Portrait of Anika Psalmon, Mrs. Robin

Seven years earlier Courbet had put up a shed of his own beside the 1855 world's fair in Paris and charged admission to see the canvases the official jury had refused. By 1862 he was the most argued-over painter in France, and still often short of money. This portrait settled a debt. He owed the sitter's son a loan and paid it off in paint, and he bought his wine from her husband besides. Madame Robin received him at her house in the rue Chanoinesse, the narrow street behind Notre-Dame, in a building that no longer stands. She sits in black satin with deep lace at the collar and cuffs, a black lace scarf over the back of her head, and a single red flower in her hair. He signed it in vermilion at the lower left and dated it 62.