hides in pits between layers of oak bark and left them for months. Five tanneries worked in the town in 1813, and by 1842 only one was left. Corot painted this narrow yard in September 1873. Walls rise on both sides, joined overhead by a wooden gallery, and light comes in from a whitewashed court at the back. Below, a man in a red cap drags a reddish hide across the ground, a woman balances a basket on her head, and two dark figures stand close together in the passage. Tanning in Mantes stopped just before the First World War, and the stream now runs underground.