Musée d’Orsay · 1849-1850
A Burial at Ornans
Gustave Courbet
Courbet paints an ordinary provincial funeral at the huge scale usually reserved for kings and battles, insisting that regular people's lives matter just as much.
Why it matters
Courbet paints an ordinary provincial funeral at the huge scale usually reserved for kings and battles, insisting that regular people's lives matter just as much.
Look closer
Count how many individual, specific faces are shown — Courbet based each one on a real person from his hometown.
Its unheroic honesty made it one of the most controversial paintings shown in Paris in the 1850s.
Value context
ELYIO places this work in an indicative editorial context of €14–25 million.
The museum work is not for sale. This is ELYIO indicative context—not an appraisal, insurance value or offer.