Alias Olympia: A Woman's Search for Manet's Notorious Model and Her Own Desire

by Eunice Lipton

Eunice Lipton was a fledging art historian when she first became intrigued by Victorine Meurent, the nineteenth-century model who appeared in Edouard Manet's most famous paintings, only to vanish from history in a haze of degrading hearsay. But had this bold and spirited beauty really descended into prostitution, drunkenness, and early death―or did her life, hidden from history, take a different course altogether? Eunice Lipton's search for the answer combines the suspense of a detective story with the revelatory power of art, peeling off layers of lies to reveal startling truths about Victorine Meurent―and about Lipton herself.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Art History, Biography, History, Memoir, Victorian

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

Reviews

[Jen McRead · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this while in college and was so lucky as to have the author lecture and discuss the book with our small class of 10 students.

It is an amazing book!

[Heidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an art historian, Eunice Lipton traces the life of Victorine Meurent, the model for some of Manet's paintings, including his famous Olympia. Along the way, she intertwines her own life with fictional passages from Victorine. The sections Lipton imagines from Victorine's perspective annoyed me since there was no indication they were based on her research and rang hollow. I didn't want an imagined story of the woman but to follow the historical mystery as it unfolded. But the last quarter of the book made me sit up and read eagerly to the end when Lipton finally ran into more luck in her quest for Victorine's story. Her account of her hunt intrigued me enough to overcome the book's weaker fictional passages, and it's enough to inspire persistent research for other stories from the past.

[Debs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now that I've been to grad school and heard many a job talk and project paper from different academics, I realize that Lipton started out to write a real academic book about Manet's model as a painter in her own right, but she never found enough to make it into a full book, so it's about her "search," probably because she got the book advance and had to write something.

Oh! How cynical! But the truth is this book has stayed with me for a decade, and if I take my academic spectacles off, I still like the idea of searching for the biography of painting subjects. I guess I like gossip, no matter the time or geographic local.

[Morning Glory]

Much more about the author than the subject, which disappointed me. I really enjoy this genre, though, especially the recent Little Dancer Aged 14 by Camille Laurens.

[Matthew Clear · Rating 4 out of 5]

I devoured this book in a few days at the end of 2020 after having only dipped into it several years ago. I've always found the figure of Victorine Meurent fascinating and although disappointing that we will always be left with many lacunae that book revealed much and provoked much thought.

What I find most interesting or original, ironically, was not the exploration of the life of Victorine Meurent per se but the fascinating was that Eunice Lipton blended elements of autobiography, thriller, detective story and historical biography.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

First off I will say I found this book concept to be fascinating! It is a memoir but it reads like a nonfiction archival research journey (which is kind of my jam - the archival research bit). In the book, Eunice Lipton aims to know more about Victorine Meurent a model (woman on the cover) and a painter. What strikes Lipton is Meruent in the Olympia painting (book cover). She does not act like a typical woman of her time (or other women models in other paintings) in her pose and confident straight on stare. Thus starts a journey in discovering just who Victorine Meurent was. The interweaving of art history with unearthing a woman artists story works well. I found myself looking up paintings to see if they were real and to see what the author was talking about when she mentioned specific paintings. I struggled a little bit with the memoir portions (not really my genre of choice) and it felt like Lipton used Meurent to work through Lipton's own issues with her mother which I struggle with. The question becomes if someone whose voice you are attempting to pull out of history doesn't leave documents that can speak for them, is it your job to create their voice? I feel like the fact that I'm struggling with that kind of speaks to where I land. Overall it was an interesting read.

[Lu Hoerst · Rating 5 out of 5]

Personally, I really loved this book; I totally understand why others may not. I do think it is important to know beforehand that Victorine's accounts are written by Lipton and not an actual account for the Model herself. There are many points where Lipton writes how she feels like shes grasping at staws to find any information when she is so determined to find it. The author does feel far away at times because, in a lot of points, as a reader, I could not relate to the author at all when she talks about how privileged she is.
In total, I really did love this book. There is a lot of language that I think now could be changed especialy when it comes to race in the book, but overall I enjoyed reading Alias Olympia.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has fascinated me since I picked it up some years ago and I just reread it. I adore books about a search for something/someone in the arts that are also about the writer and her/his stories and reasons for the search. It speaks to me as an historical novelist. It's very much my experience when I search in the darkness for my character and then hear him speaking so clearly from a century before.

[Christina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting subject matter. As I read, I became increasingly engaged in the search for Victorine Meurent. I love a good mystery and her story was compelling. This book, however, is about the author's journey and relationships with her parents as well. I still am perplexed as to why and what the connection is. The author gives us some insight into her own story but it doesn't go far enough. It left me confused and frustrated.

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

An odd book: one-third author memoir, one-third imagined narration by Victorine Meurent, and one-third an account of the author's exhaustive research and tracking down of the details of Victorine Meurent's life and death. I was interested only in the last topic. I got what I'd hoped to, but skimmed some other parts.

[Sophie · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. I did enjoy this book and I think it's something that will stick with me, especially as someone studying art history. I wish she talked more about existing as a woman art historian at a unique turn in feminism -- I thought those parts were really valuable and wish there were more

[Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Self-indulgent garbage. The author couldn't find any hard facts about Olympia, so she made them up! A lot of autobiographical junk thrown in, as well. What do I care what color pubic hair the author's husband has?

[Gabrielle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This changes everything for how I’ll teach Nochlin in the future

[Lisa Francesca · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting braid of history, the biography research process, and the author's memoir. Enjoyed it, and it's not long!

