The Young Bather
1866
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
51 1/4 x 38 1/4 in. (130.2 x 97.2 cm)
Classification
Paintings
Department
European Paintings
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929
Accession Number
29.100.124
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the world of Gustave Courbet's *The Young Bather*1866), a captivating oil on canvas measuring over four feet tall, now housed in the Metropolitan Museum Art's European Paintings collection This intimate portrayal of a young woman in a bathing scene captures her in a moment of unselfconscious vulnerability, her pale skin glowing against a lush, verdant backdrop. The work's generous scale draws viewers close, inviting contemplation of the female form in its natural state. Cour, a pioneer of Realism in mid-19th-century France, rejected the polished idealization of academic nudes favore...
About the Artist
Gustave Courbet · 1819–1877
Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) was a French painter who revolutionized 19th-century art as the founding figure of the Realism movement. Born in Ornans, a small town in the Doubs region of France, Courbet came from a prosperous farming family with anti-monarchical roots—his maternal grandfather had participated in the French Revolution. This background shaped his lifelong commitment to dep...