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Une Lorette (Woman of easy virtue)

Maker

(artist)
1802-1892

Title

Date of Production

1867-1870

Medium

graphite and grey wash on wove paper

Dimensions

Height: 33.8 cm
Width: 22.7 cm

Accession Number

D.1948.SC.128

Mode of Acquisition

Samuel Courtauld, bequest, 1948

Credit

The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)

Copyright

Work in the public domain

Location

Not currently on display

Keywords

Label Text

Named after a district of Paris where she generally lived, a ‘lorette’ was a demi-mondaine, or woman of easy virtue. This is suggested by the hairstyle and the distinctive sleeveless bodice with a plunging neckline. The broadly applied wash and the sketchy rendering of the voluminous skirt are typical for the style of Guys, who chose everyday Parisian life as his main inspiration. Guys’s choice of subject and frivolous technique prompted the writer Charles Baudelaire to champion him as the true ‘painter of modern life’.

Provenance

Leicester Galleries (London); purchased there by Samuel Courtauld, London (1876-1947), 1928; Courtauld Bequest 1948

Exhibition History

Special Display - French Drawings of the 19th century, The Courtauld Gallery, London, 08/02/2008-12/06/2008

The Courtauld Collection, Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, 26/12/1997-12/05/1998

Drawings and Engravings from the Courtauld Collection, The Courtauld Gallery, London, December 1959-April 1960 ...More

Samuel Courtauld memorial exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1948 ...Less

Literature

The Courtauld Collection: Masterpieces of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Art Gallery of Ontario, 1998
cat. no. 5
illus. p. 23

John House, Impressionism for England: Samuel Courtauld as Patron and Collector, Courtauld Institute Galleries 1994
no. 93
illus. p. 215

Cooper, Douglas, The Courtauld Collection, London 1954
no. 128

Inscriptions

Watermark: none.

Collector's mark: none.

Inscription: Verso: lower right corner, graphite, underlined: "gvsg".

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