Olympe Pélissier (9 May 1799[1] – 22 March 1878) was a French artists' model and courtesan[2] and the second wife of the Italian composer Gioachino Rossini.

[3] She was sold by her mother at age fifteen to a young duke, who installed her in a small furnished house.

Amongst her lovers, who included aristocrats, artistic and literary figures,[8] were the painters Horace Vernet[9] and Alfred d'Orsay[10] and the musician Vincenzo Bellini.

[11] The affair with Sue was longer lasting, but the relationship consisted of a frequent swing between quarrels and strong passions.

The couple lived in his house in Paris until a cholera epidemic forced them to leave the city in favour of Italy.

Even Marie d'Agoult, who had abandoned her husband to follow the musician Liszt, was sceptical: "Rossini spent the winter in Milan with Mademoiselle Pélissier and tried to introduce her into society, but no lady of class ever visited her".

[2] Guests included Alexandre Dumas fils, Eugène Delacroix, Franz Liszt, and Giuseppe Verdi.

[1] I offer these modest songs to my dear wife Olympe as a simple testimony of gratitude for the affectionate, intelligent care which she lavished on me during my overlong and terrible illness.

[13] Pélissier is a character in the 1974 French television film Eugène Sue,[18] played by Claudine Coster.