[Rita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great story but you have to dig through to get to the details. Eunice Lipton did an amazing amount of work to get this story told.

[dunia · Rating 3 out of 5]

eternally grateful for eunice lipton and the research she’s done on victorine meurent. i did NOT like how this book was written lowkey pissed me off BAD. will withhold further sentiments.

[Junqi Wan · Rating 4.5 out of 5]

I was recommended this book by my first musicology teacher, Dr. W., at The Juilliard School, where I was pursuing my Master's degree in Composition. She mentioned it in an email after reading my first research paper, Women Composers: Past, Present, Future, in which I opened with the question: "Why were there no female composers?" Perhaps it was that very line that reminded her of this book and its question: "Why have there been no great women artists?"

I only finished reading the entire book almost two years later. The dreamlike prose of Lipton sometimes made me a little dizzy, yet there was so much that resonated with me, so much that I sympathized with. Her journey to Paris as a researcher, the years of digging through archives in order to reclaim a woman, to recover her from the paintings of her and the descriptions of her written by men—as Lipton suggests, none of these portray the real woman, but rather reflections of the men themselves.

Through Lipton I came to understand the struggle, the apparent purposelessness, and the constant self-doubt of research. I followed as she traced the history of this woman—this seemingly ordinary woman whose image shook her heart once, and whose fate thereafter became so intimately intertwined with her own. Is there really such a thing as reincarnation? Was the author, in some sense, searching for evidence of a previous life, as she occasionally hints? In any case, Lipton never seemed to achieve her original purpose of fully justifying Olympia. Yet perhaps the journey of research itself became that justification. Or perhaps, in the process of searching for Olympia, she herself became Olympia.

Now I understand why Dr. W. handed me this book in the first place. Perhaps I also understand why it took me until now to truly read it. Maybe I could only understand it now.

The delays inherent in education! Sometimes we laugh at them. Sometimes we sigh at fate's delicate design.

[Lilith Noir · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPOILER ALERT - The author never finds much information about Victorine Meurent, the model who posed as Olympia.
The strength of this book, for me, was the author's voice. She is a talented writer, and I would love see her try her hand at an historic novel. Instead, she inserts imaginary snippets of Victorine's life written in the first person throughout the text, which was disorienting for me since I kept losing track of whether or not I was reading historical information Lipton had dug up.

The facts, as they are, seem to be scanty, mostly lost during WWII.

Something I found odd about this whole book was that Lipton constantly reminds us that a lot of what was written about Victorine (by men, of course) was supposition, and filled with inaccuracies. But then she throws in her own fictional sections, which seems to me just as much an appropriation of the real person.

I gave it such a high star rating because of the excellent writing, and also because I love the concept of spotlighting a life in the arts as more than "just a model", since for all that we don't know, Victorine certainly was an artist in her own right. I do admire the author's effort to show her a more multifaceted, even if the missing art and paperwork made her search mostly futile.

[Shippseattle]

Eunice Lipton was a fledging art historian when she first became intrigued by Victorine Meurent, the nineteenth-century model who appeared in Edouard ...more [close] Eunice Lipton was a fledging art historian when she first became intrigued by Victorine Meurent, the nineteenth-century model who appeared in Edouard Manet's most famous paintings, only to vanish from history in a haze of degrading hearsay. But had this bold and spirited beauty really descended into prostitution, drunkenness, and early death--or did her life, hidden from history, take a different course altogether? Eunice Lipton's search for the answer combines the suspense of a detective story with the revelatory power of art, peeling off layers of lies to reveal startling truths about Victorine Meurent--and about Lipton herself. [close]

[Noha · Rating 1 out of 5]

"That's all?!" was the first thing i had to ask myself once finished reading it, i actually forced myself to continue and felt so bored during the middle, last part might be the most interesting, i was most touched by the writer's relationship with her mother and the "model" which is the main character did not seem to catch my interest that much, well.. actually the author did not find much to say and we end up running after nothing materialistic at the end, i don't know, maybe that's not the kind of book i was thinking of when i looked at the cover every time, some passages were really touching, otherwise, i call it poor.

[Joyce Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eunice Lipton, an Art Historian chronicles her search for information on Manet's model, Victorine Meurent. Ms. Lipton, parallels her search for the life of Meurent with her own childhood and career, and at the time the feminist movement. I enjoy mysteries and Lipton's academic search identifies the frustrations and challenges with academia, when you are searching for "obscure" or unavailable information. Thumbs up for her persistence in searching for the elusive Olympia.

[Sam Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recommended for me by this fantastic anthro professor and surprised me by being as amazing as she promised. Her personal journey and search for the artist also known as Manet's Olympia was a perfect example of blending autobiography and academic exploration.

[Ketija · Rating 4 out of 5]

My Art History teacher was talking about Monet one day in the class and he mentioned that he had read a great book about the model of the Olympia.
This book had a perfect about of fiction, reality, art history and a hint of detective story.

[Tammy Powley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love how autobiography is mixed with research in this book. I learned that you don't have to write boring prose to present academic-related information.

[Laura Cashavelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're a fan of this Manet painting (and the many replicas) this book is very interesting, as it tells the life of the model.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book had an interesting concept, but as the book progesses you learn that the author did not find much in her research, and the book falls a little flat.

[Matthew Brickman · Rating 1 out of 5]

A sad excuse of a book...a waste of my time.

[Jayme Levin-muriel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't relate to the author of this non-fiction book, so not really enjoyable for me.