Every Paris tour should include some major sights: even if you’ve seen them before, you can always see new sides. Plus some wonderful food of course. Our Shady Ladies Paris tour includes both of those, with a “Shady Ladies” tour of the Orsay Museum highlighting the racy sides of the collection (on the model of our well-known tour of the Metropolitan) and some truly excellent meals; also a tasting at the patisserie that is most famous for macarons. But we also include a bunch of sights in our Paris tour that you probably haven’t seen—lesser-known sights that even Parisians think it would be cool to see. (more…)
Category: art history
The Five Most Powerful Women in the Metropolitan Museum
My esteemed colleague Mary Beard has posted an article about the five most powerful women in the British Museum, as a celebration of Women’s History Month. So since we are now doing a tour about that topic at the Metropolitan Museum, I thought I should answer with a post about the most powerful women in the Met. Because the Met actually has a lot of powerful women, from the most powerful woman pharaoh of ancient Egypt through women of the 20th century. And this year of all years, now is the time for some women’s history!
“Nasty Women” are Everywhere—even the Metropolitan
We know them from work, family, public and private life—women who speak their mind, pursue their careers and even run for public office. They’re smart. They’re sassy. Some people call them “nasty.” But we say they’re strong. And to celebrate them (and Women’s History Month) Shady Ladies Tours is launching a brand new offering: Nasty Women of the Metropolitan. (more…)
The bed of one of the great courtesans of 19th century Paris, Valtesse de la Bigne.
Great bed, eh? Maybe we should call it something like a temple of love. This is the bed of one of the great courtesans of 19th century Paris, Valtesse de la Bigne. Aside from her rich patrons, de la Bigne was the lover of several important artists, including Courbet and Manet, for whom she also modeled. Zola based the title character of Nana on her and described the bed (“a throne, an altar, where Paris came to admire her sovereign nudity” etc) in the novel. In short, it’s an amazing piece of furniture, and you can see it on our Shady Ladies of Paris tour this summer!
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Ernest-Ange Duez’s “Splendeur,” displayed at the Salon of 1874
Here is another thing we will see on our Shady Ladies tour of Paris–one of our favorite images of a courtesan: Ernest-Ange Duez’s “Splendeur,” displayed at the Salon of 1874. It was originally part of a diptych, with “Misère” on the other side, showing the #courtesan in her later years, but “Misère” has disappeared. “Splendeur” portrays a courtesan at the *height* of her career and the height of fashion. The frizzy, unnaturally blonde hair, which might look tacky to us, was the absolute latest craze.It was only in the 1870s that people started to be able to completely change their hair color, and women like the Empress Eugénie were the first to try it out. Indeed, the only thing that separates Splendeur from a well-to-do young lady is the fact that she is wearing too many of the latest fashions at once—that and her left eye lazily winking at the viewer….#Paris #Splendeur
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Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara
Say the name “Lucrezia Borgia,” and what do you think of? Incest and poison are probably the first things that come to mind. Lucrezia was born (in 1480), supposedly an illegitimate daughter of Pope Alexander VI (Rodrigo de Borgia). And from that point on, she went from one nefarious deed to another, bearing an illegitimate son, engaging in incest with her father and/or her famous brother Cesare, poisoning people left and right—she supposedly had a hollow ring with poison-tipped pins she could use to prick her victims. In short, she was the original “nasty woman.” (more…)
Courtesans And Royal Mistresses: Madame Du Barry
This is Mme. Du Barry–one of the most famous courtesans and royal mistresses of all time! Du Barry was the last of Louis XV’s official mistresses. Louis (it seems) adored her because she was so beautiful that she revived his flagging sex life. She ended her life on the guillotine, but here she is long before, dressed in the 18th century’s version of ‘casual Friday’: a simple gingham dress and straw hat–a style favored by Marie Antoinette, who famously loathed Mme. Du Barry and the racy side of French court life that she represented. (more…)
How our art history tours about courtesans started
People often ask me how I came up with the idea of giving art history tours about courtesans. There is a short version of that story and a long one. The short one would start with the fact that I have given art history tours of the Metropolitan Museum for a long time. I gave them for students when I was teaching at Columbia and NYU. Last spring I started giving a gay history tour of the Met, which we call “Gay Secrets of the Metropolitan.” And as I gave it, I started noticing how many paintings of courtesans there are in the museum. (more…)