Remembrance of Italy

"Remembrance of Italy" by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot French, 1796-1875, created in 1871, exemplifies the artist's masterful use of printmaking in his later career. Classified as a print, this piece utilizes the highly nuanced technique of the transfer lithograph. The image was carefully printed in a rich brown ink onto light gray China paper, which was subsequently laid down upon a white wove paper support. This complex layering of media highlights the artist’s engagement with graphic arts techniques favored by French printmakers of the era.

Although produced late in Corot’s life, the work speaks to his lifelong fascination with the Italian landscape, a theme he revisited constantly following his formative travels there decades earlier. The title suggests a nostalgic, internalized view rather than a direct, topographical study, consistent with the soft, atmospheric style that characterized the period leading up to 1875. Corot often utilized lithography and etching to circulate images based on his more famous oil paintings, allowing him to explore the subtle tonal gradations and diffused light that defined his late style. Many of his similar late-career prints, reflecting his prominent position in the French art world, are now widely available in the public domain.

This specific impression of Remembrance of Italy showcases the delicate tonal range achievable through the lithograph process, rendering a dreamlike quality central to Corot's aesthetic vision. The work stands as a significant example of French printmaking and is held in the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.