MURA · THE COLLECTION · JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT

View of Genoa

View of Genoa is a small oil study by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, painted on paper in 1834 during his second stay in Italy and later mounted on canvas. It measures 29.5 by 41.7 cm. It came to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1937 from the collection of Martin A. Ryerson and hangs in Gallery 221.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot · 1834 · Oil on paper, mounted on canvas · 19th century · story written 25 September 2026

What you are looking at

The catalogue entry describes pale buildings gathered above the blue water of Genoa. The museum records the support as oil on paper, mounted on canvas, the kind of light material Corot carried on his travels.

How it was painted

Corot was born in Paris in 1796 to a family of shopkeepers. He studied with the landscape painter Achille Etna Michallon, whose only advice, he recalled, was to render with the greatest scrupulousness everything he saw, and then with Jean-Victor Bertin. His first Italian stay, from 1825 to 1828, produced over 200 drawings and 150 paintings. On his two later trips he visited northern Italy, Venice and the Roman countryside; this view of Genoa is dated 1834. Although a major proponent of studies made outdoors, Corot was essentially a studio painter: he spent summers travelling and collecting sketches and winters turning them into finished works for the Salon. This one stayed in his studio. He died in Paris in 1875.

Where it went

The study remained in Corot's studio until his death. At the sale of his estate at the Hôtel Drouot in May 1875 it was bought for 3,550 francs by Brame, and it later belonged to Ernest May, at whose sale at the Galerie Georges Petit in June 1890 it fetched 7,100 francs. Martin A. Ryerson, a Chicago lumber manufacturer and collector who served as honorary president of the Art Institute, owned it by 1905, when it appeared in Alfred Robaut's catalogue of Corot's work. After his death in 1932 it passed to his wife Carrie Hutchinson Ryerson, who bequeathed it to the museum in 1937. It has been lent widely, to the Museum of Modern Art in 1930, the Venice Biennale in 1952, and the Corot retrospective in Paris, Ottawa and New York in 1996–97.

Why it is in Mura

It belongs to Mura's Impressionist Life collection with a serene mood: a harbour city in pale stone and blue water.