Gustave Courbet, 'View of Lac Léman', 1874

View of Lac Léman

Gustave Courbet

Not on display

About the work

Overview

In July 1873 Courbet fled France for Switzerland for political reasons. He settled on the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva) and painted several views of it, many at sunset. During his exile, his property was seized and his friends and family put under surveillance. The contents of his Paris studio were sold at a public auction in his absence. The man who had taken Paris by storm – of whom it was written, ‘It was as if a whirlwind had roared through the gallery rattling the windows and shattering the glass’ – died almost penniless and in exile.

In-depth

Turbulent grey clouds roll across the sky. The lake beneath it is calm, but a storm threatens. It’s evening, and a tiny sailing boat in the distance is little more than a smudge on the horizon against the vivid orange and gold of the dying sun. Soft red reflections streak the surface of the water. Far to the right, at the tip of the promontory, a sail catches the sun’s colours as a boat slips homewards for shelter. Further along towards the mainland a tall spire gleams white against the deep grey shadows of the hills.

The water ripples in towards the shore, lapping around the pale rocks on the strip of sand to the right. Close to us, bigger, darker rocks topped with green seaweed face the waves that will come if the wind rises. A little way out a woman stoops to collect freshwater shellfish, her enormous basket hooked over her back. Her red coat echoes the red of Courbet’s firm, bold signature in the bottom right corner of the painting.

On 23 July 1873 Courbet fled France for Switzerland. As President of the Arts Commission during the short-lived Commune that followed the 1871 revolution, he was held responsible for the cost of replacing the Vendôme Column, which had been destroyed. He settled at La-Tour-de Peilz on the shores of Lac Léman (Lake Geneva), where he bought an old inn in the town, Bon-Port, and received his permit of residence. He had managed to bring many of his pictures with him and held a successful exhibition in his new home.

Courbet painted several views of the lake from the terrace of Bon-Port, many at sunset. They were even more dramatic than this one, but the sky was again the main subject of the paintings. Some years earlier, from 1859 to 1869, he had visited the coast of Normandy where he produced a series of seascapes that were also focused on the sky and full of light. He seems to have painted the Lac Léman pictures with the rolling skies and jagged, weed-strewn rocks of Normandy still fresh in his in mind.

During his exile, the French state seized Courbet’s property and put his friends and family under surveillance. The country was politically unstable and the artist refused to return to Paris until a general amnesty had been declared. It did not happen. He had been welcomed in Switzerland, but even so, he fell into decline and painted less and less well. He died on 31 December 1877 at Bon-Port, a few days after the contents of his Paris studio had been sold at a public auction in his absence. The man who had taken Paris by storm – of whom it was written, ‘It was as if a whirlwind had roared through the gallery rattling the windows and shattering the glass’ – died almost penniless and in exile.

Key facts

Details

Full title: View of Lac Léman
Artist: Gustave Courbet
Artist dates: 1819 - 1877
Date made: 1874
Medium and support: oil on canvas
Dimensions: 38 × 55.5 cm
Inscription summary: Signed; Dated
Acquisition credit: Bequeathed by Sir Robert Hart, Bt, 1971
Inventory number: NG6396
Location: Not on display
Collection: Main Collection
Frame: 19th-century English Frame

Provenance

NG 6396 was with Jacques Dubourg Gallery, Paris, 1952, from whom bought by the Roland, Browse and Delbanco Gallery, London, in March of that year for £350; sold to Colonel Richard Clayton Pritchard (1905–1979; a collector predominately of modern British painting by artists including Paul Nash, William Nicholson, Matthew Smith and Sickert) on 12 May 1952 for £600; bought back for £1,200 and resold to Sir Robert Hart (1918–1970) (3rd Baronet of Kilmoriarty in County Armagh) on 5 November of that year for £1,350; Sir Robert Hart Bequest 1971.

Additional information

This painting is included in a list of works with incomplete provenance from 1933–1945; for more information see Whereabouts of paintings 1933–1945.

Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Sarah Herring, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings’, vol. 1, ‘The Barbizon School’, London 2019; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.

Exhibition history

2009

Corot to Monet: A Fresh Look at Landscape from the Collection

The National Gallery (London)

8 July 2009 - 20 September 2009
2013

Through European Eyes: The Landscape Oil Sketch

The National Gallery (London)

6 February 2013 - 28 April 2013
2014

Gustave Courbet. Les années suisses

Musée Rath

5 September 2014 - 4 January 2015
2018

Courbet and Nature

Palazzo dei Diamanti

22 September 2018 - 6 January 2019

Bibliography

1973

The National Gallery, The National Gallery: January 1971 - December 1972, London 1973
1975

K. Herding, 'Egalität und Autorität in Courbet's Landschaftsmalerei', Städel-Jahrbuch, V, 1975, pp. 159-99
1977

R. Fernier, La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet: Catalogue raisonné, 2 vols, Paris 1977
1978

K. Herding and W. Hofmann, Courbet und Deutschland (exh. cat., Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg; Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, Frankfurt am Main), Cologne 1978
1978

M. Brötje, 'Das Bild als Parabel: Sur Landschaftsmalerei Gustave Courbets', Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, XXIII, 1978, pp. 75-106
1981

H. Bessis, 'Courbet en Suisse surveillé par la police française', Gazette des beaux-arts, 1981, pp. 115-26
1981

A.M. Wagner, 'Courbet's Landscapes and Their Market', Art History, IV, 1981, pp. 410-31
1982

P. Chessex, Courbet et la Suisse (exh. cat. Château de La Tour-de-Peilz, 24 July - 26 September 1982), La Tour-de Peilz 1982
1991

K. Herding, Courbet: To Venture Independent, New Haven 1991
2001

C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
2019

Herring, Sarah, National Gallery Catalogues: The Nineteenth Century French Paintings, 1, The Barbizon School, London 2019

About this record

If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.

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This is a view of the coast at Palavas-les-Flots, a fishing village south of Montpellier. The picture is similar to seascapes that Gustave Courbet painted there during his several visits to Montpellier in the 1850s. In particular, there are resemblances to his small painting The Seaside at Pala...

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From around 1842 and into the 1850s Courbet painted about 20 self portraits in which he presented himself in different guises. This portrait is a reduced version of The Man with the Leather Belt (Musée d’Orsay, Paris), which Courbet painted around 1845–6.Courbet painted replicas of at least three...

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You've viewed 6 of 8 works

Gustave Courbet, 'View of Lac Léman', 1874

About the work

Overview

In-depth

Key facts

Details

Provenance

Additional information

Questions: 1933–1945

Source

Exhibition history

Bibliography

About this record

Images

More works by Gustave Courbet