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Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877)
The Meeting, or Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, 1854
Oil on canvas; 50 3/4 x 58 5/8 in. (132 x 150.5 cm)
Musée Fabre, Montpellier
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Traditionally seen as representing Courbet's arrival in Montpellier, greeted by his patron Bruyas, who is accompanied by his manservant Calas and his dog Breton, the painting depicts an imaginary roadside encounter between artist and patron. In fact, Courbet traveled to Montpellier via railway rather than the stagecoach departing in the distance. Courbet modeled the composition on popular printed images of the Wandering Jew, conflating his identity as a wandering artist with that of the legendary shoemaker, condemned to wander for eternity. Courbet exhibited this work in Paris at the Exhibition Universelle of 1855, where, despite his claims of its success to his patron, the painting was widely caricatured in the popular press and mockingly nicknamed "Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet." Behind the ridicule lay the critics' recognition that Courbet was its central focus, with Bruyas reduced to the role of "the onlooker ... the man in the painting of the Meeting." Bruyas did not exhibit The Meeting again until 1868, when he donated it to the Musée Fabre in Montpellier.
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