The actual location of Un coin de rivière avec maison et peupliers has not been identified as a specific place; however, it is clearly meant to depict the countryside in the north of France. Corot visited La Rochelle in 1851 and made numerous studies which he brought back to his Paris studio, and his enhanced understanding of the influence of light on water and atmosphere is clearly evident in the present work, which was executed in the years following his return.
The present work bears much in common with the La Rochelle studies, with its cool, diffuse light and the extraordinary symphony of whites, lavenders, grays and blues in the sky. The house nestles together with its barns along the banks of a quiet river, and their white and gray facades topped by darker grey roofs serve as an anchor to create the solid middle ground of the painting. The buildings are almost abstract in their simplicity. The foreground with the riverbank and the reflections of the trees and houses in the still water presage the exquisite passages which are found in Corot's later landscapes. The tufts of greenery in foreground are painted with such delicate impasto that they shimmer softly in any light; the gentle river deep enough to reflect the houses as well as the cloudy sky.
In Un coin de rivière avec maison et peupliers, Corot has captured perfectly an early morning in the French countryside. The atmosphere is almost palpable; the cool, silvery light is filtered through the almost completely overcast sky. The overall effect is one of quiet – the surface of the water is still, and no figures populate the landscape. All the shadows are softened by the cloudy sky, and the landscape almost dissolves into its own reflection in the water.
Charles Baudelaire, one of the great writers of the 19th century and a fervent admirer of Romantic art, wrote in his Salon review of 1845: 'Obviously this artist loves nature sincerely, and knows how to look at her with as much knowledge as love. The qualities by which he excels are so strong - because they are qualities of heart and soul - that M. Corot's influence is visible today in almost all the works of the young landscape painters - in those, above all, who already had the good sense to imitate him and to profit by his manner before he was famous and at a time when his reputation did not extend beyond the world of the studios'. (C. Baudelaire, Art in Paris, 1845 - 1862. Salons and Other Exhibitions, ed. J. Mayne, London, 1965, p. 24).
Un coin de rivière avec maison et peupliers was once in the collection of Henry Robinson Luce and his wife, Clare Boothe Luce. Mr. Luce was the publisher of Time, Life and Fortune magazines, and Clare Boothe Luce was the managing editor of Vanity Fair, an acclaimed playwright and author, who was also a respected war journalist during World War II.