Farm Children (Les Enfants de la ferme)

Farm Children (Les Enfants de la ferme) is a significant print created by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot in 1853. This work exemplifies the innovative application of the cliché-verre technique, a fascinating hybrid process combining elements of photography and etching. Corot, renowned primarily for his lyrical landscape paintings, embraced this experimental medium during the 1850s, using it to produce a small but influential body of prints.

Developed largely between 1851 to 1875, the cliché-verre process allowed artists like Corot to draw directly onto a glass plate coated with collodion or an opaque varnish. Once scratched through, the resulting lines and areas served as a negative, which was then exposed and printed onto light-sensitive paper. This technique offered the immediacy of drawing combined with the reproducible quality of photography, a characteristic that appealed to the avant-garde in the French art scene at the time. Unlike the laborious preparation required for traditional etching, this medium allowed Corot to achieve results that maintain the spontaneity and delicate tonal variations characteristic of his preparatory drawings.

The subject matter, centering on children in a farm setting, aligns with the pastoral themes frequently explored by Corot throughout his long career. Although he is most celebrated for his pivotal contributions to landscape painting leading toward Impressionism, Corot’s figure studies often possess a quiet, reflective quality. This particular print provides valuable insight into the artist’s engagement with contemporary printmaking technology and his capacity to infuse even technical experiments with poetic sensibility. This important example of French mid-century innovation is housed within the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art.