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Episode details

Radio 4,4 mins

Is this the rudest painting in the world?

Radio 4 in Four

Available for over a year

Gustave Courbet's painting L'Origine du Monde, of a woman's genitals, torso, thighs and single breast, but no head, was painted 150 years ago. When the painting was acquired by the Musée d'Orsay in Paris in 1995 as payment in lieu of taxes on the Lacan estate, visitors were a little squeamish about looking at it. Viv Groskop, a huge admirer of the work, visits the museum to talk to visitors about their responses to the painting now. First broadcast on L'origine de L'Origine du monde, 25 August 2016.

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