Woman in a Riding Habit by Courbet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, July 2011

Woman in a Riding Habit (L'Amazone)

Gustave Courbet
(French, Ornans 1819–1877 La Tour-de-Peilz)


Date: 1856

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 45 1/2 x 35 1/8 in. (115.6 x 89.2 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.59

Description:

This painting of a horsewoman (in French, amazone) was long thought to represent the poet and novelist Louise Colet, muse of writer Gustave Flaubert. However, the sitter has since been identified as Madame Clément Laurier. This work, made on the occasion of her marriage in 1856, forms a pair with Courbet’s portrait of her husband (1855, Milwaukee Art Museum). The artist Mary Cassatt admired this picture as "the finest woman’s portrait Courbet ever did."

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/436024