You might not know her name, but you are likely to be acquainted with Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, aka Madame X, the subject of one of the most talked-about portraits of all time and certainly the one that is inseparable from the lore surrounding its creator, John Singer Sargent.
The artist, an expat American, is the subject of a sumptuous exhibition at The Met, “Sargent and Paris,” which brings to life many characters of the Belle Epoch bon ton, including Dr. Pozzi, posed sensually in a cardinal-red dressing gown, and the long-fingered artist Paul Helleu his wife Alice Guérin en plain air. But it is Madame Gautreau who steals the show. Sargent was not alone in being fascinated by this Louisiana-born beauty with an aquiline face and marble-white skin who rouged her ears (which would be a hallmark of Diana Vreeland’s style as well), and dressed in the latest fashions. Maison Félix is believed to be responsible for the black, body-caressing dress she wears in the Sargent painting. While the dress clings, the portrait—later repainted— showed one of its jeweled shoulder straps slipped off La Gautreau’s shoulder. When the artwork debuted at the Salon of 1884, contemporary viewers associated that “wardrobe malfunction” with lasciviousness.
Today, Madame X might be considered a succès de scandale, but at the time, the response was one of overwhelming opprobrium, which, wrote Hamish Bowles in his 1999 deep dive into the Sargent/Gautreau affair, “almost ruined two lives.” Two lives that are now intertwined in perpetuity. Ars longa... |
