G ustave Courbet, the leading painter of the Realist movement, was often subject to controversy. His infamous painting, L'Origine du monde (1866), was instrumental in the move away from the salon style nude to a more realistic depiction of the female form. Courbet’s controversy followed him into his political alignments when he joined the Paris Commune and proposed his support that the column in the Place Vendôme be demolished in 1871. He incurred large debts following the destruction of the Vendôme column as he became solely responsible for replacing it. After the fire of the Tuileries Palace and the fall of the Paris Commune, Courbet went into hiding and was later arrested in 1872 despite insisting on his innocence.

Before his arrest, Courbet lived briefly in exile on the banks of the Loue River, nearby the small village of Scey-en-Varais. At this time, Courbet wrote to his dearest friends for his “unhappy country [to] soon emerge from the terrible crisis it [was] going through,” adding that Napoleon was to blame (quoted in Palomba Paves-Yashinsky, Nineteenth-Century French Studies, University of Nebraska, 1993, p. 528).
Courbet began the present work in exile; however, after his arrest, the work was completed by his studio at the artist’s request. At this time, Courbet had collected an international demand, and thus his studio became responsible for completing the works he was unable to finish while serving his sentence of six months. Shortly after the completion of this work, Courbet arrived in Switzerland where he remained in exile until his death in 1877.

Le Moulin de Scey-en-Varais depicts a quaint mill at the edge of a flowing river. To the left of the pale structure is an ample waterfall, highlighting the movement of the painting. The loose brush strokes create a feeling of wonder, inviting viewers into a scene void of any human figures or animals, a technique often employed by the artist. Courbet often liked to project a fantasy of his own image onto the subjects he painted, especially in representations of strong, sturdy trees, a form in which he saw his own reflection.