[Female Nude in Studio]

Franck-François-Genès Chauvassaignes

1856–59 · Salted paper print from glass negative · Photographs

This corner of a painter’s atelier somewhere in France in the middle of the nineteenth century is scarcely tethered to time or place; it could as easily be a loft in New York today or, had photography existed four centuries earlier, a studio in the Italian Renaissance. What is surprising here is the absence of even the thinnest disguise—no swags of drapery, elaborate coiffure, or skeins of beads as are commonly found in the work of other purveyors of "studies for artists." Here, the model is utterly naked. With her intelligent head and dirty feet, this young woman helped found the matter-of-fact modeling sorority joined a decade later by Édouard Manet’s Olympia.

Artist

Franck-François-Genès Chauvassaignes

Date

1856–59

Medium

Salted paper print from glass negative

Department

Photographs

Credit line

Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1998