Chillon Castle

Courbet crossed into Switzerland in July 1873, one step ahead of a bill. He had already served six months in prison for his part in the Paris Commune, and the new government had just decided that he personally should pay to rebuild the Vendôme Column, which the commission he chaired had pulled down in 1871. He settled at La Tour-de-Peilz on Lake Geneva. A few kilometres along the same shore stood the castle of Chillon, whose dungeon Byron had made famous in 1816 with a poem about a prisoner chained to one of its pillars. Courbet painted it again and again in 1874, working from photographs, and sold the versions to live on. He died at the end of 1877, the day before the first instalment on the column fell due.