Olympia (1867): Art, History and Details

Olympia (1867) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

When Edouard Manet’s painting Olympia was exhibited in Paris in 1865, it was met by the critics and general public with jeers, laughter, criticism, and distain. Manet had depicted his model, Victorine Meurent, as a modern day courtesan, confrontational rather than seductive. Manet’s depiction of a prostitute’s body in a contemporary setting was a radical rejection of the idealized beauty of the traditional female nude. Olympia forced recognition of troubled and contradictory attitudes toward prostitution in the mid-19th century, much to the discomfort of contemporary audiences. The artist made this etching to reproduce his controversial painting.

Object facts

• Title: Olympia
• Date: 1867
• Creator attribution: Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Print
• Technique: etching
• Collection: PR - Etching
• Department: Prints
• Accession number: 1922.186

A detail from the museum

Manet's model, Victorine Meurent, was herself a successful painter who showed her work at Paris's salon.

Collection credit

Gift of Ralph King

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.