Cleveland Museum of Art

Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau)

Gustave Courbet

Date

1863

Medium

oil on fabric

Culture

France, 19th century

Department

Modern European Painting and Sculpture

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

Gustave Courbet painted four portraits of Madame Laure Borreau; this is the last and most highly developed. As a Realist, Courbet aimed to represent what he saw in the visible, tangible world. He represented Madame Borreau in a black silk dress embellished with lace and a matching hat. Gold and violet lights of sunset softly illuminate the background. However, the portrait is not idealized. Courbet’s inclusion of her shadowed eyes and full-fleshed neck prompted one critic to write, “I daresay in nature she may be very pretty, but in Courbet’s picture she is nothing less than offensive.” Courbet once wrote of Laure Borreau, the sitter in this portrait, "I am in love with a splendid lady, the driving force behind my triumph."

The authoritative record is held by Cleveland Museum of Art. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.