The Woman in the Waves
$63.00
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- 380g/m² cotton canvas — certified museum quality
- Solid wood stretcher bar with 0.75” gallery wrap
- HD Giclée print — colour-true to the original
- Ready to hang — hanging hardware included
The Woman in the Waves, painted in 1868 by Gustave Courbet, belongs to a series of female nudes the artist undertook between 1864 and 1868, following the sensational success of Alexandre Cabanel's idealized Birth of Venus at the Salon of 1863. Courbet, ever the champion of unvarnished Realism, deliberately subverts the mythological grandeur of Venus born from the sea by depicting his model with frank, unidealized physicality — down to a candid trace of underarm hair that scandalized academic sensibilities.
Rendered with the thick, tactile brushwork and rich, palpable handling of flesh that define Courbet's mature style, the painting insists on the material reality of the body over any allegorical gloss. The turbulent sea foam surrounding the figure, rather than romanticizing her, grounds her firmly in the physical, sensory world Courbet championed throughout his career as a direct challenge to academic idealization.
Held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, this museum-quality stretched canvas reproduction is printed on premium matte canvas and hand-wrapped around a solid 0.75-inch gallery wrap frame — ready to hang and built to last.
| Artist | Gustave Courbet |
| Year | 1868 |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 25 3/4 x 21 1/4 in. (65.4 x 54 cm) |
| Collection | The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
| Movement | Realism |
