| The Wrestlers | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Artist | Gustave Courbet |
| Year | 1853 |
| Medium | oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 252 cm × 198 cm (99 in × 78 in) |
| Location | Museum of Fine Arts,Budapest |
The Wrestlers is a large 1853 painting by the French artistGustave Courbet, now in theMuseum of Fine Arts inBudapest. It shows two men engaged in 'French wrestling', inspired byGreco-Roman wrestling. Documents reveal that it shows a match in the former hippodrome on theChamps-Élysées in Paris.[1] His choice of such a huge canvas inspired (among others)Alexandre Falguière's 1875The Wrestlers.[2]
It was first exhibited at theParis Salon of 1853 as the pendant toThe Bathers. In a letter to his parents dated 13 May 1853, Courbet said ofThe Wrestlers that "I have covered their nudity and [the critics] have not yet said anything good or bad about it". By contrast,The Bathers divided the public and probably distracted attention fromThe Wrestlers. He also revealed that he had re-used a frame from his 1841 paintingSt Walpurgis' Night, inspired by the legend ofFaust and exhibited at the1848 Salon (financial troubles had caused him to re-use that canvas).[3]
In 1867Wrestlers entered baron Léon Hirsch's collection atChenonceaux.[4] It was bought in 1908 byFerenc Hatvany (1881–1958), a rich Hungarian, who had also acquiredL'Origine du monde in 1913.[5] It entered the Museum of Fine Arts in May 1952 and it was restored there in 2010. It was exhibited for the first time in France in sixty years in 2012 at theMusée d'Orsay.