Gustave Courbet

Claude-Hélène-Prosper Teste (acquired from the artist. Claude-Hélène Prosper Teste, 1801-1869, was Mayor of Ornans and a friend of Courbet)
Félix Teste de Sagey (1811-1878, brother of the above)
Félix-Gabriel Teste de Sagey (1860-1901, son of the above)
Pierre-Marie-Henri Teste de Sagey (1894-1948, son of the above)
Claude-Henri-Marie-Antoine Teste de Sagey (nephew of the above and father of the present owners)

Besançon, 3e Exposition de La Société des Amis des Beaux-Arts, 1865, no. 86
Besançon, Musée de Besançon, Exposition rétrospective des oeuvres de Gustave Courbet, 1928, no. 47
Pontarlier, Musée de Pontarlier, XIIIᵉ Salon des Annonciades (Circuit Courbet), 1947, no. 86 (as Le Puits noir)
Fleurier, Gustave Courbet, 1947, no. 16

Robert Fernier, La Vie et l’oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, Geneva, 1977, vol. I, p. 212, no. 379, catalogued; p. 213, illustrated

The canvas has not been lined, and overall this painting is in very good original condition. Ultraviolet light reveals a small T-shaped area of restoration in the lower centre corresponding to an approximately 6 by 5cm patch on the reverse. There is a minor 1cm unrepaired tear in the leaves in the lower left quadrant, some scattered frame rubbing along the extreme edges (both visible in the catalogue illustration), and faint stretcher marks in the corners, corresponding to the stretcher cross bars. The varnish has yellowed with age and the appearance of the work could be transformed with a surface clean. The colours in the original are much richer, and the greens much more vibrant, than in the catalogue illustration. Sold in its original gilt frame, Louis XV Revival with one-way gadrooning ornaments.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

The present work boasts an important and fascinating provenance: its first owner was Prosper Teste, the mayor of Ornans and a friend of Courbet, and the painting has remained with his family ever since. As the mayor of Ornans, Teste is prominently featured in Courbet's celebrated L'Enterrement à Ornans (Burial at Ornans; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; figs. 1 & 2) of 1849-50, standing in the centre of the composition in front of the women in profile. The friendship between the Courbets and the Testes is reflected by the fact that in the same painting, Courbet’s mother, Sylvie, takes care of the mayor’s daughter on the far right.

The Puits Noir is a secluded spot outside Ornans where the Brème stream meanders gently through a narrow and luxuriantly verdant rocky gorge (fig. 3). It was among Courbet's favourite places to paint, and was the subject of the work which truly launched his career as a landscape painter: Le Ruisseau du Puits-Noir, vallée de la Loue, exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 (now in the National Gallery, Washington, D.C.). Courbet went on to paint several further Puits-Noir compositions during his productive 'campaign' in Franche-Comté of 1864-65, praising his donkey Gérôme for diligently helping him carry his artist's materials down to the gorge (in a letter of 6 April 1866; see Letters of Gustave Courbet, translated & edited by Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, 1992, p. 277). The present work predates by a year the one purchased in 1865 for Napoléon III by the comte de Nieuwerkerke, which now hangs in the Musée d'Orsay (fig. 4).

Courbet’s painting shows a hidden, womb-like landscape, atemporal, steeped in mystery and devoid of all human and animal presence. But Courbet adds to the fecund vision of nature removed from encroaching industrialisation expressed by his contemporaries in Barbizon. As for Cézanne painting the Mont Saint-Victoire in his native Provence, so for Courbet the Puits Noir of his native Franche-Comté held a deeply personal meaning, transporting him back to his roots and to his youth in Ornans. Unlike his wide open seascapes of the same period, with their infinite horizons, the present work is introspective, intimate, personal.