+ Expand

Description: signed G. Courbet (lower right)

oil on canvas

PROVENANCE

Anon. sale, Paris, January 17, 1879, lot 15
Jos. Hessel, Paris
Bernheim-Jeune, Paris
Sale, Sotheby's, New York, March 29, 1988, lot 106, illustrated
EXHIBITED

Oslo, Kunstnernes Hus, November 1948, no. 4
LITERATURE AND REFERENCES

Robert Fernier, La Vie et L'Oeuvre de Gustave Courbet, Lausanne - Paris, 1978, pp. 14-15, no. 24, illustrated
CATALOGUE NOTE

Courbet spent most of the 1840s in Paris, with occasional visits to his family in Ornans. The setting of The Siesta might be a hillside on the Seine, as seen in his 1856 Young Ladies on the Banks of the Seine (Summer) (RF 203), or a setting in Ornans. The scene resembles two other paintings from the early 1840s (RF 21 and 34). In addition, there is a related drawing of the reclining figure in an early Courbet sketchbook (RF, II, no. 1, no 53 (ill. p. 271).

Does The Siesta represent a self-portrait? Between 1840 and 1848, Courbet executed twelve identifiable self-portraits. They form a series in which he assumed various disguises and dramatic postures. He cast himself in several roles, ranging from a handsome lover embracing a pretty young woman (RF 46) to a wounded man resting against a tree (RF 51). More theatrically, he also appeared as a Mephistophelian gnome playing a game of draughts (RF 43) and as a sculptor dressed as a troubadour (RF 48). The face of the man in The Siesta is cast in shadow, but his features and hair are not dissimilar to Courbet's at this time.

An important theme, which Courbet will develop throughout the rest of his career, is suggested for the first time in The Siesta, and this is the subject of sleep. It will be recast as a woman in such famous works as The Hammock (RF 53) and most scandously in The Sleepers of 1866 (RF 532).

In The Siesta, Courbet's trademark painting technique begins to be revealed. It is evident in the broad strokes of the thick white paint of the man's trousers and in the stippling green brushwork of the foreground, which creates a hillside of verdant summer grass.

We would like to thank Jean-Jacques Fernier for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work, which will be included in his forthcoming supplement to the Courbet catalogue raisonné.

+ Expand

Dimensions: 14 3/4 by 18 1/4 in.

37.5 by 46.5 cm