A woman has been arrested for indecent exposure after lying down naked in Paris’s Orsay museum in front of Edouard Manet’s similarly nude painting of the prostitute Olympia, her lawyer said Sunday.
Museum-goers were enjoying an exhibition entitled “Splendour and Misery: Images of Prostitution 1850-1910” when Luxembourg artist Deborah de Robertis got undressed and took on the pose of the famed Olympia.
It was not the Olympia’s first scandal: the painting of a naked woman gazing directly at the viewer created an uproar when it was shown in 1865.
It is seen as clearly depicting a prostitute, a real woman unlike the dreamy nymphs, religious or historical figures usually featured in art at the time.
However De Robertis’s naked display was a little too real for the Musée d’Orsay’s tastes.
“There were many people in front of the painting. Security guards responded well, they closed the room and asked her to get dressed,” a spokeswoman for the museum said.