L'incontro, ovvero Buongiorno, signor Courbet!

In 1854 Courbet went south to Montpellier to stay with Alfred Bruyas, a banker's son who spent his inheritance collecting art and had decided Courbet was the future of it. This picture shows the moment Courbet arrives on the road, pack on his back, and Bruyas comes out with his servant and dog to greet him. What made people laugh was the staging. Courbet stands tallest, chin up, beard forward, while the wealthy patron and his man bow slightly toward him, as if fortune were paying its respects to the artist rather than the other way round. One critic sneered that only Courbet's shadow falls on the ground. The pose was borrowed from cheap printed images of the Wandering Jew that peddlers sold across France, so ordinary viewers would have recognised the traveller on the road at once.