La Grande Odalisque

A nude concubine reclines on cushions and turns to look back over her shoulder, her elongated spine and impossibly smooth body stretched for the sake of sinuous, sensual line, a peacock fan and hookah marking the harem setting. Ingres distorted her anatomy - critics joked she had too many vertebrae - in pursuit of pure beauty of form. Now in the Louvre, La Grande Odalisque fuses Neoclassical precision with Romantic exoticism, a cool, languorous fantasy of the Orient and one of the most famous nudes in French painting.