Laure (art model)

Laure was an art model in France known for her work with artist Édouard Manet. She is best known for posing as the black maid offering the white nude figure a bouquet of flowers in Manet's 1863 painting "Olympia".
Art modeling.
Laure has been described as African or Caribbean, her last name is unknown. Art historian Griselda Pollock suggested that she met the artist Édouard Manet while working as a nursemaid in the Tuileries Garden in Paris. Manet's notebook, included in the 2019 exhibition "Le Modèle noir, de Géricault à Matisse" at the musee d'Orsay in Paris, recorded her address at 11, rue de Vintimille in Paris. 
Laure also appeared in Manet's painting "Children in the Tuileries Garden (1861-62)". In both "Olympia" and "Children in the Tuileries Garden" paintings she is wearing the same outfit of a pink dress with a high white collar and a madras headtie. It is not known whether she was ever painted by other artists during that period.
Contemporary depictions.
Elizabeth Colomba's 2018 painting "Laure (Portrait of a Negresse)" depicts Laure on her way to Manet's studio. Colomba's painting was included in the exhibition "Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today", alongside Manet's paintings of Laure, at the Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University