Robert Doisneau (1912-1994) was one of France’s most prolific and famous photographers, known for his playful, modest, and ironic images of eccentrics and his mingling of social classes in contemporary Parisian streets.  Encapsulating an element of modernism, the majority of his photographs were the products of a long wait on a street corner.  Doisneau’s photography was known as humanistic reportage, recording the details of the interactions in human life. 

La Dame Indigne was one photograph in a series of ‘art lovers’ reacting variously to a nude painting in a gallery window on the rue de Seine.  This particular photograph focuses on a middle-aged woman who seems appalled by the nude painting.  The painting dates from the late nineteenth century, when prostitutes became a major subject for artists’ work.  The nude woman’s provocative stance and costume suggests she is a prostitute.  The indignant woman directly contrasts with the prostitute in the painting.  The woman appears to be a good and proper bourgeois lady, while the prostitute seems uninhibited, daring, and risqué.  Though the photograph may have a deep, underlying message, it succeeds in capturing and providing viewers with a type of human comedy.