Easy Virtue

19 Feb — 19 Jun 2016 at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands

28 November 2015

Charles Carolus-Duran, Portrait of Julia Tahl known as Mademoiselle Alice de Lancey, 1876, Oil on canvas, 60 × 83 in. (152.5 × 211 cm) Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris

Charles Carolus-Duran, Portrait of Julia Tahl known as Mademoiselle Alice de Lancey, 1876, Oil on canvas, 60 × 83 in. (152.5 × 211 cm) Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris, Paris

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam presents Easy Virtue. Prostitution in French Art, 1850-1910, an exhibition exploring the visual representation of prostitution in French art that will go on display in the Museum’s newly reopened exhibition wing from 19 February to 19 June 2016.

During the second half of the 19th century, prostitution was a popular subject of the visual arts, particularly in Paris. Women soliciting on the boulevards, wealthy courtesans in their salons and the prematurely aged prostitutes in brothels were all depicted as aspects of modern life, though complex and controversial. Visitors to this exhibition will see the public face of prostitution in the dance halls and cafés of Paris where courtesans solicited for business, as well as the darker, hidden world of the city’s brothels and prisons.

The exhibition will feature more than 100 paintings and works on paper by some of the most important artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, including Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pablo Picasso and Vincent Van Gogh. Loans from international museums and private collections such as Jean-Louis Forain’s The Customer will hang alongside works from the Museum’s own collection, including In the Café: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin by Vincent Van Gogh.

Also on display will be a number of intriguing and unusual objects from the era, including furniture from the opulent mansion owned by La Païva, perhaps the most famous Parisian courtesan, as well as an extravagant bed decorated with figures of Venus and angels probably once installed in a Paris brothel, and a 19th-century police register with photographs of convicted prostitutes.

Easy Virtue. Prostitution in French Art, 1850-1910 is a collaboration between the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and Mususée d’Orsay in Paris, where it is presented under the title Splendeurs et misères until 17 January 2016.

Van Gogh Museum

Van Gogh Museum

The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam houses the largest collection of art works by Vincent van Gogh in the world.

Location

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon: The Couch, 1893, oil and ‘essential oil paint’ on cardboard, 23 ½ × 31 ½ in., São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand

Bed, after 1860, painted, gilt and carved wood, Ville de Neuilly-sur-Seine. Photo: Jan-Kees Steenman

Jean-Louis Forain, The Customer, 1878, watercolour and gouache on paper, 9 ¾ × 12 ¾ in., collection of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis

Louis Anquetin, Woman on the Champs-Élysées, at Night, 1891, oil on canvas, 32 ¾ × 39 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (purchased with the support of the BankGiro Loterij and the Rembrandt Association)

František Kupka, Gallien’s Girl, 1909–10, oil on canvas, 42 ½ × 38 ¾ in., Prague, Národní Gallery. The Kupka image is NOT free of copyright. Please, settle copyrights with the copyright authority in your own country

Vincent van Gogh, In the Café: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin., 1887, oil on canvas, 21 ¾ × 18 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon: The Couch, 1893, oil and ‘essential oil paint’ on cardboard, 23 ½ × 31 ½ in., São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand
Bed, after 1860, painted, gilt and carved wood, Ville de Neuilly-sur-Seine. Photo: Jan-Kees Steenman
Jean-Louis Forain, The Customer, 1878, watercolour and gouache on paper, 9 ¾ × 12 ¾ in., collection of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis

Louis Anquetin, Woman on the Champs-Élysées, at Night, 1891, oil on canvas, 32 ¾ × 39 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (purchased with the support of the BankGiro Loterij and the Rembrandt Association)
František Kupka, Gallien’s Girl, 1909–10, oil on canvas, 42 ½ × 38 ¾ in., Prague, Národní Gallery. The Kupka image is NOT free of copyright. Please, settle copyrights with the copyright authority in your own country
Vincent van Gogh, In the Café: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin., 1887, oil on canvas, 21 ¾ × 18 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)

Bed, after 1860, painted, gilt and carved wood, Ville de Neuilly-sur-Seine. Photo: Jan-Kees Steenman
Jean-Louis Forain, The Customer, 1878, watercolour and gouache on paper, 9 ¾ × 12 ¾ in., collection of the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, In the Salon: The Couch, 1893, oil and ‘essential oil paint’ on cardboard, 23 ½ × 31 ½ in., São Paulo, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand
František Kupka, Gallien’s Girl, 1909–10, oil on canvas, 42 ½ × 38 ¾ in., Prague, Národní Gallery. The Kupka image is NOT free of copyright. Please, settle copyrights with the copyright authority in your own country
Vincent van Gogh, In the Café: Agostina Segatori in Le Tambourin., 1887, oil on canvas, 21 ¾ × 18 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (Vincent van Gogh Foundation)
Louis Anquetin, Woman on the Champs-Élysées, at Night, 1891, oil on canvas, 32 ¾ × 39 ¼ in., Amsterdam, Van Gogh Museum (purchased with the support of the BankGiro Loterij and the Rembrandt Association)

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