Alice Ozy
Artist: Thomas Couture (French, 1815-1879)
Date: about 1855
Dimensions:
H: 43 5/8 in. (110.8 cm); W: 33 1/8 in. (84 cm)
Medium: Oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley K. Levison
Object number: 1975.82
Label Text:Born Justine Pilloy, Alice Ozy (1820–1893) became a well-known Music Hall actress in Paris. She also became a famous, wealthy courtesan, counting among her ardent admirers such French luminaries as artist Gustave Doré, wrier Victor Hugo, and Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, nephew of Napoleon and future Emperor of the French.
In this intimate scene, Couture presents Ozy as a modern-day Venus seated at her dressing table combing her long hair. Since the Renaissance, the Roman Goddess of Love had often been depicted looking in a mirror (see, for example, Poussin’s Mars and Venus in the Great Gallery). Couture even attempted to capture some of the lushness of Venetian Renaissance paintings of Venus by artists like Titian and Veronese with his use of rich colors, soft modeling of the flesh, and thick dabs of highlights (see a painting by Veronese in Gallery 22). The prominent pearl earring was a traditional attribute of Venus. Look for another telling detail in the pattern of the tapestry in the background: a barely-visible flying cupid—Venus’s companion and son—seems to hover above Ozy’s head.
In this intimate scene, Couture presents Ozy as a modern-day Venus seated at her dressing table combing her long hair. Since the Renaissance, the Roman Goddess of Love had often been depicted looking in a mirror (see, for example, Poussin’s Mars and Venus in the Great Gallery). Couture even attempted to capture some of the lushness of Venetian Renaissance paintings of Venus by artists like Titian and Veronese with his use of rich colors, soft modeling of the flesh, and thick dabs of highlights (see a painting by Veronese in Gallery 22). The prominent pearl earring was a traditional attribute of Venus. Look for another telling detail in the pattern of the tapestry in the background: a barely-visible flying cupid—Venus’s companion and son—seems to hover above Ozy’s head.
On view
In Collection(s)