Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau) (1863): Art, History and Details

Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau) (1863) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

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.”

Object facts

• Title: Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau)
• Date: 1863
• Creator attribution: Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Painting
• Technique: oil on fabric
• Dimensions: Framed: 112.4 x 93 x 12.1 cm (44 1/4 x 36 5/8 x 4 3/4 in.); Unframed: 81 x 61.2 cm (31 7/8 x 24 1/8 in.)
• Collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960
• Department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1962.2

A detail from the museum

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."

Collection credit

Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Hamerton, Philip Gilbert. "The Salon of 1863." The Fine Arts Quarterly Review 1 (1863): 15-262.
• Mantz, Paul. "Salon de 1863." Gazette des Beaux-Arts 14 (1863): 481-506.
• Burty, Philippe. "Une Lettre de M. Courbet." La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosité June 7, 1863: 253.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.