The well-kept secret of Gustave Courbet's erotic correspondence discovered in an attic in Besançon

When the painter died in 1877, his family entrusted the letters to the Besançon library, making the curator swear not to communicate them. This correspondence reveals previously unpublished erotic exchanges between Gustave Courbet and Mathilde Carly de Svazzema.

It was while searching for bindings of drawings by a 19th century architect, in the attic of the Besançon library where she works, that Agnès Barthelet, librarian, discovered, in November 2023, a romantic correspondence that was explicit to say the least. , even downright erotic, not to say scabrous.

On a shelf, the small pile of old papers piqued the librarian's curiosity, while on top, a handwritten sheet with National Assembly letterhead included the following words: “40 years ago, someone delivered letters written to a lady by a famous 19th century figure. These letters were given with the responsibility of keeping them, but without communicating them to anyone..

By studying the letters, the library's conservation team quickly discovered that the famous personality was the painter of the no less famous painting. The Origin of the World : Gustave Courbet. A Gustave Courbet who evokes his old age without a future, although his successes cannot be denied. An old age which does not prevent him from maintaining this very warm correspondence with his lover, a certain Mathilde Carly de Svazzema, a lady of good Parisian society, unhappy and abandoned by her husband.

An epistolary passion, as intense as it is brief, since the letters, 25 letters from Gustave, 91 from Mathilde, begin in November 1872 and end in April 1873. Five months of torrid exchanges at the end of which Gustave stops writing Mathilde, feeling that she is abusing him.

Without taboo, the sexual content of the letters is very detailed. It was upon the death of Gustave Courbet that his family, wanting to avoid another scandal, one more after The origin of the world, entrusted the letters to the Besançon library, making the curator swear not to communicate them. For a century, generations of librarians kept the secret, until the curious Agnès Barthelet came to reveal everything.