Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)

Mer calme

Details

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)
Mer calme
signed 'G.Courbet' (lower right)
oil on canvas
21¼ x 28½ in. (54 x 72.5 cm.)
Painted circa 1873

Provenance

Pearson Collection, Paris; their sale, Paul Cassirer and Hugo Heilbing, Berlin, 18 October 1927, lot 24.
Collection G. Caspary, Munich.
Collection A. L. Fietz.
Kunsthandel E.J. van Wisselingh, Amsterdam, no 5601.
Acquired from the above by the family of the present owners in 1936.

Literature

R. Fernier, La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet catalogue raisonné, Lausanne and Paris, 1978, vol. II, p. 184, no. 916 (illustrated).

Lot Essay

The end of Courbet's life was spent in exile in Switzerland, as punishment for his participation on the toppling of the Vendtme column on May 16, 1871. Coubet's tragedy was that he could not return to France, his beloved homeland and the place that had provided the source for all his greatest paintings. France and its people had been the inspiration for his entire oeuvre and the vehicle for his Realism.

Many of the marine paintings of the exile years depict a turbulent, angry sea which mirrored the inner turmoil of the artist in exile. In the present painting, however, the sea is calm and the colors are soft and subdued, as if the artist had experienced a few moments of peace.

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