Portrait of Charles Baudelaire

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Portrait of Charles Baudelaire

Artist	Gustave Courbet
Year	c. 1848–49
Medium	oil on canvas
Dimensions	54 cm × 65 cm (21 in × 26 in)
Location	Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Portrait of Charles Baudelaire is an oil-on-canvas portrait of the poet Charles Baudelaire by the French painter Gustave Courbet. It was painted in 1848 or early 1849, at a time when the poet and the painter had established a friendship.^[1]

History and description

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It was shown in the Courbet Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle of 1855, and was bought four years later by the publisher Auguste Poulet-Malassis, who then nominally sold it to Charles Asselineau on 15 June 1862 to prevent it being seized. Alfred Bruyas acquired it for 3000 francs and in 1876 gave it to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, where it still hangs.^[2]

This painting represents Baudelaire, then aged 26 years old. He depicts his young poet friend as a "damned poet". This painting was painted when Baudelaire was still rather unknown. Baudelaire is depicted in the center, immersed in his thoughts and inspiration. Courbet presents the classic elements of a writer with his pen and books. The colors used are dark but the light highlights the decor and not Baudelaire, which creates a parallel with the Spleen and the Ideal.

References

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^ Faunce, Sarah; Nochlin, Linda (1988). Courbet Reconsidered. Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Museum. p. 97. ISBN 0-300-04298-1.
^ Portrait of Charles Baudelaire, Musée Fabre

v t e Gustave Courbet
Paintings	List of paintings Self-Portrait with a Black Dog (1842) Le Désespéré (1843–1845) The Happy Lovers (1844) The Bacchante (1844–1847) Portrait of Charles Baudelaire (c. 1848) After Dinner at Ornans (1848–1849) The Stone Breakers (1849) A Burial at Ornans (1850) Young Ladies of the Village (1852) The Wrestlers (1853) The Bathers (1853) La rencontre (1854) The Wounded Man (1854) The Wheat Sifters (1854) The Seaside at Palavas (1854) The Painter's Studio (1855) Madame Auguste Cuoq (c. 1852–1857) Young Ladies Beside the Seine (Summer) (1857) The Quarry (1857) The Hunt Breakfast (1858) Deer by Water (1861) Femme nue couchée (1862) The Source (1862) The Source of the Loue (1863–1864) The Oak at Flagey (1864) Proudhon and His Children (1865) Portrait of Countess Karoly (1865) Le ruisseau noir (1865) The Fishing Boat (1865) L'Origine du monde (1866) Le Sommeil (1866) Woman with a Parrot (1866) Killing a Deer (1867) The Woman in the Waves (1868) Portrait of Paul Chenavard (1869) The Calm Sea (1869)
Painting series	Jo, the Beautiful Irishwoman (1865–1866) The Wave (1869–1870) Still-Life with Fruit (1871–1872)
Museums	Musée Courbet
Portrayals	Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe (Monet, 1865–1866)

v t e Charles Baudelaire
Poems	"L'albatros" "Le Désir de peindre" "Les Litanies de Satan" "The Swan"
Poetry collections	Les Fleurs du mal (1857) Le Spleen de Paris (1869)
Other works	La Fanfarlo (1847) "The Pagan School" (1852) Les Paradis artificiels (1860) "The Painter of Modern Life" (1863)
Depictions	Portrait of Charles Baudelaire (painting) Les Derniers Jours de Charles Baudelaire (1988 novel) The Baudelaire Fractal (2020 novel)

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