Woman of Frankfurt
by COURBET, Gustave, Oil on canvas, 104 x 140 cm
In 1858 Courbet stayed in Frankfurt where a studio was placed at his disposal in which young painters could watch him at work. Three major pictures date from his stay in Frankfurt: The German Huntsman, The Hunters’ Meal and the Woman of Frankfurt. The last of these constituted a new kind of painting for Courbet, a society portrait, staged with all the trappings this kind of commission required. It shows the wife of a Frankfurt notability in a sort of timeless state of incompletion relieved only by the features of the young woman savouring the late afternoon light from her terrace.