The Stone Breakers

The painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1850 in Paris where it was criticized by for its depiction of a subject that was not considered proper for high art. Some critics disliked Courbet's application of very thick paint and the poor lighting in the image. Conversely, social theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon praised the work and saw it as a successful socialist painting. He called the composition "a masterpiece in its genre". By 1915, it was considered to be a very "important work".

Courbet produced two versions of the painting. The version displayed at the 1850 Paris Salon was in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden. At the time of its acquisition by the museum, the painting was referred to as "Courbet's monumental masterpiece". It has been written that the painting was destroyed in 1945 as part of the Bombing of Dresden, being in a cart bound to evacuate the city that caught on fire. Richard Raskin though, wrote in 1988 that the Museum has the painting documented as "missing" officially and was not out on the doomed cart, instead being transferred in 1944. The second version, a reversed image, survived the war and is in the Oskar Reinhart Collection in Winterthur.