Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877)

Gustave Courbet’s passion for landscape painting in the second half of his career was motivated in part by his attachment to his native Franche-Comté. The Courbet family had a small house which backed onto the river Loue in Ornans. Courbet found great freedom following the river to unexplored territories and delighted in the mystery of the region’s undiscovered places. Having exhibited Le Ruisseau du Puits Noir, centred around a small stream in the Loue valley at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, the artist would return to depictions around the Loue again and again. Painted around a decade after the exhibition, the current work shows expressive brushstrokes depicting this familiar landscape with consistent vehemence and veracity.