Woman Bitten by a Serpent is an 1847 marble sculpture by Auguste Clésinger (1814–1883), now in the musée d'Orsay in Paris. It was commissioned by the industrialist Alfred Mosselman and first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1847, where it and Thomas Couture's The Romans in their Decadence were the most commented-upon works. Clésinger had modelled his work on a life-cast of Mossellman's mistress, the demi-mondaine Apollonie Sabatier (1822–1890), later Charles Baudelaire's muse. The direct use of a life cast as the basis for a sculpture was highly controversial in the 19th century, particularly in its realism, such as the reproduction of the model's cellulite. Clésinger's friend Théophile Gautier orchestrated a response to the art critics' scandalised reviews, ensuring the sculpture's great s