Pictures of Prostitution, 1850-1910
The first major show on the subject of prostitution, this exhibition attempts to retrace the way French and foreign artists, fascinated by the people and places involved in prostitution, have constantly sought to find new pictorial resources for depicting the realities and fantasies it implied.
From Manet’s Olympia to Degas’s Absinthe, from Toulouse-Lautrec and Munch’s forays into brothels to the bold figures of Vlaminck, Van Dongen or Picasso, the exhibition focuses on showing the central place held by this shady world in the development of modern painting. The topic is also covered with regard to its social and cultural dimensions through Salon painting, sculpture, decorative arts décoratifs and photography. A wealth of documentary material recalls the ambivalent status of prostitutes, from the splendour of the demi-mondaine to the misery of the pierreuse (street walker).
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Scène de fête au Moulin Rouge (c. 1889), Giovanni Boldini © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
Un dimanche (between 1861 and 1866), Virginia Verasis de Castiglione, Jean-Louis Pierson, Christian Bérard © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Droits réservés
Femme nue, accroupie, vue de dos (1876), Edgar Degas © RMN-Grand Palais (Musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Femme tirant son bas (1894), Henri de Toulouse Lautrec © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Dans le lit (1892), Henri de Toulouse Lautrec © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d’Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Rolla (1878), Henri Gervex © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
La Serveuse de bocks (1878-79), Edouard Manet © Musée d’Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Patrice Schmidt
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