The Bridge at Narni
1826 painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot
The Bridge at Narni (French: Le pont de Narni) is an 1826 painting of the Ponte d'Augusto at Narni by French artist Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The painting is on display at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.
It was painted in September 1826 and was the basis for the larger and more finished View at Narni, which was exhibited at the Salon of 1827 and is in the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.
The view was not a novel one: in 1821 Corot's teacher, Achille-Etna Michallon had drawn the same scene, as had Corot's friend Ernst Fries in 1826. Art historian Peter Galassi describes Corot's study as a reconciliation of traditional and plein air painting objectives:
So deeply did Corot admire Claude and Poussin, so fully did he understand their work, that from the outset he viewed nature in their terms....In less than a year (since his arrival in Rome) he had realized his goal of closing the gap between the empirical freshness of outdoor painting and the organizing principles of classical landscape composition.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Bridge at Narni” is 1826 painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bridge, Narni and painting, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1826 painting by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q24283. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1826, 1827 and 1821.
Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “The Bridge at Narni”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow The Bridge at Narni primary sources, The Bridge at Narni archive and Bridge research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Bridge at Narni” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.