Courbet's Woman with Seagull Relief Sculpture

Gustave Courbet (French, 1819-1877), La dame a la mouette (the woman with the seagull), plaster, grey painted, signed: G. Courbet, diameter 28.74 in. Provenance: Joanna Barnes Fine Art, 2001. Other Notes: Commissioned from Courbet in 1876, when the artist was in exile in Switzerland, it was his last work and was one of two reliefs depicting women, which he executed for the facade of a building on the corner of the quai Perdonnet and the place de l'Ancien-Port, Vevey. Representing a woman with downcast Eyes with a seagull head dress she was also called 'La Dame du Lac' by Courbet. It is also thought that she symbolised exile and the seagull her thoughts flying to her distant homeland. Courbet also painted 'Fille aux mouettes' in Trouville in 1865, depicting a young girl with dead seagulls, also see Jules Breton's 'La mouette blessee' of 1878 depicting a tender Breton girl with an injured seabird.