Porträt von Juliette

Courbet arrived in Paris in 1839, nominally to study law, and gave that up almost at once. For the next few years he kept going back to Ornans in the Jura and painting whoever was in the house, and his three sisters sat for him more than anyone. Juliette was the youngest, born in 1831, a girl of about 12 here, put outdoors with a donkey and a wall behind her on a canvas small enough to hold in one hand. She outlived him by nearly 40 years. After his death in 1877 she inherited what remained and spent decades chasing down his paintings and defending his name. This one stayed with the family until a Zurich dealer sold it to the banker Eduard von der Heydt in 1927.