Gustave Courbet

Jean Haegel
Private collection (acquired from the above in the 1980s)

Ornans, Musée Gustave Courbet, Courbet, L'Amour, June 14 - October 27, 1996, p. 79, no. 32
Ornans, Musée Gustave Courbet, Courbet en privé, July 8 - October 22, 2000, no. 22
Ornans, Musée Gustave Courbet, Courbet/Hugo: les peintres et les littérateurs, June 22 - October 15, 2002
Ornans, Musée Gustave Courbet, Courbet, Le Retour au Pays, June 24 - October 15, 2006, no. 25

"Calendrier: Expositions," L'Oeil, no. 540, October 2002, p. 124, illustrated

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has been fairly recently restored. It seems to have a fresh varnish. The canvas itself is unlined, but the stretcher is more recent. The paint layer is healthy and well cleaned. Courbet’s technique here is well preserved and very effective. Under ultraviolet light, remnants of an old varnish are visible here and there. There is a small restoration in the tree trunk on the right side and a few spots further to the right near the edge. There is a horizontal line of retouches in the lower left. There may be some old restoration in the lower left corner. Close visual examination does not suggest any other retouches, except possibly some spots in the sky around an old pentiment in the lower sky, particularly around the tree on the left side. There may be other tiny spots of retouching, but the picture reads very well and cleaning is not recommended.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

At the beginning of the summer of 1849, Courbet stayed for two months with Francis and Marise Wey, where early Courbet biographer Georges Riat suggests Femme dans un Hamoc was most likely conceived (Fernier, 1996, p. 79). While Marise and Francis Wey lived in Louveciennes, the vista behind Courbet’s model is likely a view of Ornans, with its dramatic cliffs and deep receding valleys. It is possible that the present work is a composite of various elements, intended as a kind of Souvenir of time spent with friends.

Very few of Courbet’s landscapes include a figure, and here he presents his model reclining on a hammock suspended between two trees as an intrinsic part of the landscape. While her torso is lit by the bright dappled sunlight that shines in from the right of the composition, it is as if her legs are obscured by the shade of the shrubbery. Courbet’s painterly virtuosity is evident in the treatment of the stone wall, the coniferous tree trunk and branches, and the intensely colored sky and grassy plains in the distance.