Spendours and miseries. Images of prostitution in France, 1850 -1910

From the scandalous Olympia by Manet to Degas’s The Absinthe Drinker, from Toulouse-Lautrec and Munch’s forays into brothels to the bold figures and caricature portraits of Rouault, van Dongen, and Picasso, this book foregrounds how the shadowy domain of prostitution played a central role in the development of modern painting.

In nine chapters, these paintings, sculptures, lithographs, sketches, photographs, and press clippings are given context within the moral framework of an era when prostitution was considered an unavoidable—or enticing—evil, powerfully evoking the ambivalent place held by prostitutes in the midst of nascent modernity, from the splendours of the demimondaines to the miseries of the working-girl pierreuses.

The catalogue also demonstrates how the works of art are intrinsically bound to the literary works of the period.

Comprehensive appendices include a complete list of works featured in the exhibition organised by medium, a selected bibliography, and an index of names. 

'This volume brings some of the world s greatest anatomical models to light with more than 300 illustrations, and discusses them in the context of ancient ritualistic burials, Victorian curiosities and the birth of contemporary fetishism' - Art Quarterly