Vente Zurich, Koller, 18 mars 1999, lot 56 

Vente, Pontoise, Martinot-Savignat-Antoine, 5-6 juin 1999, lot 67

Acquis lors de cette vente par Antal Post de Bekessy (1943-2015)

Puis par descendance

Vente Paris, Sotheby's, Une dynastie américaine en Europe. Les collections d'Eleanor Post Close et Antal Post de Bekessy, 19 décembre 2017, lot 483

Acquis lors de cette vente par l'actuel propriétaire

Collection Louis Grandchamp des Raux

La Gazette Drouot, n° 20, 14 mai 1999, reproduit p. 144

La Gazette Drouot, n° 25, 18 juin 1999, reproduit p. 166

L’authenticité de cette œuvre a été confirmée par Jean-Jacques Fernier dans une lettre en date du 28 octobre 1998. Une copie pourra être remise à l'acquéreur.

Following the episode of the Commune during which he was held responsible for the destruction of the column on Place Vendôme and convicted to six months in prison which he served first at the Sainte-Pélagie and then at the asylum of the Doctor Duval in Neuilly, Courbet returned to his native village of Ornans in May 1872, where he honoured numerous commissions. He went on to paint roughly twenty canvases depicting seascapes, among them Normandy views including the cliffs of Étretat and those of Mouthier or Saint-Aubin-sur-Mer. These are works that he executed from memory, as he had done during his imprisonment, remembering his stay by the seaside in 1869.

This is certainly the case with our Petite Falaise à Droit, whose location could well be in Normandy. This period of "landscapes of the sea," as Courbet himself defined them, began in 1865. The artist had abandoned the summery Mediterranean turning to autumnal Normandy and its ever-changing skies. It was during this period that he produced Vagues, his famous series of waves. The painter built up his canvases with colour, using a dense impasto, which he applied generously, often with a palette knife, as if to emphasize his disdain for the meticulous finish characteristic of academic practice. Here, the artist demonstrates his ability to constantly renew his vision of nature with an intensity heightened by the act of remembering.