{"@context":"http:\/\/iiif.io\/api\/presentation\/2\/context.json","@id":"https:\/\/api.artic.edu\/api\/v1\/artworks\/4428\/manifest.json","@type":"sc:Manifest","label":"M\u00e8re Gr\u00e9goire","description":[{"value":"The demurely dressed subject of M\u00e8re Gr\u00e9goire was inspired by the lead character in a popular song written in the 1820s by French lyricist Pierre-Jean de B\u00e9ranger. B\u00e9ranger often penned ribald lyrics; his \u201cMadame Gr\u00e9goire\u201d 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 \ufb02ower, a symbol of love, which she presumably offers to an unseen customer on the other side of the counter.\nThe painting may also have had a political subtext. B\u00e9ranger was a \ufb01erce 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 B\u00e9ranger\u2019s songs in an eff ort to restrict free expression. Courbet\u2019s decision to portray the songwriter\u2019s Madame Gr\u00e9goire\u2014whose \ufb02ower exhibits the blue, white, and red of the French \ufb02ag\u2014may represent a protest not only against government censorship but also against the Second Empire itself. Thus the artist transformed the character into a heroine who embodies the rights to freedom in life and love that were forbidden under the repressive regime.\nCourbet played a crucial role in the development of modern French painting as the leader of the Realist movement, which rejected Romanticism\u2019s dramatic subjects and emotions in favor of portraying everyday people and events with truth and accuracy, warts and all. Critics and the public did not easily accept his large, naturalistic, and unsentimental depictions of commonplace, often rural subjects, earning him the nickname the \u201capostle of ugliness.\u201d\n","language":"en"}],"metadata":[{"label":"Artist \/ Maker","value":"Gustave Courbet (French, 1819\u20131877)"},{"label":"Medium","value":"Oil on canvas"},{"label":"Dimensions","value":"129 \u00d7 97.5 cm (50 3\/4 \u00d7 38 3\/8 in.); Framed: 168 \u00d7 137.2 \u00d7 16.2 cm (66 1\/8 \u00d7 54 \u00d7 6 3\/8 in.)"},{"label":"Object Number","value":"1930.78"},{"label":"Collection","value":"<a href='http:\/\/www.artic.edu\/collection' target='_blank'>Art Institute of Chicago<\/a>"}],"attribution":"Digital image courtesy of the Art Institute of Chicago.","logo":"https:\/\/raw.githubusercontent.com\/Art-Institute-of-Chicago\/template\/main\/aic-logo.gif","within":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu\/collection","rendering":{"@id":"http:\/\/www.artic.edu\/artworks\/4428","format":"text\/html","label":"Full record"},"sequences":[{"@type":"sc:Sequence","canvases":[{"@type":"sc:Canvas","@id":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2\/2e6d08c8-dac0-4f1c-3e56-de3539ceb905","label":"M\u00e8re Gr\u00e9goire, 1855, reworked 1857\u201359. Gustave Courbet (French, 1819\u20131877)","width":843,"height":1128,"images":[{"@type":"oa:Annotation","motivation":"sc:painting","on":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2\/2e6d08c8-dac0-4f1c-3e56-de3539ceb905","resource":{"@type":"dctypes:Image","@id":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2\/2e6d08c8-dac0-4f1c-3e56-de3539ceb905\/full\/843,\/0\/default.jpg","width":843,"height":1128,"service":{"@context":"http:\/\/iiif.io\/api\/image\/2\/context.json","@id":"https:\/\/www.artic.edu\/iiif\/2\/2e6d08c8-dac0-4f1c-3e56-de3539ceb905","profile":"http:\/\/iiif.io\/api\/image\/2\/level2.json"}}}]}]}]}