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In 1866, maverick French artist Gustave Courbet painted one of the most iconic images in the history of art: a sexually explicit portrait of a woman’s exposed genitals—no head, no arms, and no legs. Audaciously titled “L’Origine du monde” (“The Origin of the World”), the scandalous painting was kept hidden for a century and a half. By the time of its public unveiling in 1995, the trailblazing masterpiece had reached mythic proportions. Today, it hangs in the world-renowned Orsay Museum in Paris, viewed by millions of visitors a year.
L’Origine is a novel that traces the true story of the painting’s remarkable journey through the centuries and the colorful cast of characters whose paths it crossed. It is an unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas and nefarious Nazi captains.
As the first copyist authorized by the Orsay Museum to recreate Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World”, I was thrust into the painting’s intimate orbit, spending six weeks replicating every fold, crevice, and pubic hair. The experience inspired me to share my escapades and recount the painting’s fascinating journey as it passed from hand to hand. The result is a superbly researched work of historical fiction that is more than a riveting romp through history—it is also an examination of society’s complex relationship with the female body.
L’Origine is a novel that traces the true story of the painting’s remarkable journey through the centuries and the colorful cast of characters whose paths it crossed. It is an unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas and nefarious Nazi captains.
As the first copyist authorized by the Orsay Museum to recreate Gustave Courbet’s “The Origin of the World”, I was thrust into the painting’s intimate orbit, spending six weeks replicating every fold, crevice, and pubic hair. The experience inspired me to share my escapades and recount the painting’s fascinating journey as it passed from hand to hand. The result is a superbly researched work of historical fiction that is more than a riveting romp through history—it is also an examination of society’s complex relationship with the female body.
what people are saying about 'L'origine'
"L’Origine got me hooked - what a story! Milgrom brings the reader right along with her on her adventures as the copyist of one of the most well-known paintings in all of France and maybe even the world. It's not one more of these books about people coming to France and fixing up an old farmhouse.... "
HARRIET WELTY ROCHEFORT
Author of "French Fried, "French Toast", and "Joie de Vivre"
"This book has all the basic ingredients. A scandalous piece of art–fashioned in 1866, decades ahead of trend–that reproduces the most intimate portrait of a female model ever conceived, commissioned for a male client, for his eyes only. How had it survived over the subsequent years? Without doubt all who regarded the work were moved emotionally and many understood its place in art history. It is such a colorful story that it deserves this fictional gloss to arc and allow the narrative to flow rather than a cold non-fiction art historian approach. It is startling to see the power women have over male libido even when women lacked authority and status as human beings to control their own destinies. This plays into the growing liberation of female identity and respect, but true equality has yet to be achieved.
As an artist, Lilianne made for a determined investigator into the forgotten history of Courbet’s work which actually birthed her into becoming a novelist. The book conveys the power of this particular piece of art and the subject it depicts. But it also gives insight into a world of artists and creative talent that coalesced to move their ideas forward. This book gave a real sense of a less taught history, a forgotten and less frequented world which came alive through Milgrom’s words and enhanced my reading pleasure in both subject and understanding.
RICHARD LATHAM
Top tier Goodreads reviewer
“L'Origine is immediately engaging and an amazingly fresh story about such a famous painting."
GORDON McCLELLAN
Founder, Dartfrog Books
L’Origine is, indeed, an apt title for Lilianne Milgrom’s debut novel, since it is the painting itself—L’Origine du Monde—that is the heroine of this vividly-written, well-researched, and highly compelling book. Part historical fiction, part personal journey, L’Origine tells the story of “the world’s most erotic masterpiece” and its effect on those who tried to capture it, in one way or another—including Milgrom herself. The notorious little painting is, above all, a survivor. Its page-turning odyssey, told in richly textured prose, is an original story well-worth reading.
Barbara Linn Probst, award-winning author of
Queen of the Owls: A Novel
Lilianne Milgrom has produced a vivid and well-told novel that tells the story of one of the more notorious paintings in the history of art. Immaculately researched and full of verve, the book is a real achievement, one which I read it with fascination and admiration.
Milgrom's story of Courbet's masterpiece is prefaced with a tale of her own: how she spent several weeks in the Musee D'Orsay making a painted copy of Courbet's original L'Origine du monde painting, under the curious and sometimes lascivious eye of other museum goers.
Five stars.
CHRISTOPHER P. JONES
Art historian and author, UK
"Throughout history, female sexuality has been regarded as ugly, repulsive, and shameful while simultaneously revered to the point of idolization. Lilianne Milgrom's intimate experience with Gustave Courbet's scandalous painting gives testament to the classic divide of women's cultural representation.”
DR. BELLA ELWOOD-CLAYTON
Sexual anthropologist, author and TED talk presenter.
Scroll to the bottom of the page to see a short video filmed during Lilianne's stint as a copyist in Paris.
(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)
(WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT)
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