Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld

1861

Oil on canvas, 112.7 × 137.2 cm · Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

Shown at the Paris Salon of 1861, this is Corot’s soft, misty landscape style applied to myth. The mood foreshadows the ending rather than showing it.

Orpheus leads Eurydice out, before he looks back.
Spirits of the dead gather beneath feathery trees.
A narrow range of grays, greens and blues gives a filtered, dreamlike light.
Signed “COROT” at lower left; bought by the museum in 1987.

Corot paints the moment of hope in the Orpheus story, just before the backward glance.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain