The Meeting (Bonjour Monsieur Courbet)

Realism in France

Gustave Courbet

The Meeting (Bonjour Monsieur Courbet)

1854

Oil on canvas, 132 × 150 cm. Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Alfred Bruyas, a collector, and his servant greet Courbet on a country road; the painter has his gear strapped to his back.

  • Courbet himself reported the nickname "Bonjour Monsieur Courbet" in an 1855 letter.
  • Unlike The Painter's Studio, it was accepted for the 1855 Exposition Universelle, where caricaturists mocked its vanity.
  • Bruyas gave it to the Musée Fabre in 1868.
  • Painter and patron meet as equals on a dusty road, with the artist shown as a working traveler.

Image: Wikimedia Commons · Public domain

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