Young Ladies of the Village1851–52
Three young women in their Sunday best, Courbet’s own sisters, pause on a hillside path near Ornans to give alms to a barefoot cowherd girl, while cows graze and a small dog stands nearby. More about this work
About this work
Three young women in their Sunday best, Courbet’s own sisters, pause on a hillside path near Ornans to give alms to a barefoot cowherd girl, while cows graze and a small dog stands nearby. Courbet showed the painting at the Salon of 1852, and critics mocked it: the provincial figures looked awkward and out of scale against the broad valley, and the canvas seemed to give an ordinary rural encounter the dignity of a major painting. Today that frankness is just what makes it compelling. Limestone cliffs close in behind the scene.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Gustave Courbet
French, 1819–1877 · Born in Ornans; died in La Tour-de-Peilz.
Courbet left his native Ornans for Paris and became the standard-bearer of Realism, painting ordinary people and his own region on the scale reserved for history painting, as in A Burial at Ornans. When works were refused for the 1855 Exposition Universelle, he showed them in his own Pavilion of Realism. He also painted landscapes, seascapes and hunting scenes. After the Paris Commune of 1871 he was held responsible for the toppling of the Vendôme Column and spent his last years in exile in Switzerland.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 40.175
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
