In La Rochelle
The landscape painter Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) came to La Rochelle in July 1851 and stayed about three weeks with two friends, Brizard and the painter Philippe Comairas (1803–1875). The former VisitLaRochelle.com called Brizard a painter too, but nothing indicates that he was an artist.
Corot was born and died in Paris, but he also lived at Ville-d’Avray, between Paris and Versailles, where his house by the ponds — the “Étangs de Corot” — is protected. His stay of 1851 produced several views of the harbour and the ramparts; the best known, The Harbor of La Rochelle, was shown at the Salon of 1852.
The La Rochelle paintings
The Entrance to the Port of La Rochelle (1851)
Painted during the summer of 1851, L’Entrée du port de La Rochelle looks into the Old Port from the bare ground outside the harbour mouth: the round Chain Tower on the left, the Saint-Nicolas Tower on the right, and between them the masts of the boats and the dome of the Grosse-Horloge.
View of the ramparts with the Lantern Tower
A quieter view: a girl sitting by a stream on the edge of the town, with trees, a footbridge and, above the treeline, the spire of the Lantern Tower. The former VisitLaRochelle.com dated it to around 1851; its date and present owner are not confirmed by our sources.
The motif today
The harbour mouth that Corot painted is still framed by the Chain Tower and the Saint-Nicolas Tower, with the Lantern Tower a little further west.
The exact spot where the painter set up his easel is not documented in our sources: the map shows the monuments in the picture.
Sources: Sotheby’s (2017) · Fondation Custodia · Wikipedia (The Harbor of La Rochelle) · jean-baptiste-camille-corot.org · former VisitLaRochelle.com (text and photos, corrected). Checked 14 October 2026.