The Stone Breakers
1849 · Oil on canvas · Formerly Gemäldegalerie, Dresden
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About this work
- Artist
- Gustave Courbet (1819–1877)
- Year
- 1849
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Original size
- 165 × 257 cm
- Collection
- Formerly Gemäldegalerie, Dresden (destroyed 1945)
- Movement
- Realism
Two road menders work on a bank beside a country road near Ornans: an old man in a straw hat kneeling to break stones with a hammer, and a boy in a torn shirt and one brace carrying a basket of broken rock, their faces hidden. Courbet saw them on the road in 1849 and had them pose in his studio; he painted them life-size and showed the picture at the Salon of 1850–51 with A Burial at Ornans, where its refusal to make poverty picturesque made it a founding image of Realism. Proudhon called it the first socialist painting. The canvas was bought by the Dresden collector and entered the Gemäldegalerie there, and it was destroyed in February 1945 when the lorry evacuating the collection was hit in the bombing of Dresden. It survives only in photographs and reproductions.
This exhibition-poster edition shows the whole work beneath original typography set in-house. The original is in the public domain.
Where it works
Two labourers breaking and carrying stone on a sunlit bank, in ochre, brown and dusty blue, for a study, hallway or kitchen at 24×36 in natural wood. Stone, clay or olive walls suit the earth tones; pair it with A Burial at Ornans.
Style, size & framing detail
- Style
- Exhibition poster of a Realism painting
- Era
- 19th century (1849)
- Orientation
- Portrait
- Palette
- cream & beige
- Mood
- classic
- Rooms
- kitchen, hallway or entryway, study or library, living room, dining room
- Good gift for
- housewarming, art lovers
Size. We'd hang this one at 24×36. Prints at 12×18, 16×24, 24×36 in — 12×18 for a shelf, desk or a gallery-wall grid; 16×24 above a desk, console or in a hallway; 24×36 as the statement piece above a sofa or bed.
Framing. Exhibition posters sit best in a slim black frame with no mat — the typeset margin is the mat.
Pairing. Pairs as a set of three with other famous painting prints (10% off three or more).
Details & materials
Shipping & returns
Is this the whole painting, or a crop?
Is The Stone Breakers in the public domain?
What is it printed on?
When was The Stone Breakers painted, and in what medium?
What size works above a sofa or bed?
About this design
The Madten promise
A fine-art print
The same artwork as a clean fine-art print — the image shown large with a minimal caption.
