by Corot free themselves from the influences of the
academy at once. In the studies which he bequeathed to the Louvre--two
tiny canvases on which are depicted the Coliseum and the Castle of St.
Angelo at Rome--the conventional picking out of detail, the painting
of separate objects by themselves, without due relation to each other,
is the effect of early study; and it is only in the as yet timid
reaching for effect of light and atmosphere that we feel the Corot of
the future. These studies were painted in 1826; and as late as 1835
the same influences are manifest in the "Hagar and Ishmael in the
Desert," a historical landscape of the kind dear to the academies,
but saved and made of interest by the native qualities of the painter
struggling to the surface.

Jean Baptiste Camille Corot was born in Paris, July 28, 1796. His
father was originally a barber; but, marrying a dressmaker, he joined
forces with his wife to such effect that they became the fashionable
house of their time; and a "dress from Corot's" found its place in the
comedies of the early part of the century, very much as the name of
Worth has been potent in later days. The youth's distaste for business
(certain unfortunate experiences in selling olive-colored cloth
leading directly thereto) at length vanquished the parents' opposition
to his choice of a career; and after a solemn family conclave, it was
decided that he was to have an allowance of three hundred dollars a
year, and be free to follow his own inclinations. Procuring materials
for work, Corot sat him down the same day on the bank of the Seine,
almost under the windows of his father's shop, and began to paint. It
is prettily related that one of the shop-women, Mademoiselle Rose by
name, was the only person of his _entourage_ who sympathized with the
young fellow, and who came to look at his work to encourage him. Late
in life the good Corot said: "Look at my first study; the colors are
still bright, the hour and day remain fixed on the canvas; and only
the other day Mademoiselle Rose came to see me; and, alas, the old
maid and the old man, how faded they are!"

[Illustration: JEAN BAPTISTE CAMILLE COROT. AFTER A PHOTOGRAPH FROM
LIFE.

This portrait represents "good Papa Corot," as he was universally
known, at work out of doors.]

It was Corot's good fortune to meet at the start a young landscape
painter, Michallon, who had lately returned from Rome, where he had
gone after winning the prize f