Victorine Meurant by her bath

Victorine Meurant was best known as a model for artists including Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Thomas Couture during the 1860's. She was Manet's first and favourite model and was the model for the central nude figures in his controversial paintings Olympia and Le déjeuner sur l'herbe (Musée d'Orsay, Paris). Goeneutte painted her often; she is represented in 'La femme au Singe', now lost, utterly drunk, a bottle in her hand. The Musée Carnavalet, Paris, has an engraving of the present work (13.9 x 9.8 cm, inv. G14299). A student of Isidore Pils at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (1871-1875), Goeneutte made his debut at the Salon of 1876. Although he was associated with Manet, Degas and Renoir, and his work was influenced by them, for instance in the informality of his compositions, he never exhibited with the Impressionist group. He was a founderof the 'Expositions des Peintres-Graveurs'.