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Nude masterpieces go face to face in Venice

Agence France-PresseApril 24, 2013 00:30

Two naked seductresses separated by three centuries of history went face to face for the first time in Venice on Wednesday in an exhibition devoted to French painter Edouard Manet with his "Olympia" alongside Titian's "Venus of Urbino". Manet completed his painting of a prostitute being waited on by a black maid in 1863 -- a controversial masterpiece which caused a stir at the time but was largely inspired by old master Titian's own ground-breaking work from 1538.

Manet to be united with kindred painting in Venice

Agence France-PresseFebruary 27, 2013 14:16

Edouard Manet's "Olympia" will go on display with a kindred painting next month in Venice, in the work's much anticipated first trip out of Paris since 1890, France's Musee d'Orsay said Wednesday. "Exceptionally, and for the first time, I asked the President of the Republic to lend out the Olympia, which belongs to France's heritage," museum president Guy Cogeval told AFP.

Art collector says he found head from Courbet's explicit nude

Thomson ReutersFebruary 7, 2013 16:30

By Marine Pennetier PARIS, Feb 7 (Reuters) - A French art collector claims to have found the head from the nude body that appears in a famously explicit 19th Century oil painting of a woman's genitalia. Art expert Jean-Jacques Fernier, who has studied the works of Gustave Courbet for years, told Reuters he believed an unsigned painting of a woman's head, featured in this week's Paris Match magazine, had been cut off his masterpiece "The Origin of the World".

Antique shop painting could be worth $53 million

Agence France-PresseFebruary 7, 2013 14:30

A French art expert believes he has solved the mystery of the model in a celebrated 19th century painting as a result of an art lover's 1,400 euro antique shop purchase that could turn out to be worth 40 million euros ($53.6 million), weekly Paris Match reported on Thursday. "The Origin of the World" (1866) by French painter Gustave Courbet depicts female genitalia but does not show the woman's face.