Rolla

In the spring of 1878, a month before the Paris Salon opened, its administration threw this painting out for indecency. Gervex was 26 and had already won a Salon medal, which normally spared him the jury, so the ban only drew attention. The scene comes from a poem by Alfred de Musset about a young man who has spent his last night and his last money with a girl driven to prostitution, and now it is morning. What actually scandalised viewers was not the sleeping nude but the heap of clothes in the lower right, a corset, a cane, a toppled top hat, which the painter Degas had advised Gervex to add. Shut out of the Salon, it was shown in a private gallery for months and became one of the most visited exhibitions in the city.