GUSTAVE COURBET | PORTRAIT OF MATHILDE CUOQ

M.E. Courbet 

Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (acquired from the above in 1916) 

Private Collector, Zurich (by 1928, according to the exhibition label on the reverse) 

MacConnal-Mason, London

Sale: Christie's, New York, June 4, 2009, lot 39, illustrated 

Acquired at the above sale 

Robert Fernier, La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, Lausanne and Paris, 1978, vol. I, p. 138, no. 225, illustrated p. 139 

Pierre Courthion, L'opera completa di Courbet, Milan, 1985, p. 84, no. 215, illustrated p. 85

Pierre Courthion, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Courbet, Paris, 1987, p. 84, no. 215, illustrated p. 85 

Gustave Courbet, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, February 27-May 18, 2008, p. 310, under no. 143 

The present lot is a study for the portrait of Mathilde Cuoq (1857, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Mathilde, née Desportes, married Auguste Cuoq in 1848. Cuoq commissioned portraits of his wife from four different contemporary artists, including Jean-Jacques Henner, but was disappointed that none accurately represented his wife’s beauty. Courbet began his portrait of Mathilde in 1852 and reworked it over the course of a decade, though he eventually dated it to 1857. During the unusually long evolution of the portrait, Courbet painted the subject four times and on four different canvases. This is the only preparatory work that survives today.