- 138
Gustave Courbet
Description
- Gustave Courbet
- La Vague
- signed G. Courbet and dated 69 (lower right)
- oil on canvas
- 21 1/4 by 28 7/8 in.
- 54 by 73.3 cm
Provenance
Galerie Durand-Ruel, New York, 1892
Charles H. Senff, New York and Syosset, Long Island (and sold: Anderson Galleries, New York, March 29, 1928, lot 53, illustrated)
Van-Diemen-Lilienfeld Galleries, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Private Collector, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York
Aꦅcquired from ܫthe above by the present owner in 1998
Exhibited
Literature
Condition
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
Courbet painted several views of the sea at Etretat during a month of intense focus and creativity in August and September 1869. He left Paris in late summer for the Normandy coast, where he stayed at a house once lived in by the French painter, Le Poittevin. When Courbet returned to Paris, he boasted that he had painted twenty seascapes with two of the largest views destined for the Salon of 1870 (Petra ten-Doesschate Chu, ed., Letters of Gustave Courbet, Chicagꦍo, 1992, p. 354, no. 69-9). This would be the first time Courbet showed the Salon jury a seascape, a subject that now has come to represent an integral part of his career
The present painting forms part of this group of Courbet's seacapes from 1869 - waves, gentle and undulating as they roll out to sea under sunny skies, or crashing violently along the shoreline under threatening storm clouds. Painted with the same virtuosity and technique that he used to define the craggy rock formations of Ornans, Courbet's waves consist of a build up of paint from brush and palette knife. Here, we see waves cresting and rolling to shore, their dark, undulating forms shaped by the reflection of the black storm clouds. And in the distance, rapidly approaching as the storm intensifies, Courbet shows a waterspout of pouring rain above the clouds🌠.
Artists ranging from Manet to Cézanne have commented on Courbet's inherent understanding of the sea and its power, which he so perfectly captured in his paintings of the subject (See Charlotte Eyerman, "Seascapes," in Courbet and the Modern Landscape, exh. cat, Los Angeles, 2006♔, pp. 103-105). And as Guy de Maupassant observed firsthand during a visit with Courbet in Etretat, Courbet's process - from observation to creation -could be considered as agitated and tumultuous as a stormy sea:
"In a great bare room a fat, dirty, greasy man was spreading patches of white paint on a big bare canvas with a kitchen-knife. From time to time he went and pressed his face against the window pane to look at the storm. The sea came up so close that it seemed to beat right against the house, which was smothered in foam and noise. The dirty water rattled like hail against the window and streamed down the walls. On the mantelpiece was a bottle of cider a half-empty glass. Every now and then Courbet would drink a mouthful and then go back to his painting. It was called The Wave and it made a good stir in its time." (Guy de Maupassant, "La vie d'un paysagiste," Gil Blas, September 28, 1886, also see Hélène Toussaint, Gustave Courbet, 1819-1877, exh. cat., 💖The Royal Academy, London, 1978, pp.♚ 228-230).