Mère Grégoire

Discussion

FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

The demurely dressed subject of Mère Grégoire was inspired by the lead character in a popular song written in the 1820s by French lyricist Pierre-Jean de Béranger. Béranger often penned ribald lyrics; his “Madame Grégoire” was the proprietor of a house of prostitution. Gustave Courbet began this work in 1855 as a simple head on a horizontal canvas, but enlarged it to its present dimensions and transformed it into an elaborate genre scene between 1857 and 1859. The artist depicted the woman here in the midst of a transaction, with coins scattered on a marble-topped counter and a ledger beneath her right hand. Under her other hand is the small bell used to summon her female employees. She holds a flower, a symbol of love, which she presumably offers to an unseen customer on the other side of the counter. The painting may also have had a political subtext. Béranger was a fierce opponent of the monarchy, while Courbet followed in his footsteps as a dissident of the Second Empire. In the mid-1850s, when Courbet began this painting, the government had harshly attacked Béranger’s songs in an eff ort to restrict free expression. Courbet’s decision to portray the songwriter’s Madame Grégoire—

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