Gustave Courbet's 1855 masterpiece *The Artist's Studio* originally included a portrait of Jeanne Duval, the mixed-race actress and courtesan who was the muse and longtime lover of poet Charles Baudelaire. After a falling out, Baudelaire asked Courbet to remove her from the painting. Courbet painted over her figure with watercolor rather than oil, and over the past 170 years, the image of Duval has gradually reappeared as a pentimento—a ghostly trace of the erased figure.
This anecdote illuminates the intersection of art, race, and gender in 19th-century France, revealing how a woman of Caribbean descent was literally painted out of art history by the male artistic elite. The pentimento serves as a metaphor for the erasure of marginalized figures from the historical record, while the story highlights the abusive dynamics of Baudelaire's relationship with Duval and the ongoing visibility of those who were once obscured.