Alexandre-François CAMINADE (Paris, 1783 - Versailles, 1862) The Basilica of Saint Francis of Assisi seen from the Farnese Gardens, before 1813 Paper mounted on canvas Signed lower right: "CAMINADE Red wax stamp of the Corot collection 18,6 x 34,5 cm Provenance : - Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796-1875). - His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Mes Boussaton et Baubigny, third part, June 7-9, 1875, lot 655 (sold for 21 francs to "Vandame"). Bibliography: A. Robaut, L'œuvre de Corot: catalog raisonné et illustré, vol. IV, Paris, 1905, p. 257, n° 655. Already initiated in the seventeenth century, painting from the motif developed during the following century. As early as the 1720s, the director of the Académie de France in Rome, Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), invited his students to practice this exercise. While some artists were landscape painters throughout their careers, others devoted themselves to this genre mainly during their stay in Rome, such as Léon Cogniet, Jean Alaux, Théodore Géricault and Alexandre-François Caminade. Our representation of the Basilica of Saint Francis is a typical example of a "fitted view" made from an oil sketch executed in the open air. Here Caminade frames a view from the Romanesque campanile of Sainte-Françoise in its original splendor, skillfully masking its nave and Baroque façade. Then, he extends his composition to the remains of the temple of Venus. In doing so, he succeeded in isolating the bell tower by setting his composition from the dome of one of the palatine chapels of Santa Maria Maggiore, now hidden by modern buildings, thus creating a vast panorama in which one can recognize the tip of the Column of Peace to the left of the bell tower, the Capocci Tower, the chevet of the church of San Martino dei Monti and the ancient Flavian amphitheater, otherwise known as the Colosseum. However, the state represented here is the one before its restoration entrusted to the architects Stern, Camporesi and Valladier carried out in 1813 under the administration of the prefect of Rome, Camille de Tournon. In the view that Caminade gives us, the presence of numerous roofs between the Colosseum and the ruins of the Temple of Venus implies that the latter had not yet been cleared, and above all, the absence of the brick prop at the level of the Colosseum implies that our picture was painted before 1813. More than a collector, Corot kept, as did most painters of his time, works by other artists that reflected their friendship. Corot had a taste for community work and exchanges with other painters as can be seen with the Dutilleux, Desavary or Robaut families. Indeed, when he travelled to Italy and Rome between 1825 and 1829, Corot painted on the motif in the company of Caminade. It is probably at this time that the three landscapes of Caminade enter the collection of Corot, tokens of the friendship linking the two artists.