THE NAKED AND THE DEAD
French scholar identifies model who posed for Gustave Courbet’s famous nude painting
She was a courtesan who relied on financial support from rich men — but preferred the company of women — and died with a reputation as an honourable patroness of orphans.
These are some of the biographical details a French scholar has unearthed to identify the model for a famous 19th-century nude painting by artist Gustave Courbet.
Constance Queniaux was 34 years old in 1866, when the French master painted L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World), says French literature expert Claude Schopp. The painting depicts a naked woman lying on her back with her legs spread and her face hidden by a rumpled sheet. The focus of the piece are her genitals.
Schopp says his discovery came by chance when he found Queniaux mentioned in a letter by French writer Alexandre Dumas fils, the son of The Three Musketeers author.
The letter says the woman whose “interior” Courbet was putting to canvas was Mademoiselle Queniaux “from the opera.” The letter also suggests she was the mistress of an Ottoman diplomat, Halil Serif Pasha, known as Khalil Bey.
Schopp had never heard of her, but immediately made the link with L’Origine du monde.
Like a detective, he followed the trail from the last name and profession clues.
He concluded she was Constance Queniaux and confirmed the conclusion with the help of France’s national library experts.
The library holds original photographs of her.
“She had left very few traces, but enough to follow her,” Schopp says.
Queniaux’s name was known to few people at the time — and that’s how the identity of the woman in the painting was hidden for about 150 years. The painting, too, remained secret as successive owners were afraid to display it.
Queniaux’s birth certificate shows she was born in northern France to a single mother who was a textile worker. The father is unknown.
At the age of 14, she joined the opera of Paris as an aspiring dancer. The wages were low and ballet dancers needed “protectors” to pay for costumes and classes, Schopp says.
“She’s going to live from men, but she mostly lives with women,” he says.
Queniaux lived for a while within a group of female dancers and comedians, but proved to be “second rank” dancer, Schopp says.
She left ballet at age 28 and became the occasional mistress of Khalil Bey.
A very wealthy art collector, he was also a womanizer.
He commissioned two paintings by Courbet, including L’Origine du monde, which he kept behind a green curtain for his private viewing pleasure.
“She couldn’t refuse anything to Khalil Bey ... and I think that’s when she’s starting her path as a woman growing rich,” Schopp says.
To pay gambling debts, Khalil Bey sold his art collection in 1868. The model for his painting eventually became an aristocratic-like figure.
At the end of her life, Queniaux’s courtesan past was almost erased. She had a rich social life, owned a seaside villa in Normandy and dedicated her days to helping orphans, poor artists’ children and disabled people.
Queniaux never married and had no children.
“Her testament obviously shows a great affection for her housemaid, so it seems she felt a special tenderness for her. But I wouldn’t go further,” Schopp says.
She died in 1908. The sale of her assets showed she owned a beautiful painting from Courbet: a bouquet of flowers.
L’Origine du monde was donated to the Orsay Museum in Paris in 1995.
(Constance Queniaux) had left very few traces, but enough to follow her.
FRENCH SCHOLAR CLAUDE SCHOPP