“Such indecencies”

“Such indecencies”

Baudelaire, who would meet his mother at the Louvre instead of visiting her at the home of his stepfather, General Aupick, also recounts a visit to the Louvre in the company of a woman who lived by her looks: “Louise Villedieu, the five-Franc whore, having accompanied me one day to the Louvre, where she had never been before, began blushing and covering her face with her hands. And as we stood before the immortal statues and pictures she kept plucking me by the sleeve and asking how they could exhibit such indecencies in public.” I have often wondered which of the Louvre’s masterpieces provoked this courtesan’s indignation. I thought of the mysterious Gabrielle d’Estrées from the School of Fontainebleau (Richelieu, room 824), but it entered the Louvre in 1937, or Fragonard’s Bathers (Sully, room 929), but they arrived with the La Caze collection in 1869. Although Watteau’s Diana at her Bath (Sully, room 917) made it to the Louvre in 1977 only, Boucher’s Diana Bathing, acquired in 1852, would fit (Sully, room 919). But I would be willing to bet on Correggio’s Venus and Cupid with a Satyr, which comes from the old royal collection, now in the Grande Galerie (Denon, room 712). In Baudelaire’s time, I believe, the painting hung in the Salon Carré, where many of the masterpieces crammed on the walls could have shocked the prudish Louise Villedieu.