Hagar in the deals Wilderness 1835

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STORY:
This picture, shown at the Salon of 1835, is the earliest of four large, ambitious biblical paintings that Corot exhibited in the 1830s and 1840s. Like the Museum's The Burning of Sodom, it illustrates the story of the family of Abraham. Because his wife, Sarah, was elderly and barren, Abraham fathered a son, Ishmael, with their servant, Hagar. Later, when Sarah bore her own son, Isaac, Hagar and Ishmael were driven away into the desert of Beersheba. For this painting, Corot chose the moment of their divine salvation.

The largely arid landscape is Corot's invention, but is partially based on nature studies including the Museum's Fontainebleau: Oak Trees at Bas-Bréau.

This is the earliest of Corot's large historical landscapes. When it was exhibited at the Salon of 1835 it became the first of his paintings to receive critical praise. His Saint Jerome (1837; Church of Saint-Nicolas-Saint-Marc, Ville-d'Avray; Robaut 1905, no. 366) is often seen as a pendant, due to its nearly identical size and similar biblical subject matter (see Moreau-Nélaton 1905).

Robaut (1905) notes that the earliest idea for this painting appears in a notebook of about 1833 (Musée du Louvre, Paris; Robaut no. 3097). Studies made at Civita Castellana in 1826–27, deals during Corot's first trip to Italy (see Robaut nos. 135–140 and 2460A), as well as an oil sketch of the black oaks at Bas-Bréau in Fontainebleau dating to 1832 or 1833 (MMA 1979.404) were also used in making this picture. A smaller oil version of the composition was included in the Renand sale (Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 20, 1987).

An employee of Corot's mother may have inspired the figure of Hagar, based on an 1830 drawing of her later identified by the artist as "mon Agar" (Louvre; Robaut no. 2652; see Moreau-Nélaton 1905, Baud-Bovy 1957, and Pantazzi 1996).

Robaut states that Corot treated this subject in an engraving on glass of 1873 (see Robaut no. 3207). A lithograph after this painting by Célestin Nanteuil appeared in Le Charivari in 1835.
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