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Martial Raysse loves women, their mysterious gaze, their elegant clothes. The artist has portrayed all kinds of women: friends, unknown women, famous divas… including the immortal women of old master paintings. In 1964, he copied The Great Odalisque, painted by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres in 1815, which shows a completely nude, anonymous and beautiful woman with an elongated spine, who is reclining in a harem. Martial Raysse selected that nameless woman and made a pop version of her. He reinterpreted her using gaudy colours, discarded fabrics and small plastic objects. This unique and inimitable icon of beauty became a reproduction, reflecting the spirit of the 1960s when the label ‘made in Japan’ was synonymous with modernity and innovation. In the Odalisque, there is a fly. What does it mean? The fly traditionally represents lost beauty and the sudden and unforeseeable nature of death. But Raysse’s fly is a toy, a small plastic object that instead of making us think about the vanity of life, makes us laugh!