With this self-portrait—his last, Courbet returned to the autobiographical enterprise of his youth. This work is unique in its explicit acknowledgment of his political engagement during the Commune, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. Courbet depicts himself in his private cell at Sainte-Pélagie in the familiar act of smoking a pipe. Significantly, his self-presentation is at odds with contemporary descriptions of the aging Communard whose beard and hair had turned completely gray