L'Origine du Monde

The story goes that a Turkish diplomat arrived in Paris. He'd been the former ambassador of the Ottoman Empire in Athens and Saint Petersburg, and in Paris was able to cultivate his taste for gambling and erotic fine art. His collection included Le Bain Turc (The Turkish Bath) from Ingres and a painting by Gustave Courbet, Les Dormeuses (The Sleepers). In Paris, this diplomat, Khalil Bey, comissioned from Courbet, what would become one of (if not the) most explicit images made on canvass. This painting offers a gynecological view of a woman's open legs, and her delicate labia surrounded by a thicket of dark pubic hair. It's name, classic for its simplicity, directness, and also irony: "L'Origine du Monde," or "The Origin of the World."

It is said that the model for painting was a woman named Joanna Hiffernan or "Jo." Jo happened to be the girlfriend of another painter, the American James Whistler, who is perhaps best known for the stoic image, "Whistler's Mother." Some say the two painters had a falling out after the release of "L'Origine."

Only two years after commissioning the painting, the Turkish diplomat lost his fortune by gambling. At the sale of the Khalil Bey collection in 1868, the painting was bought up by antique dealer Antoine de la Narde. The very next year, Edmond de Goncourt hit upon it in an antique shop in 1889, hidden behind a wooden pane decorated with the painting of a castle or a church in a snowy landscape.

A couple decades passed, until Hungarian collector Baron Ferenc Hatvany bought it at the Bernheim-Jeune gallery in 1910 and took it with him to Budapest. Towards the end of WWII, the painting was looted by Soviet troops but ransomed back by Hatvany. When he emigrated, he was allowed to take only one art work with him. He took L'Origine full circle to Paris.

In 1955, L’Origine du monde was sold at auction for 1.5 million francs. Its new owner was the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He installed it in his country house in Guitrancourt. Lacan asked his stepbrother to build a double bottom frame to hide the painting behind another picture. His step brother, the painter Andre Masson, painted a surrealist, allusive version of L’Origine du monde.

After Lacan died in 1981, the French Minister of Economy and Finances agreed to settle the family’s inheritance tax bill through the transfer of the work (dation en lieu in French law) to the Musée d'Orsay. The act was finalized in 1995. Since 1996, the painting has been on public display.

According to postcard sales, L’Origine du monde is the second most popular painting in the Musée d’Orsay.

"Thanks to Courbet's great virtuosity and the refinement of his amber colour scheme, the painting escapes pornographic status," states the Musee d'Orsay. "The Origin of the World, now openly displayed, has taken its proper place in the history of modern painting. But it still raises the troubling question of voyeurism." Apparently, it also provokes some exploration of exhibitionism, too.

Here's a fantastic contribution of a tribute to Courbet's famous work of art.