UK Edition
Mystery of Gustave Courbet's scandalous nude painting laid bare as identity of model revealed
One of the most enigmatic mysteries in art history appears to have finally been laid bare.
The identity of the model who posed for the most scandalous painting of the 19th century, Gustave Courbet's L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the world), has been revealed 152 years after it was painted.
Experts insist they are "99 per cent sure" the work’s notorious torso and genitalia belong to the Parisian ballet dancer Constance Queniaux.
The canvas, which now hangs in Paris’ Orsay museum, continues to court controversy after Facebook censored profiles using it in 2011, sparking outrage from art lovers.
For decades, many historians had believed the painting’s nether regions belonged to Courbet's lover of the time, the Irish model Joanna Hiffernan. However, doubts persists because the dark pubic hair in the painting failed to tally with Ms Hiffernan's flaming red locks.
Another potential model was Marie-Anne Detourbay. Both she and Ms Queniaux were mistresses of the Ottoman diplomat Halil Sherif Pasha - aka Khalil Bey - who commissioned the painting from Courbet for his personal collection of erotica in 1866.
However, Ms Detourbay - who later became the comtesse de Loynes - was considered too high-profile a figure to dare to pose in such a painting.
The mystery appears to have been finally solved by French historian and biographer Claude Schopp while combing through correspondence between the French authors Alexandre Dumas fils - whose father wrote The Three Musketeers - and George Sand.
One passage , in which Dumas fils was criticising Courbet, flummoxed him as it read: "One does not paint the most delicate and the most sonorous interview of Miss Queniault (sic) of the Opera."
Taking a closer look at the handwritten original, Mr Schopp realised the word “interview” had been mis-transcribed. In fact, he had written “interior”.
“It was a thunderbolt. Usually I make discoveries after working away for ages," said the writer, whose book on the find will be published this week.
"Here I made it straight away. It almost feels unjust," Mr Schopp told AFP.
The biographer showed his discovery to the head of the French National Library's prints department, Sylvie Aubenas, who said:"This testimony from the time leads me to believe with 99 percent certainty that Courbet's model was Constance Queniaux.”
The ballet dancer was all the more likely right, said Ms Aubenas, because descriptions of her"beautiful black eyebrows" at the time appeared a perfect match with the painting’s dark and luxuriant maidenhair.
The library owns several photographs of her including one by the famed photographic pioneer, Nadar.
Asked why the mystery had remained intact all this time, Ms Queniaux suggested it was “a secret known to all” at the time but as Constance Queniaux later turned into a “respectable lady” and philanthropist, her honour was preserved by those in the know.
One further discovery by Mr Schopp clinched the argument, she said.
When she died in 1908, Ms Queniaux left in her will a Courbet painting of camellias - flowers strongly associated with courtesans at the time thanks to Dumas fils’ novel The Lady of the Camellias, later adapted into Verdi's opera La Traviata.
At its centre lay a lusciously open red blossom. "What better tribute from the artist and his patron to Constance?" said Ms Aubenas.