Young Ladies Beside the Seine

Painted in 1857 and now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Paris (Petit Palais), this large-format canvas of two bourgeois women lounging at the riverside caused a minor scandal at the 1857 Salon for its frank portrayal of fashionable women in states of disheveled leisure. The Seine riverbank setting was recognized as a site of Parisian recreation and, critics implied, moral laxity; the women's pose — one reclining, apparently sleeping, with their fashionable clothing loosened and strewn — was read as suggesting post-romantic torpor. Zola later discussed it as an anticipation of the Impressionists' interest in modern leisure. The painting stands as an important precursor to Manet's Déjeuner sur l'Herbe (1863) in its willingness to depict contemporary women in informal outdoor settings.

The large horizontal format exploits the relaxed horizontal axes of the reclining figures against the flat Seine background. Fashionable mid-Second Empire dress — heavy silk, elaborate trimmings — is rendered with the material precision of Courbet's best still-life work. The loose, undone quality of the women's hair and clothing required careful observation of fabric behavior when arranged informally.