L'Origine

The Secret Life of the World's Most Erotic Masterpiece

by Lilianne Milgrom

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Pub Date Jul 28 2020 | Archive Date Oct 15 2020

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Arts & Photography | Historical Fiction

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Description

The riveting odyssey of one of the world's most scandalous works of art.

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. Audaciously titled L'Origine du monde (The Origin of the World), the scandalous painting was kept hidden for a century and a half. Today, it hangs in the world-renowned Orsay Museum in Paris, viewed by millions of visitors a year.

As the first artist authorized by the Orsay Museum to re-create Courbet's The Origin of the World, author Lilianne Milgrom was thrust into the painting's intimate orbit, spending six weeks replicating every fold, crevice, and pubic hair. The experience inspired her to share her story and the painting's riveting clandestine history with readers beyond the confines of the art world.

L'Origine is an entertaining and superbly researched work of historical fiction that traces the true story of the painting's unlikely tale of survival, replete with French revolutionaries, Turkish pashas, and nefarious Nazi captains. But L'Origine is more than a riveting romp through history-it also sheds light on society's complex relationship with the female body.

The riveting odyssey of one of the world's most scandalous works of art.

In 1866, maverick French artist Gustave Courbet painted one of the most iconic images in the history of art: a sexually...

Advance Praise

"""What a gorgeous, captivating novel: a tour de force! Who knew that a painting’s provenance could make for such a profoundly moving and thought-provoking page-turner; I couldn’t read fast enough and at the same time didn’t want to reach the end. Milgrom has written a masterpiece worthy of the iconic Gustave Courbet painting that lies at the heart of L’Origine.""

JOAN DEMPSEY

Author of the award-winning novel, This Is How It Begins.

""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""

“L'Origine is immediately engaging and an amazingly fresh story about such a famous painting.""

GORDON McCLELLAN

Founder, Dartfrog Books

""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.

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