Bathers of the Borromean Isles

c. 1865–70

The Borromean Islands, on Lake Maggiore in Northern Italy, are famous for their isolation and natural beauty. In Corot’s painting, nude bathers frolic in the water, the gray-green branches of tall trees shading their bodies from the warm, golden sunlight. The artist painted this scene more than twenty years after his last visit to Italy, presenting the traditional theme of the nude in a landscape as a nostalgic memory—more poetic fiction than realistic fact.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	31 1/8 x 24 5/16 in. (79 x 61.7 cm) Frame: 42 1/4 x 33 7/8 x 3 1/2 in. (107.3 x 86 x 8.9 cm)
Object Number	1955.537
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Bathers of the Borromean Isles, c. 1865–70, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.537

Select Bibliography

Paris: Ecole des Beaux-Arts.. Exposition de l'Oeuvre de Corot.. 1875.. Paris: Galerie Durand-Ruel.. Corot.. 1878.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Exhibit Five: French Paintings of the 19th Century. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1956. Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Mainardi, Particia. The Persistence of Classicism. Exhibition catalogue. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1995. Julius Meier-Graefe.. Camille Corot.. Munich.. 1913.. Emil Waldmann.. Die Kunst des Realismus und der Impressionismus in 19. Jahrhundert.. Berlin.. 1927.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. . "Exposition de l'oeuvre de Corot." No. 45 in Exhibitions of Barbizon and Landscape Art.. New York: Garland.. 1981.. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Réunion des Musées Nationaux.. Corot: 1796-1875. Feb. 27-May 27, 1996; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 21-Sept. 22, 1996; Metropolitan Museum, New York, Oct. 29, 1996-Jan. 19, 1997 (Cat. by Gary Tinterow and Vincent Pomarede).. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art.. 1996.. Kern, Steven, et al. The Clark: Selections from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. New York: Hudson Hills Press, 1996. Vincent Pomarède.. Corot.. Florence, Italy: Index and Leonardo.. n.d.. Robaut, Alfred. L'oeuvre de Corot, catalogue raisonné et illustré. Paris: Leonce Laget, 1905. Griffin, Randall C. Homer, Eakins, & Anshutz: The Search for American Identity in the Gilded Age. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University, 2004. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012. Ganz, James A. and Richard R. Brettell. Great French Paintings from the Clark: Barbizon through Impressionism. Exhibition catalogue. New York: Skira Rizzoli Publications; Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2011.

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Provenance

The artist, sold to Martin; [Pierre-Firmin Martin, sold to Rouart]; Henri Rouart, Paris (by 1875-1912, his sale, Galerie Manzi-Joyant, Paris, 9 December 1912, no. 118, ill., sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, Paris and New York, from 1912]; Cornelius Kingsley Garrison Billings, New York and Santa Barbara (until 1926, his sale, American Art Association, New York, 8 January 1926, no. 19, sold to Elverson); James Elverson Jr., Philadelphia (1926-30, his sale, American Art Association, New York, 30 January 1930, no. 34, ill. frontispiece, sold to Knoedler); [Knoedler, New York, sold to Clark, 1 February 1930, as Les Baigneuses des Iles Borromées]; Robert Sterling Clark (1930–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955.