![Gustave Courbet - Female Nude with a Dog [1861-62]](http://farm2.staticflickr.com/1563/24222946372_f085002df4_o.jpg)
The erotic tone is created by the direct link between the woman and her dog. The affection shown for the animal is a metaphor of sensual love for the lover, the complicit spectator of the scene. Here, Courbet is subject to a number of influences. The model's pose, the drapery and the landscape in the background as well as the presence of a small dog, a symbol of fidelity, have echoes of Titian. But the young woman is not a classical beauty like a Danaë; her features are more ordinary. However, the almost perfect roundness and smoothness of her body softens the realist postulate. The image of the young woman amusing herself, unaware of the viewer, also evokes the gallant paintings of the 18th century, rediscovered by society during the Second Empire.
[Musée d’Orsay, Paris - Oil on canvas, 65 x 81 cm]