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TOURISM

New guide to Paris museums – showing only the nudes

There are lots of guides to the visual splendours of Paris' museums and art galleries - but for those with a short attention span comes a new one, showing only nude or erotic artworks.

Published: 22 July 2021 13:05 CEST
Updated: 25 July 2021 12:07 CEST
New guide to Paris museums - showing only the nudes
Find your way straight to the most erotic works in Paris galleries. Photo: Guiseppe Cacace/AFP

The online guides to the Louvre and Musée d’Orsay museums are produced by the porn website Pornhub and provide a list of the best erotic artworks in each museum, plus directions of how to get there – so you don’t need to waste your time looking at paintings of people in clothes.

The Classic Nudes series has been ruffling some feathers since it was posted online earlier in July, with the Uffizi museum in Florence threatening to sue. Bosses at the Louvre have said only that they are ‘dismayed’, while the Musée d’Orsay has remained silent on the subject.

The guide for the Musée d’Orsay lists 11 erotic artworks, together with a tongue-in-cheek commentary, and a location for each piece within the museum.

The Sleep by Gustave Courbet. Photo by FRANCOIS GUILLOT / AFP

Among the works featured are;

  • Le déjeuner sur l’herbe by Edouard Manet (1863) – which features a group having a picnic in which the woman has lost her clothes (the men remain fully dressed in three-piece suits and ties).
  • Un combat des coqs by Jean-Léon Gérôme (1846) – a nude couple watching a cock fight (that’s cockerels fighting, just to be clear).
  • L’origine du monde by Gustave Courbet (1866) – more than 150 years after it was first painted, the intimate close-up of female genitalia is still making waves. In 2019 Facebook had to pay damages to a French teacher whose account was closed when he posted a picture of the famous artwork.

The guide for the Louvre includes:

Nude young Man by Hippolyte Flandrin. Photo by KENZO TRIBOUILLARD / AFP
  • Portrait of Madeleine by Marie Guillemine Benoist (1800) – groundbreaking in several senses, this painting is one of the few on the list by a woman, and shows a topless black woman, painted just six years after the abolition of slavery in France’s colonies. 
  • Diane sortant du bain by François Boucher (1742) – one of many paintings on the list showing women having a bath, this features the Greek goddess Diana and her favourite nymph apparently surprised by the artist in the process of drying off after a bath. 
  • Le Jeune homme nu by Hippolyte Flandrin (1835) – most of the flesh shown in both the galleries is female (because that’s the patriarchy for you) but here we have a more rare male nude, a study of a young man sitting and looking rather sad and pensive.

As is hopefully clear, the Pornhub guides are explicit in nature and not suitable for children.

Both museums, however, form a great day out for all the family and contain a lot of fully-clothed artwork too. At present both are operating reduced visitor numbers due to health rules, so advance booking to recommended.

IN DETAIL: When do France’s top tourist sites reopen?

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PARIS

Fluffy nuisance: Outcry as Paris sends Invalides rabbits into exile

Efforts to relocate wild rabbits that are a common sight on the lawns of the historic Invalides memorial complex have provoked criticism from animal rights groups.

Published: 14 February 2024 13:01 CET
Fluffy nuisance: Outcry as Paris sends Invalides rabbits into exile

Tourists and Parisians have long been accustomed to the sight of wild rabbits frolicking around the lawns of Les Invalides, one of the French capital’s great landmarks.

But efforts are underway to relocate the fluffy animals, accused of damaging the gardens and drains around the giant edifice that houses Napoleon’s tomb, authorities said.

Police said that several dozen bunnies had been captured since late January and relocated to the private estate of Breau in the Seine-et-Marne region outside Paris, a move that has prompted an outcry from animal rights activists.

“Two operations have taken place since 25 January,” the police prefecture told AFP.

“Twenty-four healthy rabbits were captured on each occasion and released after vaccination” in Seine-et-Marne, the prefecture said.

Six more operations are scheduled to take place in the coming weeks.

Around 300 wild rabbits live around Les Invalides, according to estimates.

“The overpopulation on the site is leading to deteriorating living conditions and health risks,” the prefecture said.

Authorities estimate the cost of restoring the site, which has been damaged by the proliferation of underground galleries and the deterioration of gardens, pipes and flora, at €366,000.

Animal rights groups denounced the operation.

The Paris Animaux Zoopolis group said the rabbits were being subjected to “intense stress” or could be killed “under the guise of relocation”.

“A number of rabbits will die during capture and potentially during transport,” said the group, accusing authorities of being “opaque” about their methods.

The animal rights group also noted that Breau was home to the headquarters of the Seine-et-Marne hunting federation.

The police prefecture insisted that the animals would not be hunted.

In 2021, authorities classified the rabbits living in Paris as a nuisance but the order was reversed following an outcry from animal groups who have been pushing for a peaceful cohabitation with the animals.

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