Mme L . . . (Laure Borreau)

Courbet portrayed Laure Borreau, a woman who served as his model and companion in the 1860s, with the frankness he brought to all his sitters: a broad, full face, dark hair parted simply, and a direct gaze met without idealization. The initials in the title deliberately veil her name, a discretion typical of the period’s treatment of such relationships. Painted in 1863, the year of the great succès de scandale at the Salon des Refusés, the picture shows the robust, matter-of-fact handling that made Courbet the founder of Realism and the most forceful portraitist of his generation in France.