Nude with Flowering Branch

Nude with Flowering Branch is an oil on canvas painting created by Gustave Courbet in 1863. This sensual depiction is characteristic of the artist's lifelong engagement with the controversial theme of female nudes during the height of the Realist movement. Courbet, known for challenging the academic conventions of the French Salon, presented the figure not as a mythological goddess or historical figure, but in an intimate, unidealized setting.

The model is portrayed reclining, often described as possessing a detached or introspective gaze that nonetheless directly engages the viewer. The artist rendered the texture of the skin and the surrounding drapery with the thick, earthy impasto typical of his technique, emphasizing the materiality of both the subject and the paint itself. Unlike the highly polished, idealized forms favored by Neoclassical and Romantic painters, Courbet emphasized physicality and the raw reality of the human form, positioning his depictions of the female nude as radical statements within the art world of the Second Empire.

The presence of the flowering branch provides a subtle, ambiguous symbolic element, though the overall emphasis remains on the body itself. As a significant work created in the mid-nineteenth century, reproductions and prints of this painting are often utilized for academic study, making this important work widely accessible through public domain resources. Nude with Flowering Branch remains a foundational piece for understanding Realism and its confrontation with tradition. This essential work resides today in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.