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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Destruction of Sodom or Burning of Sodom 1843 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"Before leaving Paris [in 1889] to travel on the continent, the Havemeyers asked both Cassatt and Durand-Ruel to keep their eyes open on their behalf. Before long the dealer suggested Corot's large Destruction of Sodom, a dramatic landscape the artist painted for the Salon of 1844 and reworked in 1857. In his Memoirs Durand-Ruel tells how he sold it in 1873 to Count Abraham Camondo for 20,000 francs (about $4,000), bought it back after the count's death from his son for 100,000 francs in 1889, and shortly afterward sold it to Harry for 125,000 francs (about $25,000)."
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Bacchante by the Sea 1865 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"Harry was so pleased with his purchases on behalf of Colonel Payne that he immediately commissioned Durand-Ruel to buy at the Henri Vever sale on February 2 and 3, 1897, a Corot nude (Bacchante by the Sea) for himself. Apparently he was overcoming his negative attitude toward paintings of nudes, moreover, those by Corot were less provocative than those by Courbet. . . . Whereas Corot's silvery landscapes were then highly sought after, his figure studies were less widely appreciated."
At its peak the Havemeyer collection held all the Corots gathered here – figure-pieces exclusively, scanting the more famous and actually more plentiful "silvery landscapes."
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Bacchante in Landscape c1865-70 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"This painting is closely related to Bacchante by the Sea . . . which is dated 1865. However, the anatomy of the figure is not resolved and the sketchiness suggests that it is not a finished work, despite the signature." The Havemeyers bought it in 1901 from the New York branch of Durand-Ruel for $6,000.
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Young Women of Sparta ca. 1868-70 oil on canvas Brooklyn Museum formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Portrait of a child ca. 1835 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
According to curators at the Met, during the period when this portrait was in the Havemeyer collection it was widely believed to represent the painter Rosa Bonheur in youth. This notion has since been discredited and the child is now believed to be a boy, probably a relative of Corot or the child of friends.
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Sibylle ca. 1870 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"This handsome work ranks as one of Corot's most accomplished efforts at approximating Raphael's High Renaissance style. Its pose closely follows the portrait of Bindo Altoviti (National Gallery of Art, Washington), believed in Corot's day to be Raphael's self-portrait. But Corot arrived at this composition incrementally. X-radiographs reveal an earlier state in which the model plays the cello: the left hand held the neck of the instrument and the right hand, slightly raised, held the bow. Corot made several adjustments to these accessories before painting them out altogether, dropping the model's right hand to her lap and inserting a rose or pink in her left hand." The Havemeyers bought their Sibylle in 1903 from the New York branch of Durand-Ruel for $6,000.
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Rêverie ca. 1860-65 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"In the 1860s and 70s, Corot often posed young working-class Parisians in exotic costumes, perhaps evoking peasants he had painted in Italy in 1825-28. The introduction of studio props, however, situate the later works more squarely within the tradition of genre painting." The Havemeyers bought this picture in 1903 from the New York branch of Durand-Ruel for $8,000.
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot The Letter ca. 1865 oil on panel Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"This work owes much of its character to the precedent of the eighteenth-century French painter Chardin. Yet the motif and handling also reflect an awareness of seventeenth-century Dutch painting, particularly Vermeer and de Hooch, whose works Corot could have seen during a trip to Holland in 1854. This picture was probably painted around the time Vermeer's art was enjoying a revival of interest."
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot The Muse: History ca. 1865 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
"The model for this work may have been Emma Dobigny, who often sat for Corot at the end of his career. Corot painted four other Muses in the 1860s."
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Greek Girl: Mlle. Dobigny ca. 1868-70 oil on canvas Shelburne Museum, Vermont formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Portrait of Mlle. Dobigny: The Red Dress ca. 1865-70 oil on canvas Shelburne Museum, Vermont formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Young Woman of Albano 1872 oil on canvas Brooklyn Museum formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Girl weaving a Garland ca. 1860-65 oil on canvas Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
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| Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot L'Italienne or La Juive d'Alger ca. 1870 oil on canvas private collection formerly owned by Louisine Havemeyer |
– quoted texts from The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America by Frances Weitzenhoffer (New York: Abrams, 1986) and from curatorial notes at the Metropolitan Museum in New York