La Dame aux éventails (Woman with Fans), 1873
Édouard Manet. © Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Currently on view in Gallery 201.
In Woman with Fans (1873) Édouard Manet depicts Nina de Callias, host of one of the most prominent salons in Paris. He captures not only her eccentric personality but also her unconventional tastes. Dressed in a North African-style costume reclining in front of a Japanese screen adorned with fans, de Callias embodies bohemian Paris’s fascination with the art and objects of other cultures.
Join Megan True, curatorial assistant, and Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Curator of Japanese Art, for a 30-minute conversation exploring the story behind this captivating portrait and its inspiration in Japanese art.
This 30-minute program offers deep dive on a single topic featuring experts from across the museum.
Woman with Fans is currently on loan from the Musée d’Orsay and can be seen in Gallery 201. You can explore Japanese prints like the ones that inspired Manet in Transitory Beauty: Japanese Fan Prints, on view in Gallery 107.
Utagawa Hiroshige
Utagawa Hiroshige
About the Speakers
Janice Katz, Roger L. Weston Curator of Japanese Art, joined the Art Institute in 2003 and curates the museum’s quarterly exhibitions of Japanese prints in Gallery 107. She has curated several major exhibitions, including Painting the Floating World: Ukiyo-e Masterpieces from the Weston Collection (2018) and, recently, Radical Clay: Contemporary Women Artists from Japan (2023). Her publications include Japanese Paintings in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: 2003) and Beyond Golden Clouds: Japanese Screens from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Saint Louis Art Museum (2009). Janice received her PhD from Princeton University in 2004. Her research focuses on paintings from the Edo period (1615–1868) and the history of art collecting in Japan.
Megan True is a curatorial assistant in the department of Painting and Sculpture of Europe at the Art Institute of Chicago. She earned degrees from Butler University and the George Washington University where she specialized in 19th-century French art. She has previously held positions at the Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, and the Dallas Museum of Art.
If you have any questions about programming, please reach out to museum-programs@artic.edu.
Closed captioning will be available for this program. For questions related to accessibility accommodations, please email access@artic.edu.
