Paris Museum Puts Édouard Manet on Mock Trial for Painting a Scandalous Scene of a Nude Woman

“The Luncheon on the Grass” caused a stir when it made its debut in 1863. A century and a half later, students defended the French artist against obscenity charges

Ella Feldman | Daily Correspondent

October 8, 2025

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The title of Édouard Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe (The Luncheon on the Grass in English) sounds innocent enough, but the 1863 painting generated quite the scandal in 19th-century Paris.

In the artwork, two men in suits are leisurely sprawled across a grassy alcove near a basket of fruit, seemingly engaged in conversation. Behind them, a half-dressed woman kneels beside a river. Picnicking with the trio is a completely nude woman seen from the side, her gaze fixed on the viewer.

The jury of Paris’ 1863 Salon, an event hosted annually or biannually by the Académie des Beaux-Arts to celebrate the finest paintings and sculptures in the Western world, rejected Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe. Instead, the painting was exhibited at the Salon des Refusés, a rival event planned by Napoleon III that featured many of the official salon’s rejects.

There, Manet’s bucolic scene became the talk of the town. It was divisive—some were scandalized by the painting’s casual nudity, while others responded with laughter, notes the Musée d’Orsay, the Paris museum that houses the oil on canvas. The painting also had its defenders, among them the novelist and journalist Émile Zola, who said it was no more scandalous than many works hanging in the Louvre.

In the intervening years, the painting’s defenders have drowned out its detractors. Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe is widely acknowledged as one of Manet’s greatest works. It has also been the subject of interpretation and reinterpretation by art historians, who have debated the painting’s meaning amid little indication from Manet himself.

Earlier this month, that debate took the form of a theatrical mock trial in the Orsay’s auditorium. The event, which put students playing Manet and his nude model Victorine Meurent on trial for obscenity, was part of the Orsay Live program aimed at 18- to 25-year-olds. The trial was the idea of Sylvain Amic, the former president of the Musée d’Orsay and the Musée de l’Orangerie, who died in August, reports ARTNews’ Sarah Belmont.

Students from a debate club made their cases in character before a sitting judge, with the help of three lawyers, one of whom acted as a prosecutor. The individual portraying Meurent “asserted her right to nudity and, more broadly, to women’s emancipation,” ARTnews writes, while her lawyer argued that the nude body seen in the painting might not belong to the model, even if the figure’s face is identifiable as her. Students playing Zola and artist Gustave Courbet spoke out against artistic censorship. Ultimately, the judge ruled that the offense of public outrage had been proved but instructed Manet to continue painting.

“The idea of a mock trial is both interesting and enriching, as it allows art and law—two worlds that seem to be opposed at first glance—to enter into dialogue,” event attendee Julie de Lassus Saint Génies, a lawyer who specializes in intellectual property, tells ARTnews.

The mock trial was held in collaboration with the feminist organization Fondation des Femmes. As Anne-Cécile Mailfert, the foundation’s president, says in a statement, the event’s location made it all the more relevant, as the Orsay’s collections come from this period when women were fighting for their rights during the 19th century.

The feminist merits—or lack thereof—of Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe have long been of interest to art historians, who have debated whether the depiction of the nude woman is empowering or degrading, as Artsy’s Alina Cohen wrote in 2019. Some have interpreted the painting as a representation of prostitution, which was taboo but prevalent in Paris at the time.

In its official description of the painting, the Orsay notes that Manet was inspired by European old masters, like Titian’s Le Concert Champêtre (The Pastoral Concert) and Marcantonio Raimondi’s engraving after Raphael’s The Judgment of Paris. Yet Le Déjeuner sur l’Herbe continues to capture modern audiences, both in the museum’s auditorium and beyond.

“It’s up to us to make sense of it according to our own priorities and interpretations,” art historian Steven Z. Levine told Artsy in 2019, adding that the painting “remains precious to us because it gives us the chance to reflect ourselves. We learn about ourselves by writing about the work of art.”

The next Orsay Live programs listed on the museum’s website include an event celebrating the sculptor, animal lover and vegetarian Paul Troubetzkoy; an evening dedicated to sculpture in honor of artist Camille Claudel; and a conversation about women in art.

Ella Feldman | Read More

Ella Feldman is a journalist based in New York City. Her work has appeared in NPR, Washington City Paper, DCist and more.