
Rêverie (Portrait of Gabrielle Borreau)
Gustave Courbet · 1862
- Medium
- Oil on paper, mounted on canvas
- Original size
- 63.5 × 77 cm (25 × 30 5/16 in.); Framed: 98.5 × 112.4 cm (38 3/4 × 44 1/4 in.)
- Currently held
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Movement
- Realism
Rêverie captures Gabrielle Borreau in a moment of quiet inwardness, her gaze turned away from the viewer in an attitude of soft contemplation that feels intimate rather than posed. Courbet was the driving force of French Realism, and this 1862 portrait shows the side of his work that is often overshadowed by his grander, more combative canvases. Where his landscapes and figure paintings could be forceful and declaratory, works like this one reveal a painter of genuine tenderness. The oil-on-paper support lends the surface a warmth and immediacy distinct from his larger studio pieces — the paint sits close to you, luminous and direct. Courbet painted several portraits of women associated with the Borreau family during the early 1860s, a period when he was producing some of his most psychologically sensitive work before the upheavals of the Paris Commune consumed the later years of his career. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made on canvas by a skilled artist working directly from the original, matching the tonal delicacy and the softly rendered light that makes Courbet's study so affecting — giving you a faithful version of a painting that seldom leaves Chicago.
Hand-painted oil reproduction
Painted in real oil on stretched canvas by master copyists. Delivered unframed — ready to frame at home.
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In Courbet's style.
Send us a photograph of your family, pet, or home — we'll paint it as a custom oil on stretched canvas in any style you like. From £220.

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