The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of March 26, 2024

Olympia

Olympia

1867
(French, 1832–1883)
Catalogue raisonné: Harris 53
Location: not on view

Did You Know?

Manet's model, Victorine Meurent, was herself a successful painter who showed her work at Paris's salon.

Description

When Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia was exhibited in Paris in 1865, it was met by the critics and general public with jeers, laughter, criticism, and distain. Manet had depicted his model, Victorine Meurent, as a modern day courtesan, confrontational rather than seductive. Manet’s depiction of a prostitute’s body in a contemporary setting was a radical rejection of the idealized beauty of the traditional female nude. Olympia forced recognition of troubled and contradictory attitudes toward prostitution in the mid-19th century, much to the discomfort of contemporary audiences. The artist made this etching to reproduce his controversial painting.
  • Mary Cassatt and the Feminine Ideal in Nineteenth-Century Paris. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (October 14, 2012-January 20, 2013).
    Urban Vicissitudes. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (July 2-September 29, 1985).
    The Lessons of the Academy. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 8-May 29, 1983).
  • {{cite web|title=Olympia|url=false|author=Edouard Manet|year=1867|access-date=26 March 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1922.186