View from the Farnese Gardens, Rome

In 1826 Corot was 30 and on his first trip to Italy, learning to paint out of doors. He set up on the Palatine Hill, in the Farnese Gardens, above the old centre of Rome. What is easy to miss is how methodically he worked. He painted this view in the morning, then turned to the Colosseum at midday, and to the Roman Forum in the afternoon, the two later canvases now in the Louvre. He gave the three studies some 15 sessions in all, because light only stays the same for an hour or so, and an outdoor painter has to return at the same time each day to finish. This is oil on paper, done on the spot, never meant for a gallery wall. The gardens he stood in had been laid out in 1550 by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, planted over the buried palaces of the Roman emperors.