The road from Sèvres to Paris

The Road from Sèvres is an oil on canvas painted by Camille Corot around 1855. The scene shows a plain crossed by a road, with a horse and a peasant, and its full title refers to a view taken from Paris. Corot focused on landscape and everyday journeys, and here the road serves as a thread linking the place of Sèvres with the capital. It is best described cautiously, sticking to what the available documentation can establish.

The painting belonged to the collection of Georges Thomy-Thierry, and after his death it entered the Louvre in 1902, as he had requested. At the time of its acquisition it was valued at 12,000 francs.

Its present fame, however, rests mainly on its disappearance. On 3 May 1998 it was stolen from the gallery after the pegs holding it from behind the frame were removed. The museum was immediately closed, police searched hundreds of visitors, and the frame and glass were fingerprinted. The Society of Friends of the Louvre offered a reward of 100,000 francs for information leading to its recovery, but the painting has never been found.

The theft belongs to a run of art thefts at the museum in those years. In January 1998 a Greek votive stele dedicated to Zeus Meilichios disappeared, and in 1994 and 1995 two other works were lost. After the theft of this painting, security was tightened, and no further thefts at the Louvre were reported until October 2025.

Painter

Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot

Date

1855

Medium

oil paint, canvas

Dimensions

34 × 49 cm

Museum

Louvre Museum, Paris

Genre

landscape painting

Depicts

landscape, plain, equestrianism, Sèvres, path, horse, peasant, Paris

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