Man with Leather Belt. Self portrait

In 1846 Courbet was 26, a provincial from the Franche-Comté trying to make a name in Paris, and that spring the Salon jury let in a portrait by him. It was most likely this one. He painted himself at half length against a dark ground, long hair to the shoulders, head propped on one hand while the other grips the leather belt of the title. A portfolio and drawing tools lie on the table in front of him, the equipment of his trade. There is another painting underneath. The canvas first carried a copy of Titian's Man with a Glove, a Venetian portrait of the 1520s that hangs in the Louvre, and Courbet painted himself over it. After his death the picture passed to his sister Juliette, and in 1881 the French state bought it at the sale of his studio.