Oil painting, 'Landscape, with the Chatel St. Denis, Scey-en-Varais (Doubs)', Gustave Courbet, 1873

Hilly and rocky landscape with a village on the top of a hill in the background, an arched bridge in the foreground before a stream.

Bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides

Dighes (? name difficult to read), from whom purchased for 2000 francs (ca. £79.3s.) as Courbet 'Ruines d'Ornans' on 31 May 1881 by Goupil & Co., Paris (stock book no. 15442); from whom bought by Constantine Alexander Ionides, 31 May 1881 for 3500 francs (ca. £138.11s.); (Goupil & Co. label on the back); listed in his inventory (private collection) in November 1881 at a valuation of £250; bequeathed by Constantine Alexander Ionides to the Museum,1900.


Historical significance: This painting was executed by Courbet in 1873 and shows the Chatel St Denis, in Scey-en-Varais, built shortly after 1667, on the top of a hill in the right background. The stream that flows down towards the foreground is La Loue. This view is near the artist's home at Ornans, between Besançon and the Swiss border. Courbet apparently painted three versions of this landscape: one was sold around 1922 by Pierre Faverger in Neufchâtel, Switzerland (whereabouts unknown) while another is currently housed in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva.
This painting was executed during what is generally considered as a period of decline in Courbet's career. Because of his involvement with the revolutionary Paris Commune (18 March-29 May 1871) Courbet had to flee to Switzerland, where he specialised in mountain scenes.
Having enjoyed a great success while exhibiting at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in 1872, Courbet decided to instruct a number of painters in his style in order to increase his output as he sometimes signed some of these works. These artists included Marcel Ordinaire (1848-1896), Chérubino Pata (1827-1899) and André Slomcynski (1844-1909), but also Auguste Baud-Bovy (1848-1899), François Bocion (1828-1890), Ernest-Paul Brigot (1836-1910), Jean-Jean Cornu (1819-1876), Hector Hanoteau (1823-1890) and Alphonse Rapin (1839-1889).
Although these collaborations were a disaster, Courbet painted in the same period some of his most beautiful landscapes such as the present one, which in some ways can be interpreted as an answer to the Impressionists (even though Courbet was not able to see the first Impressionist Exhibition of 1874). In this painting, Courbet broke indeed the light reflection and colours into flecks and spots in a technique similar to that of the Impressionists.

Although France and England became the new centres of landscape art in the 18th century, the Italian and Dutch traditions retained their authority. However the Arcadian vision of Italy increasingly tended towards a more precise observation of nature. Some of the most exciting developments took place in Venice, in the soft scenes of Francesco Zuccarelli (1702-1788), inspired by Claude Lorrain (1604-1682), and the fresh, spontaneous landscapes of Marco Ricci (1676-1730). Wealthy patrons, often accompanied by artists, on The Grand Tour, created a market for veduta and capriccio paintings, respectively topographical and fantasist landscape paintings. Landscape conventions were further enriched by foreign artists working in Italy, responding both to the beauty of Italian light and scenery celebrated by the Latin poets and vividly captured in the most popular landscapes of Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665) and Gaspard Dughet (1615-1675).

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was born in Ornans in Franche-Comté where he first trained with Père Baud (or Beau), a former pupil of Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835), and later in Besançon with Charles-Antoine Flageoulot (1774-1840), a former pupil of Jacques-Louis David. He then entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He travelled in the Netherlands in 1846 and was influenced by the Dutch Old masters' free technique. Upon his return in Paris he specialised in landscape and genre paintings.

This painting is a fine example of Courbet's late period when he painted some of his most beautiful landscapes. The present painting shows a view of the château St Denis, in Scey-en-Varais, near the artist's home at Ornans, between Besançon and the Swiss border. The technique employed here by the artist, by means of flecks of colours, moves away from his realistic representation to anticipate somehow the Impressionists' manner.

CAI.60