French school circa 1870, Landcape with cascade

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) workshop. The waterfall around 1870.

Canvas measuring 60 cm by 47 cm.
Old frame of 80 by 65 cm.

Our painting is a studio work or to be precise a collaborative work from the Ornans workshop created by Courbet upon his release from prison. Indeed Courbet was helped by collaborating painters like Cherubino Pata, Marcel Ordinaire, Alexandre Rapin, Ernest Brigot, Emile Isenbart...
We think that our painting was produced in collaboration with Cherubino Pata, his main collaborator between 1868 and 1877. Courbet signed the works created with Pata.
Note a very important technical point concerning the preparation of our canvas, it is black, made from tar, a material that Courbet very often used for his canvases.
Very beautiful period frame.

Gustave Courbet (1819-1877)

It was in Doubs, in the village of Ornans, on June 10, 1819, that young Gustave (Jean-Désiré Gustave in civil status) was born. Coming from a family of rich peasant landowners, he is the eldest of five children of whom he is the only boy. Until the age of 20, the young man explored the landscapes of his native region. These lands of the Doubs, characterized by the limestone ridges which border the horizon, remain one of the favorite settings for many of his major works. His studies at the Petit Séminaire d'Ornans led him to attend the classes of Father Claude-Antoine Beau, a former student of the pre-Romantic artist Charles-Jean Gros (1771-1835), who introduced him to drawing. From this period dates the first of his self-portraits, soberly entitled “Self-portrait, at the age of 14”. In 1837, he joined the Royal College of Besançon where he attended the painting class of Charles-Antoine Flajoulot (1774-1840). Little inclined to the discipline required for classical studies, the young Gustave deliberately turned to the graphic arts. 1839 marks Courbet's arrival in the capital. The young man quickly abandoned his “boring” studies and devoted himself to painting full time. During this period, he frequented the workshops of Charles de Steuben (1788-1856) and Charles Suisse (1813-1871). The dominant Romanticism of this first half of the 19th century permeates his first paintings. As any artist invests in his learning, he spends hours at the Louvre where he practices copying the greatest Masters. Courbet is one of the most powerful and complex artists of the 19th century. From 1848-1849, his paintings opposed the criteria of academicism, idealism, romantic excesses, he provoked scandal among his contemporaries with in particular his nudes and his portraits of glaring realism. Very often refused at the Salon, he tried to organize his own exhibitions but did not meet with the expected success. He then understands that his large compositions cannot reach the crowd and decides to move on to easel paintings which will make him successful with landscapes and portraits, while continuing to paint nudes. A great landscaper, he painted during long stays in Ornans, Saintes, Germany and Belgium and is passionate about painting animals which he represents in landscapes that are always very studied and poignantly realistic. He also paints seascapes or rather the sea that he loves, tumultuous with leaden colors in the stormy rains.