Manet’s “Olympia” Cleared to Leave Paris for Venice

February 26th, 2013

In an unprecedented move, French President François Hollande has cleared Édouard Manet’s 1863 painting Olympia to leave the French capital for the first time since it was given to the nation in 1890.  The painting will travel to Venice for this year’s Biennale, where it will sit beside Titian’s The Venus of Urbino, which itself is legally unable to leave Italy.  “We want to show how Italian cultural models influenced Manet,” says Guy Cogeval, director at the Musée D’Orsay, where the Manet masterpiece has been on view for over 100 years.

Read more at The Art Newspaper