Woman with a Parrot1866
A nude woman lies on a rumpled white sheet, her long hair spilling across the bed, as she raises one hand to a parrot perched on her fingers, its wings spread. More about this work
About this work
A nude woman lies on a rumpled white sheet, her long hair spilling across the bed, as she raises one hand to a parrot perched on her fingers, its wings spread. Courbet showed the painting at the Paris Salon of 1866; although less defiant than some of his earlier nudes, its frank sensuality and lack of any mythological pretext still caused a stir. The tumbling hair, twisting pose and flicker of the bird’s wings make it one of his most theatrical compositions. Manet answered it the same year with a fully clothed woman and a parrot, also in the Met.
Written by Ochre Editions.
How it was made
- Oil paint
- Pigment ground in a drying oil, usually linseed. It dries slowly, so painters could blend on the canvas, build up thin translucent glazes, and rework a picture over weeks. Canvas replaced wooden panels in the 1500s because it is lighter and can be rolled.
Gustave Courbet
French, 1819–1877 · Born in Ornans; died in La Tour-de-Peilz.
Courbet left his native Ornans for Paris and became the standard-bearer of Realism, painting ordinary people and his own region on the scale reserved for history painting, as in A Burial at Ornans. When works were refused for the 1855 Exposition Universelle, he showed them in his own Pavilion of Realism. He also painted landscapes, seascapes and hunting scenes. After the Paris Commune of 1871 he was held responsible for the toppling of the Vendôme Column and spent his last years in exile in Switzerland.
Written by Ochre Editions.
Rights and the museum’s record
Public domain. The Met has dedicated this image to the public domain under CC0, so anyone may copy, adapt and use it, for any purpose, without asking. Our prints and files are reproductions made from the museum’s image; the museum doesn’t endorse them.
- Object number
- 29.100.57
- Credit
- Courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art
- Type
- Paintings
- Department
- European Paintings
- Licence
- CC0 1.0 Universal
- Museum record
- See it on the museum’s site
