GUSTAVE COURBET, workshop (Ornans 1819-1877 La... Lot 3233

GUSTAVE COURBET, workshop (Ornans 1819-1877 La Tour-de-Peilz) Strollers along the Seine. Circa 1852. Oil on wood. Inscribed lower right: G. Courbet. 24,7 × 38,5 cm. Provenance: - Aurélien Scholl Collection, France. - Private collection France. - Auction Koller, Zurich, 23.9.2011, lot 3228. - Swiss private property. Exhibition: Geneva 2012, Gustave Courbet (1817-1877). Sur les sentiers de l'exil. Palais des expositions, Geneva, April 25-29, 2012, no. 10. Literature: Exhibit-Cat. Gustave Courbet (1817-1877). Sur les sentiers de l'exil. Palais des expositions, Geneva 2012, p. 23, no. 10 (with color illustration). In 2011, Jean-Jacques Fernier identified this painting as a collaboration between Gustave Courbet and François-Louis Français (1814-1897) and placed it in time around 1852. In a summer mood, a woman and child walk along a river, with their backs to the viewer. In his expert opinion (copy available), Jean-Jacques Fernier sees a special significance in this composition. In fact, Courbet had a long relationship with a nude model from Dieppe named Virginie Binet, who gave birth to a son in 1847, of whom she claimed Courbet was the father. Abandoned by Courbet, mother and son returned to Dieppe in 1852. This story may have prompted François-Louis Français, a close friend of Courbet, to create this depiction, in which the woman and child in the foreground turn their backs on the viewer. Further, Fernier identifies the landscape depicted as the Seine near the island of Bougival, a very popular meeting place for the artists of the time who rebelled against the Academy.