This week, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris will unveil The Desperate Man, the renowned self-portrait by French painter Gustave Courbet, marking its first display in France in nearly twenty years. The painting has been loaned to the museum for a minimum of five years by Qatar Museums.
The Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which owns around 30 Courbet paintings, unveiled the exhibit The Desperate Man on Tuesday.
The self-portrait by Gustave Courbet was last shown to the French public in a major retrospective in 2007-2008, which also travelled to New York.
At that time, the painting was loaned by an unknown private collector with help from French bank BNP Paribas, but has since been bought by Qatar Museums, a state body responsible for developing the art scene in the oil-rich emirate.
Private owners
The Desperate Man depicts Courbet with a wild-eyed stare looking out of the canvas in a work that is one of his best known alongside The Stone Breakers and The Origin of the World.
Then a young painter from the east of France seeking success in Paris, Gustave Courbet depicts himself with features distorted by horror, fear, or madness, holding his head, his arms and face caught in a striking chiaroscuro.
Like other works by the artist, the painting – also called Self-Portrait of the Artist or Despair – has never been part of French public collections and was for a very long time in the hands of private owners.
The father of French psychoanalysis, Jacques Lacan, owned The Origin of the World, which joined the collections of the Musée d'Orsay in 1995.
The dispersal of the artist’s work is largely due to his legal and political troubles. Condemned in France for his participation in the Paris Commune uprising of 1871, Gustave Courbet went into exile in Switzerland to escape prison and had to sell his paintings to pay the heavy penalty imposed by the justice system.
Qatar Museums
Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, head of Qatar Museums and sister of the Gulf state's ruler, said the painting was destined for the Art Mill Museum and "will travel regularly between Doha and Paris in the future".
The Art Mill Museum in Doha is part of the emirate's plan to become a Middle Eastern art hub, with the vast complex designed by Chilean architect Alejandro Aravena scheduled to open in 2030.
As head of Qatar Museums, Sheikha Al Mayassa is one of the world's biggest contemporary art buyers and has already amassed a multi-billion-dollar portfolio.
(with AFP)
