A monumental 1855 painting whose full title is 'A Real Allegory Summing Up Seven Years of My Artistic and Moral Life.' At 3.6m x 6m, it combines the scale of history painting with everyday life. Society figures on the left; Courbet painting at center; friends including Baudelaire, Champfleury, and Proudhon on the right.

Rejected by the 1855 Paris World's Fair jury. Courbet defiantly erected his own Pavilion of Realism nearby, anticipating the Salon des Refusés.

Now at the Musée d'Orsay. A founding document of the Realist movement and a manifesto of artistic independence.