People often ask us who the greatest Shady Lady was. And it's a hard question, because there are lots of possibilities: famous royal mistresses like Diane de Poitiers or Madame de Pompadour, famous courtesans like Marie Duplessis (the original of the Lady of the Camellias...
The feminist concept of the "male gaze" is useful in art criticism. The concept originally comes from film studies, where it is used to discuss the fact that men traditionally controlled the camera, of which women were an object. Men certainly also controlled the brush...
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...
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...