The Edge of the Pool

In 1867 Paris was hosting a World's Fair, and Courbet paid for a pavilion of his own beside it, near the Pont de l'Alma, where he hung more than 100 of his works. This canvas, from the same year, came out of a much quieter arrangement. He painted it for the marquis de Pomereu, a nobleman who had put him up as a guest. The scenery belongs to the Doubs, the department of eastern France around his home town of Ornans, with its broken rocks, tall oaks and dark, still water. Courbet worked much of it with the palette knife as well as the brush. The brightly lit green strip of the far bank is set against the murky middle of the pool. Under the trees a small woman stands on the bank, while a man bends over in a boat. In the lower left corner he signed his name and wrote the year simply as 67.