# The Woman in the Waves [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [COURBET, Gustave]() - Date: 1851-1900 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm ## Commentary Between 1864 and 1868 Courbet undertook a series of paintings of the female nude. He could not have failed to witness the triumph of Alexandre <a onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/c/cabanel/b\_venus.html'\)" href="/html/c/cabanel/b\_venus.html">Cabanel's Birth of Venus</a> \(Musée d'Orsay, Paris\) at the Salon of 1863, along with the popularity of similar representations by Cabanel's fellow academicians. Here, Courbet evokes the myth of Venus, the goddess born of the sea, but slyly subverts convention by depicting the model's underarm hair - an element of realism amplified by the almost palpable quality of her flesh. ## Related artworks - [A Burial at Ornans]() - [After Dinner at Ornans]() - [Artist at His Easel]() - [Beach near Trouville]() - [Burial at Ornans \(detail\)]() - [Cliffs at Étretat]() - [Courbet in his Cell at Sainte-Pélagie]() - [Farmers of Flagey on the Return from the Market]() - [Firemen Running to a Fire]() - [Flower Still-Life]() - [Landscape]() - [Landscape with a Dead Horse]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()