Mademoiselle O'Murphy

A young woman lies sprawled face-down across a tumble of silken cushions on a divan, nude, relaxed, and frankly sensual, her bare limbs lit by soft daylight. Francois Boucher paints Louise O'Murphy, a teenage favorite of Louis XV, with cool, polished eroticism and exquisite attention to flesh and fabric. Now in Cologne, the picture is among the most openly carnal images of the Rococo - intimate, informal, and unidealized, a real young woman rather than a goddess, displayed for the private delectation of a courtly, pleasure-loving age.