Portrait of Alfred Bruyas

At the Paris Salon of 1853, Courbet showed The Bathers, a large nude that outraged the critics, and a young collector from Montpellier bought it on the spot, along with a second canvas. Alfred Bruyas was a banker's son who spent his fortune backing living artists, and in Courbet he thought he had found his answer. He called it his 'Solution', the idea that Courbet's plain, unofficial realism was the cure for what ailed modern art and modern life. This portrait, one of several Courbet painted of him that year, carries the nickname Tableau-Solution for exactly that reason. Bruyas sits with his red beard and steady look, the patron who freed the painter from needing the state. Bruyas later gave his whole collection, this portrait among it, to his native Montpellier, where it hangs in the Musée Fabre.