The odalisque in Louis Courtat's picture is dreaming away a drowsy day, lulled by the monotonous melody of the Turkish mandolin with whose strings her slave girl toys with listless fingers. The artist was born in Paris in 1847. He was a pupil of Cabanel, and with his first exhibit at the Salon, in 1873, won his first medal. In each of the two succeeding years he took other medals which placed him in the positon known at the French exhibitions as being hors concours, or out of competition for any medals except that known as the medal of honor. In 1878 another honor fell to Courtat in the purchase by the State of his picture "Spring" which is now in the collection of the Luxembourg. "The Odalisque" was his Salon picture for 1882. "Undine" was the Salon picture of Jules Lefebvre for 1882. Since the Baron de la Motte Fouque wrote his exquisite tale, "Undine," the type was assumed a personal rather than a general character, and the "Undine" of the painters is no longer any spirit of the waves but the one spirit of the famous romance. C.A. Lenoir, the painter of "The Novel," is a Parisan, young and of rising reputation since he began to exhibit three or four years ago. Leon Perrault represents Venus enthroned in her chariot, in which she traverses her natal

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Chapter 11 Text

Louis Courtat