The Sailboat (Seascape)

c. 1869

Courbet visited the northern coast of France several times in the 1860s, painting views of the sea and shoreline. Here he focused on two small boats rolling on agitated waves. Touches of pure white paint worked with a palette knife highlight the foaming water. The struggle of the boats against the stormy weather, with no land in sight, emphasizes the elemental power of nature.

Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	21 x 25 5/16 in. (53.3 x 64.3 cm) Frame: 30 3/4 x 35 3/8 x 3 3/4 in. (78.1 x 89.9 x 9.5 cm)
Object Number	1955.690
Acquisition	Acquired by Sterling and Francine Clark before 1955
Status	On View

Image Caption

Gustave Courbet, The Sailboat (Seascape), c. 1869, oil on canvas. Clark Art Institute, 1955.690

Select Bibliography

Wildenstein & Company. An Exhibition of Treasures from the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts: Paintings, drawings & rare silver, for the benefit of the Committee to Rescue Italian Art, inc. (CRIA). Exhibition catalogue. New York: Wildenstein & Company, 1967. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. French Paintings of the Nineteenth Century. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1963. Ashbery, John. "Williamstown-sur-Seine." Art News 65, no. 10 (February 1967): 4447, 62. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1970. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1972. Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1984. Kern, Steven, ed. List of Paintings in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1992. Fernier, Robert. La vie et l'oeuvre de Gustave Courbet: catalogue raisonné. 2 volumes. Lausanne: La Bibliothèque des Arts, 1977. Lees, Sarah, ed. Nineteenth-Century European Paintings at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute; New Haven and London: distributed by Yale University Press, 2012.

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EUROPEAN PAINTINGS CATALOGUE ENTRY

Provenance

Possibly Léon Gambetta, Paris (d. 1882); E. Werthner, Vienna (possibly by c. 1889); Mrs. Pohl, Vienna, his daughter, by descent;¹ George Crawley, London, on consignment to Knoedler (in 1921);² [Knoedler, London, sold to Clark, 30 May 1921, as Marine]; Robert Sterling Clark (1921–55); Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 1955. 1. The first part of this picture’s provenance comes from the Knoedler invoice of 1921. See the Clark’s curatorial file. 2. The information concerning Crawley comes from a letter from Ernest Johns of Knoedler, London, of February 1976. See the Clark’s curatorial file.