Model For Gustave Courbet's 'The Origin Of The World' Was Just Found

The decades-long debate on who's depicted in Gustave Courbet's 1866 painting The Origin of the World has seemingly come to an end.

A French historian claims that he has inadvertently uncovered one of the most scandalous mysteries in the art history community — the identity of the nude model who posed for Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting The Origin of the World .

The painting, which features a close-up rendering of female genitalia has been called “art’s most scandalous vagina.” The model’s face isn’t exhibited in the painting and only depicts the female model from the chest down. A painting as intimate as this was naturally quite shocking for the 19th-century public.

Indeed, the painting proved stirring enough that Facebook once censored profiles that featured it, which led to a 2