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The Salins industrialist Alfred Bouvet purchased two Courbet landscapes and commisioned this portrait of his daughter, then aged three. She is holding a toy sheep on a wheeled base. Courbet seldom attempted portraits of children, and wrote, ‘It is the hardest thing you can imagine: a three-year-old girl, as fair as tow, as white as milk and, by Jove, extremely pretty.’ Beatrice’s gaze appears calm and pensive while her awkward pose conveys the restlessness of a small child. The observation of colour and texture also shows careful attention to detail.