Focus on this artwork and discuss the Reception.
Although the painting was not met with favour by critics when first exhibited, almost fifty years later, when the artist's reputation was well established, the Goncourt brothers wrote that "Rembrandt himself would have envied the amber color of this pale torso", while the Louvre described it as "a masterpiece of harmonious lines and delicate light".Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) described the model as having a "deep voluptuousness", yet in many ways she is presented as essentially chaste. This contradiction is apparent in many elements of the painting. The turn of her neck and the curves of her back and legs are accentuated by the fall of the metallic green draperies, the swell of the white curtain in front of her and the folds of the bed sheets and linen. However, these elements are countered by the cool tone in which her flesh is rendered as well as by elements such as the elegant black-veined marble to the left of her.Remarking on Ingres' ability to paint the human body in a unique manner, the art critic Robert Rosenblum wrote that "the ultimate effect of [The Valpinçon Bather] is of a magical suspension of time and movement—even of the laws of gravity ... the figure seems to float weightlessly upon the enamel smoothness of the surface, exerting only the most delicate pressure, and the gravitational expectations of the heaviest earthbound forms are surprisingly controverted."
chaste Rembrandt left Goncourt brothers Charles Baudelaire Louvre