Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
1844
Oil paint on canvas
70.5 x 97 cm
Acquired by Oskar Reinhart in 1924
Gustave Courbet deliberately courted controversy with his provocative paintings of women. This work alludes to an erotic poem by Victor Hugo, Sara the Bather (1829), a source of inspiration to many artists.
Courbet chose to represent the daydreaming woman in contemporary dress, implying that she is not a figure of remote fantasy but a real person. He further heightened the voyeuristic aspect of the scene by depicting her bodice unfastened. Courbet’s refusal to provide a cover of literary respectability for an erotic subject ensured that, when he submitted this painting to the 1845 Salon (the annual official art exhibition in Paris), the conservative jury rejected it.