Une ville au bord de la mer (Bretagne)

Although not identified in the title as situated in La Rochelle, it is clear that the present work represents the city painted numerous times during this period. Corot was attracted to a wide range of sites, ranging from dense woods to open meadows. His usual practice was to situate himself on the outskirts and take a view toward a town, usually represented by an easily recognizable architectural element. In this case, the view appears to be from the other side of the basin looking over the houses that line the harbor to the distinctive clock tower that dominates the skyline of La Rochelle. Corot has simplified the forms in the present work in order to draw the viewer’s eye from the foreground with the boatman seated close to the shore, across the waters of the basin and back to the town which defines the background.
The red-hatted boatman is probably the most ubiquitous staffage figure in Corot’s later oeuvre. One scholar has counted over forty works in which he appears, his hat providing a strong note of color to complement the verdant foreground of the painting.