Corot painted prolifically, taking many trips to fuel his painting, which transformed constantly without rigidly adhering to any specific style. MASP has five works by the artist: three portraits, a landscape and a still life. In Gypsy Girl with a Mandolin (1874), a portrait of Swedish soprano Christine Nilsson (1843-1921), the ochers and reds evince a calculated sobriety. Careful use of color is also the high point of Rose in un Bicchiere (1874), in which the cup’s transparency and the variation between thin and solid swatches of color convey a sensation of moistness. The uniform background highlights the color of each leaf and petal. The vertical and horizontal lines, coupled with the cup’s off-center placement, lend this picture a casual and intimist aspect. It is one of just three paintings of flowers by the artist. In Landscape with Peasant Girl (1861) the gradation of blues between the sky and hills in the background is echoed in that of the greens of the pasture in the middle of the canvas. The horizontal division is the axis for a mirroring both in terms of color and composition: the green field slopes down to the right while the blue line of the faraway hills slopes upward at the same angle. The tree at the center connects the two planes, while the working peasant girl represents labor as a constitutive element of this landscape.
— MASP Curatorial Team, 2017
By Luciano Migliaccio
Camesasca (1979 p. 38) maintains that none of the inscriptions seems to be the master’s autograph. Aguilar, however, includes the picture Landscape with a Peasant Woman in his catalogue as the master’s work, without adding any comment.
The composition is not comparable to the constructive perfection of the best works of Corot, nor is the theme one of his favorites. However, the small picture does not lack grace and quality in the representation of the southern light, suggesting a spring day, and in the space, defined uniquely by the log of the tree and by the small illustration of the peasant bent in her work of collection of herbs.
— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998
