Which 1863 painting by Édouard Manet scandalized the Paris Salon with its depiction of a nude courtesan? The answer is Olympia.
Manet painted Olympia in 1863, but it was first exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1865, where its direct gaze and contemporary subject caused an uproar. Rather than presenting a mythological goddess, Manet showed a modern woman identified by critics and viewers as a courtesan. Her orchid, jewelry, slippers, black ribbon, and the alert black cat reinforced that reading.
The composition echoes Titian’s Venus of Urbino, yet Manet sharply altered the tradition. Olympia’s hand blocks rather than invites the viewer, her body is rendered without idealizing softness, and the broad, flat brushwork makes the figure feel startlingly present. Victorine Meurent modeled for Olympia; the maid was modeled by Laure.
The most common confusion is Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass, also known as Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. That painting caused an earlier scandal in 1863, while Olympia provoked its major Salon controversy in 1865. The work is now held by the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.