Alice Ozy

Artist Thomas Couture (French, 1815-1879)

Place of OriginFrance

Dateabout 1855

DimensionsH: 43 5/8 in. (110.8 cm); W: 33 1/8 in. (84 cm)

MediumOil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley K. Levison

Object number

1975.82

On View

Toledo Museum of Art (2445 Monroe Street), Gallery, 32

Label TextBorn 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, writer Victor Hugo, and Louis-Napoléon 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. 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.Published ReferencesBertauts-Couture, G., Thomas Couture, Paris, 1932, p. 33.

Howe, J. W., "Thomas Couture, His Career and Artistic Development," unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1951, p. 83, no. 219, pl. XI.

Bertauts-Couture, G., "Thomas Couture," Etudes d'art, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Algiers, 1955-1956, nos. 11-12, p. 191, (as Belle de la Nouvelle Orléans).

Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, European Paintings, Toledo, 1976, p. 44, pl. 216.

"La chronique des arts," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. 89, no. 1298, Mar. 1977, repr. p. 58, no. 238.

Schulze, Franz, "A Consistently Discriminating Connoisseurship," Art News, vol. 76, no. 4, Apr. 1977, p. 67.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, vol. 19, nos. 2 & 3, 1976, p. 74, repr.

Thomas Couture/Jules Desfossé: Souper à la maison d'or, Senlis, 1998, p. 42, fig. 20.

Pradié-Ottinger, Bénédicte, "Pour une rédecouverte de l'oeuvre de Thomas Couture portraitiste: à propos de la récente acquisition du portrait de 'La baronne d'Astier de la Vigerie' par le Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie de Senlis," Revue du Louvre, vol. 53, no. 2, Apr. 2003, p. 62, fig. 3, p. 64.

Thomas Couture 1815-1879: portraits d'une époque, Paris, Somogy Editions d'Art, 2003, p. 10, fig. 2.

Ravin, James G., "The cover," JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), vol. 292, no. 3, July 21, 2004, p. 310, repr. (col.) p. 301 and cover.

Exhibition HistoryBordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, La peinture française, collections américaines, 1966, no. 42, pl. 26.