self-portrait with Striped Collar

In 1854 Courbet travelled south to Montpellier as the guest of Alfred Bruyas, a wealthy young collector who admired him and, just as important, paid. Out of that visit came Bonjour Monsieur Courbet, the picture of the artist meeting his patron on a dusty road, and this small self-portrait, painted the same year. In both, Courbet wears the same striped-collared coat, turning here almost into profile, watchful. He was 35 and newly confident, a farmer's son from Ornans who had forced his way into the Paris art world on his own terms. The portrait entered the Musee Fabre with the whole of Bruyas's collection, so patron and painter still hang together in the same rooms.