One of the most puzzling minor sidelights of Courbet's composition is the significance of the little boy scribbling a picture, a later insertion whose presence has been accounted for both
as a mere space
filler - to balance the still - life objects on the left - hand side — and
as a personification of the newly awakened interest in the art of children associated with the Swiss artist Rodolphe Topffer.15 Yet here again a Fourierist interpretation best accounts for this
figure.