Shop art print and framed art Le sommeil by Gustave Courbet

Le Sommeil, also known as Les Deux Amies, les Dormeuses and Paresse et Luxure, is a painting by Gustave Courbet. It depicts two women resting after sexual intercourse. It was painted in 1866 for the collector Khalil-Bey and is now in the Petit Palais in Paris. Commissioned by the Ottoman diplomat Khalil-Bey, the painting was sold to Courbet along with The Origin of the World in 1866. In 1868, following the auction of the Khalil-Bey collection, the painting became the property of Jean-Baptiste Faure, an opera singer and art lover, who also owned Édouard Manet's Déjeuner sur l'herbe, until 1882. After 1882, the painting came into the possession of Auguste Reverdin, a Swiss surgeon, who acquired it through Léon Massol. In 1953 it entered the collections of the Petit Palais after being acquired by the Paul Vallotton gallery (the former Lausanne branch of the Berheim-Jeune gallery). The composition of the scene is in a horizontal rectangular format. The painting shows two naked women asleep, embracing on an unmade bed. On the left is a dark-haired woman in a twisted position, lying on her back with both legs in profile, and on the right a red-haired woman facing the dark-haired woman. The red-haired woman is holding the dark-haired woman's right leg on her hip. A number of details allude to rest after sexual intercourse. On the bed, we can see ornaments (hairpins, pearl necklaces) left on the sheet, and the detail of a dress near the dark-haired woman's right hand. The background [...]

 

This artwork is a painting from the classical period. It belongs to the realism style.

 

« Le sommeil » is kept at Musee du Petit Palais, Paris, France.

 

Find the full description of Le sommeil by Gustave Courbet on Wikipedia.