Gustave Courbet, Clément Laurier, 1855. Gift of Friends of Art. Photo by John Nienhuis, Dedra Walls.Speaking of curious museum coincidences, here’s yet one more. I knew the identity of the man in the Museum’s Courbet painting (Clement Laurier), but what I didn’t know was that Courbet also painted a portrait of Laurier’s wife. After popping onto the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Timeline of Art History for some entirely unrelated research, I came across Courbet’s rendering of Madame Laurier, which lives in the Met! (And then I immediately sat down to write this blog post instead of doing my original research. Always nice when your procrastination relates to your job, right?)