George P. A. Healy: Beginning of a Friendship

Sketch for "The Prodigal Son" by Thomas Couture

"On my first visit to Thomas Couture's studio - a very different-looking place from the lovely boudoir-like studios of fashionable painters nowadays - I saw him at work on a picture only just sketched in. He exclaimed: 'The amateur who will buy that canvas for a thousand francs will have his money's worth. Don't you think so?' A thousand francs! 

The picture was large, and represented the prodigal son, a life-size figure. The young man, seated by the wayside, a goatskin about his loins his only garment, thin, his deep-sunken eyes full of despair, his brow overshadowed by a thick shock of black hair, seems to ruminate over his past follies and their consequences. In the background pass a man and a woman: the young woman is full of compassion, while her companion points to the prodigal and seems to tell his story. The contrast between the prodigal son and these lovers is very happily indicated; and the rich tones of the man's red drapery relieve the sombreness of the rest of the picture. While examining the sketch I said to my new friend: 'My sitters pay me a thousand francs for a portrait. If you will allow me to pay you by installments, I will be that amateur, and I offer you not a thousand francs, but fifteen hundred.'

I was very proud of my purchase, but a little troubled too. In those days my sitters were not very numerous, and I borrowed the first sum paid to Couture. But I never regretted this youthful folly of mine. 'The Prodigal Son' remained in my studio for many years, and I took it with me to America. Finally, I gave it, with many other pictures, to the city of Chicago. I am sorry to say that the whole collection was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871.

A small sketch of 'The Prodigal Son,' and a most spirited one, still exists. It belongs to M. Barbedienne, the famous bronze dealer, who was a personal friend of Couture, and possesses a number of pictures, drawings, and sketches by the master."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Reminiscences of a Portrait Painter" by G. P. A. Healy.)