Women in the 19th Century: Categories and Contradictions

by Linda Nochlin, Joëlle Bolloch

Women in the 19th Century uses classic nineteenth-century paintings to explore the role of women one hundred years ago, providing an indispensable look at the life of women and the life of the artist in their move toward modernity at the turn of the century. Twenty-four full-color plates portray nineteenth-century women by celebrated painters including Cassatt, Courbet, Daumier, Gaugin, Ingres, Manet, Millet, Morisot, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, and Whistler. Noted art critic Linda Nochlin provides context and commentary on this riveting look at women in their private and public lives. A forty-eight-page book contains analysis of each image, placing it in historical and social context. Women in the Nineteenth Century offers a stunning, unique way to trace the evolution of woman from mythological, allegorical, and religious object to worker, artist, and individual. This beautiful portfolio is produced in conjunction with the internationally acclaimed Musée d’Orsay, Paris, recognized the world over for its outstanding collection of turn-of-the-century art.

42 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 1997

About the author

Linda Nochlin was an American art historian, university professor and writer. A prominent feminist art historian, she was best known as a proponent of the question "Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?", in an essay of the same name published in 1971.

Her critical attention has been drawn to investigating the ways in which gender affects the creation and apprehension of art, as evidenced by her 1994 essay "Issues of Gender in Cassatt and Eakins". Besides feminist art history, she was best known for her work on Realism, specifically on Gustave Courbet. Complementing her career as an academic, she served on the Art Advisory Council of the International Foundation for Art Research. In 2006, Nochlin received a Visionary Woman Award] from Moore College of Art & Design.