Gustave Courbet

Collection M. Pradel;

Acquired by Durand-Ruel, Paris, on 10 September 1911;

Where acquired by Mary Cassatt, Paris and Philadelphia, on 29 November 1911;

By whom given to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, in 1912;

Sale On behalf of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in order to benefit its American Art Acquisition Fund, New York, Sotheby's, 24 April 2003, lot 33;

Where acquired.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Loan Exhibition of the Works of Gustave Courbet, 1919, no. 27 (titled Portrait de femme, Madame Frood [sic]) ;

Roslyn Harbor, Nassau County Museum of Art, Courbet: The Later Paintings, 13 March-24 May 1998.

T. Duret, Courbet, Paris 1918, p. 149;

G. Mack, Gustave Courbet, New York 1951, pp. 208-209;

R. Fernier, La Vie et l'œuvre de Gustave Courbet, Lausanne and Paris 1978, vol. II, pp. 14-15, no. 543;

P. Courthion, Tout l'œuvre peint de Courbet, Paris 1987, p. 103, no. 528.

A French painter, Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was regarded as the founder of the Realist movement in the 19^th century. Trained in artistic techniques from a young age, he moved to Paris in 1839, where he became involved with artistic and intellectual circles and began exhibiting his work in the Salon. He sought to represent reality and the world around him, distancing himself of the academic and idealistic conventions of the time, and placing everyday life and nature at the heart of his art. Involved in the Paris Commune, he was forced into exile in Switzerland, where he spent the remainder of his life.

The present portrait was painted in 1866, the same year Courbet also produced Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman, Woman with a Parrot¹ and L’Origine du Monde², a series of female representations, each radically different in style and tone. The subject of this work is Madame Frond, originally from Cahors and the wife of Victor Frond. The latter, a sub-lieutenant in the fourth company of the Paris Fire Brigade, had previously modelled for Courbet’s Pompier courant à un incendie (1850-1851)³. Following Napoleon III’s coup in 1851, he was exiled and imprisoned in Algeria, from where he escaped, eventually reaching England before returning to France in 1859. During the 1860s, he became the editor of the Panthéon des Illustrations Françaises du du XIX^e siècle and supported Courbet in his dispute with the Count of Nieuwerkerke regarding the purchase of Woman with a Parrot.

Madame Frond is depicted in a bust-length portrait, dressed in black and turned slightly to the right. Her face is framed by a white bonnet tied under her chin, meeting the lace of a large collar that demonstrated the artist’s meticulous attention to the rendering of the folds and textures. This portrait embodies Courbet’s Realist principles: rejecting idealization and portraying a contemporary subject with simplicity and honesty.

This painting was given to the Pennsylvania Academy by Mary Cassatt, along with Courbet’s Portrait of Urbain Cuenot⁴.

¹ Oil on canvas, 129.5 x 195.6 cm.; New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. no. 29.100.57.

² Oil on canvas, 46 x 55 cm.; Paris, Musée d’Orsay, inv. no. RF 1995 10.

³ Oil on canvas, 388 x 580 cm.; Paris, Musée du Petit Palais, inv. no. PPP737.

⁴ Oil on canvas, 56 x 47 cm., 1846; Ornans, Musée Courbet, inv. no. 1976.1.8.