Marie and Bernard Cola, a couple from Franche-Comté, donated part of its exceptional and original collection of documents around the life and work of the painter Gustave Courbet to the Ornans museum (Doubs). 115 rare books, sales catalogs and other very useful documents for research.
The vast showroom of the Flagey Farm in the Doubs is boiling. The entire Courbet d’Ornans museum team is busy putting on the next exhibition presented in the Courbet family home. A particularly original exhibition inspired by the important donation of Marie and Bernard Cola to the Courbet Museum.
Auction catalogs of the time, illustrations, accounts by contemporaries of Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) highlight the commercial strategy of the painter, precursor of modernity. Bernard and Marie Cola came to the Ferme de Flagey to tell us their story. The opportunity for them to leaf through, once again, what they have taken so many years to bring together in their collection.
The exhibition “Buy Courbet” will tell, from December 10, 2022 to April 23, 2023, how the painter “implements multiple channels to achieve its designated goal: to sell and make a living from its art” says the museum.
The museum team delicately arranges the works on tables before placing them in showcases. These writings, these caricatures, these illustrations, the hammer prices scribbled on the auction catalogs, all of this shows us how Courbet was an “entrepreneurial artist”.
While some of the documents on display come from the Institut Courbet, partner of the exhibition, most of these exhibits were unearthed by Bernard and Marie Cola. The title of the next farm exhibit is indeed a double meaning. Buy Courbet at the time of the painter, Buy Courbet in the 21st century to build an original collection.
In the middle of last summer, this Comtois couple officially donated 115 documents from their collection to the museum. Marie and Bernard Cola could have bought a house in the South, gone on vacation at the end of the world, but they preferred to live their passion for Gustave Courbet.
It all started 15 years ago, during a vacation in the South, the couple went to an art gallery and fell in love with a small painting representing a waterfall as we see so many in Franche-Comté. A beautiful waterfall signed Gustave Courbet. “ We thought the Courbets were all in museums. they told me during a previous meeting. Here they are with a painting by the master of Ornans at home. The couple does not just admire the canvas, they want to understand the painter.
Not being specialists in the art of the 19th century, in the painting of Gustave Courbet, we tried through books to gather testimonies to get an idea of his painting but also, above all, of the man . We said to ourselves by understanding the man, we might be able to understand his painting. Bernard Cola
Bernard Cola, collector and donor
A relevant and methodical approach. Since their ” thunderbolt “, they are on the lookout in booksellers, on the internet, in auction rooms and they find treasures. The first editions, the rarities, nothing escapes them. “Searching is a pleasure” admet Bernard Cola.
Manager of a construction company during the day, he spends his evenings and weekends finding the rare pearl. It becomes a passion. Of the 400 books, engravings, satirical journals purchased, the couple decided to donate 115 documents. An important donation which gives the idea to the curator of the Courbet Benjamin Foudral museum to mount this exhibition. Over the years, the couple have forged ties with him and the museum team. The donation imposed itself on them as obvious.
It’s moving to see all these works brought together. They will continue to live, they will be able to be consulted by everyone.
Marie Cola, collector and donor
By spring, these books, which cover current events around Courbet between 1850 and 1950, will be made available to those who request them at the brand new documentation center in the Courbet centre. A website will list the list of available works. There will also be the collection of the museum, notarial deeds for example, and a set of books on art in the 19th century
Internationally, there will be only one place to go to do your research. It’s amazing ! Marie and Bernard Cola have gathered documents that are, for many, untraceable.
Thierry Savatier, art historian
These nuggets are also visible in the pieces of the Courbet Museum’s permanent collection. The museum’s curator, Benjamin Foudral, has subtly positioned works from the Cola donation in a few rooms of the museum.
Take a look at the catalog of the Universal Exhibition of 1860 in Besançon. Courbet presents 12 canvases on this occasion. We see colorful caricatures of Courbet returning to the country.
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A sculpture by Leboeuf representing the painter is also drawn. In the next room, visitors can admire the sculpture.
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Placed on its lectern, right in the center of the room, the book gives a very special relief to the paintings that surround it. Portraits of Franche-Comté women, a view of Ornans. Here, visitors type “ how his country has remained a constant source of his art throughout his career” explains Benjamin Foudral.
These period works will complete a hanging since all his research, his knowledge irrigate our work as a curator in the choice of these hangings. This makes it possible to give small additional reading keys that one does not necessarily find directly in front of the works.
Benjamin Foudral, curator-director of the museum and the Courbet center
And if visitors to the permanent collection are attentive enough to read the labels, these small explanatory panels placed near the works, they will discover that it is thanks to the sagacity and generosity of Marie and Bernard Cola that they can better attempt to understand, they too, the very particular intentions of Gustave Courbet.