Le Lac Léman et les Dents du Midi

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 73.5 x 92.5 cm (29 x 36.5 in)
Signed: Signed lower right: G. Courbet

Literature: To be included in the forthcoming  supplement to the Courbet catalogue raisonné by Jean-Jacques Fernier (letter  19 July 2007) as Oeuvre de la main de Courbet, with a date of 1877; Sarah  Faunce (Courbet Catalogue Raisonné Project) confirms  in  a  letter  dated  7  December 2006 that she will included the painting in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Gustave Courbet.

This painting is part of a series of views of Lac Léman executed by Courbet in the last year of his life, when he worked from a studio in La-Tour-de-Peilz, a small Swiss town on the lake shore. Courbet moved to exile in Switzerland as a result of his involvement in the Commune uprisings of  1870-71  and  subsequent  imprisonment.  Following  a  new  trial  in  1873,  which  led  to  the seizure  of  his  property  as  damages  for  his  role  in  the  destruction  of  the  Vendôme  column, Courbet left France permanently, fearful of another prison sentence.

Courbet purposefully chose to settle in a location that was close to, and reminded him of, his home town of Ornans in the Jura mountains; his late landscapes thus return to themes he created in happier times. This is particularly noticeable in the treatment of the rocks on the right and in the foreground, which are painted with thick, confident strokes, and lend them a palpable sense of mass. These present a striking contrast to the glacier-coloured turquoise waters of the lake.