Las señoritas a la orilla del Sena

Courbet showed this at the Paris Salon of 1857 and it caused an immediate stir. Two women lie sprawled on the grass by the Seine on a hot afternoon, and to viewers of the time everything about them read as modern and improper. The one in front has stripped down to her underclothes and stares out drowsily, her expensive dress spread beneath her. Respectable ladies did not lounge like this in public, and many in the crowd decided the pair were kept women or worse. Courbet knew exactly what he was doing. Instead of the ideal nude Salon audiences expected, he gave them two real Parisiennes on a real riverbank, down to the little boat moored behind them.