L'Origine du monde

L'Origine du monde (French pronunciation: [lɔʁiʒin dy mɔ̃d], "The Origin of the World") is a picture painted in oil on canvas by the French painter Gustave Courbet in 1866. It is a close-up view of the vulva and abdomen of a naked woman, lying on a bed with legs spread.

History

Identity of the model

Art historians have speculated for years that Courbet's model for L'Origine du monde was his favourite model, Joanna Hiffernan, also known as Jo. Her lover at the time was the American painter James Whistler, a friend of Courbet.

Hiffernan was the subject of a series of four portraits by Courbet titled Jo, la belle Irlandaise (Jo, the beautiful Irishwoman) painted in 1865–66. The possibility that she was the model for L'Origine du monde or that she was having an affair with Courbet might explain Courbet's and Whistler's brutal separation a short while later. In spite of Hiffernan's red hair contrasting with the darker pubic hair of L'Origine du monde, the hypothesis continues that Hiffernan was the model. Redhead Jacky Colliss Harvey puts forward the idea that the woman's body hair suggests a more obvious candidate might be the brunette painted with Hiffernan in Courbet's Le Sommeil; and that the identification with Hiffernan has been greatly influenced by the eroticised and sexualised image of the female redhead.