Still Life with Apples
Gustave Courbet (1819 - 1877), 1872
oil on canvas, 59.4 cm x 73.5 cm
Credits: The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
Gustave Courbet painted the words ‘Ste.-Pélagie’ at the lower right of this still life with apples. This was the name of the prison where he spent six months as a political prisoner from September 1871. The police had arrested him during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. While in custody he complained that he could not paint without a model. Subsequently, his sister Zoé was allowed to bring him fruit and flowers so that he could paint still lifes.
After his release, the pictures he had painted behind bars proved to be quite in demand. They sold so well that he added the prison’s name and the year ’71 to several still lifes he produced later, in 1872. This is one of those paintings.
- Object number
- hwm0073
- Dimensions
- 59.4 cm x 73.5 cm, 96 cm x 110 cm, 16 cm
- Provenance
- Juliette Courbet, sister of the artist; consigned by Juliette Courbet to auction Paris, Durand-Ruel at Hôtel Drouot (Tableaux, Études Esquisses et Dessins par Gustave Courbet dépendant de sa succession (…) 2e vente), lot 36 (Pommes rouges et blanches), purchased by Monsieur Diot, Paris for FRF 1350, 28 June 1882; acquired by Hendrik Willem Mesdag, The Hague, before May 1886; Collection Museum Mesdag donated by Hendrik Willem Mesdag and Sientje Mesdag-van Houten to the State of the Netherlands, 14 May 1903; Rijksmuseum H.W. Mesdag, The Hague, from 1 August 1903; in trust of the Mauritshuis, The Hague, between 1934 and 1990; in trust of the Rijksmuseum Vincent van Gogh, Amsterdam, from 1 April 1990; Museum Mesdag, in trust of the Van Gogh Museum Foundation, Amsterdam, from 1 July 1994, under the name of De Mesdag Collectie from 2011.
- artist
- Gustave Courbet
- Credits
- The Mesdag Collection, The Hague
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