Hollyhocks in a Copper Bowl

Courbet wrote 72 beside his signature here, and if the picture was painted early that year he was not yet a free man. He was still in custody for his part in the Paris Commune of 1871, but his health had broken in prison, and around the turn of the year he was moved to a private clinic at Neuilly, on the edge of Paris, where he stayed until his release in March 1872. The museum thinks this still life belongs to those weeks. It has been identified as one of the paintings Courbet made in captivity for a friend named Reinach, though which Reinach that was, a Paris financier or the father of a writer and an art historian, has never been settled. The flowers are white hollyhocks in a copper bowl, set against a dark ground and painted fast in short, broad strokes, so that most of the bouquet sits in shadow and only a few pale blooms catch the light.