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Dimensions: 85 by 109 cm., 33 1/2 by 43 in.
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Provenance: PROPERTY OF A DUTCH PRIVATE COLLECTOR
Etienne Baudry (from 1862-3 to at least 1882)
Acquired by the family of the present owners circa 1920; thence by descent
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Exhibited: Saintes, Hôtel de Ville, Exposition de peinture et de Sculpture exposés dans les salles de la Mairie au profit des pauvres, January 1863, no. 104 (as Bois de Rochemont)
Paris, Rond-Point du Pont de l'Alma, Exposition des oeuvres de M. G. Courbet, 1867, no. 34 (as Le Parc de M. Etienne Baudry à Rochemont, près Saintes, Charente-Inférieur, dated 1863)
Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Exposition rétrospective de tableaux & dessins des maitres modernes, 1878, no. 24
Paris, Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Exposition Gustave Courbet, 1882, no. 77 (illustrated in Chéron's Album)
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Literature: Eugène Chéron, Album photographique de l'exposition Courbet, Ecole Nationale des Beaux Arts, Paris, 1882, illustrated
Charles Léger, Courbet, Paris, 1929, p. 93
Bulletin de la Société des amis de Gustave Courbet, no. 52, Paris & Ornans, 1974, illustrated on the cover
Robert Fernier, La Vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet: Catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1977, vol. I, p. 185, no. 310, illustrated (entitled Le Parc de Rochemont - promenade à âne)
Courbet und Deutschland, exh. cat., Hamburg and Frankfurt, 1978-79, p. 551, mentioned, no. 474/14, p. 552, pictured hanging in the 1882 exhibition
Pierre Courthion, L'opera completa di Courbet, Milan, 1985, p. 90, no. 301, illustrated
Roger Bonniot, Gustave Courbet en Saintonge, Semussac, 1986, p. 124, discussed in a published letter from Baudry
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Notes: Courbet spent the year from May 1862 to May 1863 in the Saintonge region of Western France, where he was filled with a sense of well-being reflected in his prolific output of pictures, from portraits, to nudes, to lush verdant landscapes.
The present work shows a young man in a loose blue smock and a brimmed straw hat, a basket hanging from his arm, sitting on a grey donkey. The pair are passing at a leisurely pace through a forest, whose dense canopy is pierced by rays of bright afternoon sun. A sun-filled clearing draws the eye into the middle-ground of the painting and towards the woods beyond. The mood is one of secret solitude and blissful quiet, all noise muffled by the springy forest floor and the thick foliage.
Roger Bonniot, the chronicler of Courbet's stay in the Saintonge, gives the source for the image, a well documented lunch party given in September 1862 by Etienne Baudry, the young landowner and art patron who was Courbet's host during the first months of his stay in the region. The climax of the festivities, given at the château de Rochemont for the members of a travelling theatre group known to Courbet from Paris, was a mass donkey ride during which the artist was thrown from his spritely mount, called Balthazar. By Baudry's own account (quoted by Bonniot), Balthazar was immortalised in Le Parc de Rochemont, although the identity of the rider in the picture remains a mystery. The figure could simply be a member of the theatre troupe, or it could be a portrait of Baudry, the painting's first owner; and yet the rider's bohemian dress, and what could be an artist's smock, suggest that Courbet might have been making an indirect reference to himself.
The painting has undergone a number of title changes, a recurring feature in Courbet's oeuvre. It first appeared as Bois de Rochemont, no. 104 in the checklist of the exhibition of local painters held at the Hôtel de Ville de Saintes in January 1863, to which Courbet contributed forty-six paintings. At the 1882 memorial exhibition held at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts (fig. 1), it was known as Le Parc de Rochemont. Robert Fernier in his 1977 catalogue chose to combine this title with that of another work, no. 333 in his catalogue, depicting a young woman in country dress seated side-saddle on a donkey, Promenade à âne (now known as La Laitière de Saintonge), sold in these rooms in December 1999 (fig. 2).
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by Sarah Faunce, who will include it in her critical Courbet catalogue raisonné.
The authenticity of this work has been confirmed by M. Jean-Jacques Fernier, who will include it in his critical Courbet catalogue raisonné to be published by the Fondation Wildenstein in 2005.
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