A Hut in the Mountains

Courbet crossed into Switzerland in July 1873 and never came back to France. He settled at La Tour-de-Peilz on Lake Geneva, and for the four years left to him the Alps were the landscape outside his door. This hut dates from about 1874, one of a stream of small mountain views that came out of those exile years. They were made to sell, and quickly. Assistants in his studio finished a good many of the canvases that went out under his signature, which is why scholars are still sorting out which of the late Swiss landscapes are wholly his. This one is 33 by 49 centimetres and hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.