Young Lady in 1866, Edouard Manet

Victorine Meurent, a french painter and Manet's daringly iconic model for paintings like Olympia and Luncheon on the Grass, enchanted viewers in this painting from 1866, in an intimate and alluring silk dressing gown. This time she was seen as comparatively demure. Critics used to joke that Manet spent more time on slippers than heads, yet this one is evenly completed. Recent scholars have decoded this painting to be symbolic of the five senses: smell from nosegay flowers, taste from oranges; hearing through a parrot companion; sight via monocle held by Meurent herself representing Touch too! Victorine was well regarded as an artist--and 1875 was memorable not only due to Manet’s Rejection at Salon Jury Trials but also because Victoine first submitted work under her own name which got accepted into them- making art history shine brighter ever since then.