Detail of Woman with a Parrot by Courbet in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 2009

Artist: Gustave Courbet (French, 1819–1877)

Title: Woman with a Parrot

Date: 1866

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions: 51 x 77 in. (129.5 x 195.6 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: H. O. Havemeyer Collection, Bequest of Mrs. H. O. Havemeyer, 1929

Accession Number: 29.100.57

Gallery Label:

Galvanized by the success of Cabanel's "Birth of Venus" (Musée d'Orsay, Paris) at the Salon of 1863, Courbet sought to challenge the French Academy on its own terms with a painting of a nude that would be accepted by the increasingly rigid—and arbitrary—Salon jury. His first attempt, in 1864, was rejected on the grounds of indecency; however two years later, his "Woman with a Parrot" was accepted for the Salon of 1866.

While aspects of "Woman with a Parrot"—notably, the figure's pose and subtly modeled flesh tones—aligned it with academic art, viewers were shocked by the presence of the model's discarded clothing and disheveled hair. Jules-Antoine Castagnary, Courbet's great defender, however, praised the artist for representing a "woman of our time."

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/Works_of_Art/collection_database/europe...