Souvenir d'Italie Jean-Baptite Camille Corot was a top-tier engraver. He engraved any medium that came his way with incredible creative fervor: copper plate, glass plate previously dipped in collodion or the so-called "cliché-verre." Collodion photographic plates were mainly used from 1850 to 1870. Although they found a fair amount of success, collectors feared that the quality would be inferior to etchings. However, the works that were made, for example Souvenir d'Italie, printed on a paper that took on a bronze-colored patina over the years, are considered to be works of clear merit, both in their design and in their execution. Corot was a craftsman of the representation of landscape, along with Jongkind and Whistler, like Claude Gellée during the 17th century. He wrote in his diaries: "I am never in a hurry to get to the details, the masses and general characters of a painting interest me first." In fact, he never paid much attention to the technical problems that arise in the act of engraving: biting the copper, transcription on paper, runs, etc. He did not follow any particular rules, and despite criticism from experts in the field at the time, Corot only followed his creative instincts. His strong temperament compensated for his technical inadequacies. In his works, each stroke vibrates with intensity, always conveying an emotion that Corot kept in his memory and then transcribed in his etchings, even after a long time, as is the case in the subjects of Souvenir d'Italie. So many artists engraved only from life; Corot, on the other hand, would engrave later, upon returning to his workshop, with his own memory as guide; he thought, "We must detach ourselves from outside influences to remain ourselves," yet before moving on to engraving he would study his drafts executed from life, which were enough to convey the intact emotion and the poetry of the landscapes he had loved so much. Degas paid tribute to him by remarking, "I think Corot can draw a tree better than anyone else."