Not the Odalisque, acrylic and pastel, 24x18 inches, 2013

My artist mother, Suzanne Benton, asked me to pose for her series Paintings in Proust in the manner of Grande Odalisque, an 1814 oil painting by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. She discovered just how unnatural the women’s poses were in those classic paintings when her models tried to reproduce them.