Odalisque

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 24 x 32 cm (9.4 x 12.6 in)
Signed: Picot 1829

Typical of his smaller, more intimate works, is the small Leda and the Swan from 1829, in which he certainly used our Odalisque as his model. Unlike Picot’s Leda, who lying recumbent in a wooded glade has abandoned herself to the embrace of Jupiter disguised as a Swan, our Odalisque is still fired by passion, perhaps just released from the embrace of her lover, who is invisible to the viewer. No wood nymph, this Odalisque is stretched out upon on an elegant bed covered with a fashionable gold and black fabric, an empty goblet lies on its side upon a fine antique style tripod table, attesting perhaps to the heady influence of wine.