레만 호수 풍경

Courbet painted this looking out over Lake Geneva, and he was there because France had thrown him out. After the Paris Commune of 1871 he was held responsible for the toppling of the Vendome Column and hit with a bill he could never hope to pay, so he crossed into Switzerland and settled at La Tour-de-Peilz on the lake's shore. This view dates from 1876, the year before he died in that exile. A sailing boat sits on the water with the Dents du Midi rising behind, their peaks lost in cloud that the lake throws back. The painting then vanished for decades in the storerooms of a museum in Granville, in Normandy, and was only recognised as a genuine Courbet in 2017.