Night creatures: Women in Paris 1850-1900

By the end of the 1800s, women in Paris received more rights, and the approach of darkness became the ideal cover for their various activities, from innocent to illegal. The public feared the transition of the role of women from motherhood to independence. These feelings were played out in popular media and visual arts, and artists used their work to express individual and national anxieties.

The works presented in this gallery by artists such as Edouard Manet, Eugene Grasset and Odilon Redon, reflect these fears through the nature of the femme fatale.