# Mère Grégoire, in Gustave Courbet

Gustave Courbet painted this in 1855, reworked 1857–59, aged about 36. It is now at the Art Institute of Chicago.

From the museum's label:

> Gustave Courbet played a crucial role in the development of modern French Realism. Critics and the public, however, did not easily accept his large, naturalistic, and unsentimental depictions of commonplace, often rural subjects. They called him the “apostle of ugliness.”

_Text from the Art Institute of Chicago._

[Read the full label](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/mere-gregoire-aic-4428#about-work)

## The work

- Date: 1855, reworked 1857–59
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 129 × 97.5 cm (50 3/4 × 38 3/8 in.); Framed: 168 × 137.2 × 16.2 cm (66 1/8 × 54 × 6 3/8 in.)
- Type: Painting
- Courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago, 1930.78
- Licence: CC0 1.0

## The artist

[Gustave Courbet](https://www.ochreeditions.com/artists/gustave-courbet), French, 1819–1877

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.

7 works in the collection.

## Walk on

- [Gustave Courbet's contemporaries](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/artist/contemporaries-of-gustave-courbet?hang=749) (8 works)
- [More Paris Salon painting](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/style/paris-salon-painting?hang=749) (79 works)
- [19th-century France](https://www.ochreeditions.com/galleries/era/19-france?hang=749) (237 works)

## Get it

- [Print this work](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/mere-gregoire-aic-4428#print)
- Free download, full resolution: https://img.ochreeditions.com/m/5.jpg?dl=1
- [The work's page](https://www.ochreeditions.com/art/mere-gregoire-aic-4428)