Gustave Courbet Lot n° 1111

Gustave Courbet Wooded hillside with rocks Oil on canvas (relined). 46 x 55 cm. Signed lower left: G. Courbet. Provenance Coll. Luquet 1882 - Auction Paris 28.4.1883 (Escribe et Haro), no. 23 - Auction Paris, Coll. M. P. C. Chavane. Auction catalog 17.12.1906. - Collection Bernheim Jeune, Paris. - Biermann Collection, Bremen. - Collection Marquise de Tastes, 1926 - Collection Fouché, Duc d'Otrante, sold by Galerie Ludwig Schames, Frankfurt, 15.12.1926, no. 52 - German private collection. Literature G. Riat: Gustave Courbet, Peintre, Paris 1906, p. 174 - R. Fernier: Courbet, vol. I, Geneva 1977, p. 148, no. 237. Two titles have survived for this painting in his long list of provenances, "La forêt allemande" and "Sous bois". The first title is probably related to its creation in 1858 (F. Fernier, op. cit.). Gustave Courbet came to Frankfurt in August 1858 for a six-month stay, where he initially worked in a studio at the Städel Art Institute, probably in the Deutschordenshaus on the Sachsenhausen side of the Main. After a disagreement with the Städel professor Jakob Becker, he then moved to a studio in Kettenhofweg. Courbet created a total of twelve paintings in Frankfurt, including his famous "La Dame de Francfort" (now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne). Known as a passionate hunter, Courbet soon had access to wealthy Frankfurt society on the Main, who not only appreciated his works but also frequently invited him to hunt in the Taunus or Spessart. On New Year's Eve 1858, for example, he boasted that he had shot a twelve-pointer, the likes of which had not been shot in Germany for over 25 years. It is therefore quite conceivable that the painter noticed this corner of "German" forest or forest floor, which can be seen in this picture, during one of these hunting trips.