In Forain's picture, the prostitutes stand and perform while the client sits and observes. The 20. generous display of flesh is posed for the inspection and pleasure of the potential buyer, the Jean-Louis confident customer, whose savoir-faire is inscribed in his sitting position: planted on a ban- Forain, The quette with his chin calmly resting on the handle of his umbrella, he resembles the suave Customer, customer in Cezanne's second Modern Olympia (fig. 7). Here the women have sprung into 1878, enthusiastic action for the customer and use the conventions of seductive flirtatiousness and gouache, coquettishness, of the aestheticized and eroticized display of the body. Unlike Degas's women, private these fleshy prostitutes have firm, round breasts, not to mention bodies that curve and taper at collection, the waist. The picture seems to rely upon an oddly current mixture of attitudes. On the one London. hand, there is old part-cliche, part-fantasy of the beautiful, sensual, enthusiastic, endlessly obliging prostitute: a Salon nude finally agreeing to go home with the libidinous male spectator (just like the man whose brain and hands are activated by Salon nudes, as shown in fig. 21, "At the Salon"). On the other hand, the most up-to-date forms of male sexual preference are recog- nized: a professional seduction is blended with the friendly and persuasive imitation of real sexual feelings. This admixture would be comforting to the libidinous man because sexuality is on sale, but its commodification is effectively masked. It is appropriate that the customer in Forain's brothel salon appears morally and socially cool and superior, and a bit detached from the whole thing, as though Cezanne's fantasies had been brought under control. 4i