The women in Impressionist painting represent the full spectrum of faces of the 19th-century woman, from elite portraiture to working class scenes.Women and Impressionismexamines the avant-garde position of the Impressionists, whose paintings depicted a series of conceptual and historical shifts by depicting traditional, visual schemes with added new meanings, contributing visually to the breakthrough of the modern. The concept of "the new woman" came into existence in this confrontation of conflicting interests.Women and Impressionismbegins with an examination of two works by Manet-La Maitresse de Baudelaire couchee, 1862, and Portrait de Zacharie Astruc, 1866. The volume then traces the representation of women as it manifested in the work of the Impressionists in the 1870s and the early 1880s. The exhibition catalog includes a number of works from the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek collection as well as from prestigious international private and public institutions.

Sidsel Maria Søndergaard is curator of French painting and sculpture at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen. She is the author of Gloria Victis! Victors and Vanquished in French Art 1848-1910 (Skira, 2000).