Panoramic View of the Alps, Les Dents du Midi

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877)

1877

Medium
oil on fabric
Classification
Painting
Dimensions
Framed: 172 x 230 x 8.5 cm (67 11/16 x 90 9/16 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 151.2 x 210.2 cm (59 1/2 x 82 3/4 in.)
Culture
France, 19th century
Museum
Cleveland Museum of Art, Modern European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line
John L. Severance Fund and various donors by exchange
Rights
Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the Cleveland Museum of Art

About this work

Courbet was still working on this large landscape, intended for the Paris Universal Exposition of 1879, when he died in December 1877. He painted it during his exile in Switzerland, where he had fled after being condemned for subversive activities in the Paris Commune of 1871. The view looks south over Lake Geneva toward the mountains called Les Dents du Midi. While some areas are heavily worked with a palette knife, the lower right remains unfinished.