This is John Singer Sargent’s “Madame X” (1884). Although it doesn’t look remotely controversial today, when it was exhibited at 1884 Paris Salon, the public were so shocked & disgusted that Sargent moved out of the country, and his model’s reputation never recovered.
Thread!
The sitter was the socialite Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau, wife of the French banker Pierre Gautreau.
Gautreau was an American expatriate, known in Paris as a ‘professional beauty’, meaning she used her looks to advance her social status - which she did exceptionally well
Her husband was much older than she was and very wealthy. Paris was awash with rumours about her multiple infidelities, but the social elite clamoured to be around her, nonetheless.
Artists were particularly fascinated by her. The painter Edward Simmons once wrote that he ‘could not stop stalking her as one does a deer.’
John Singer Sargent was an ambitious American artist who made his name with his work in portraiture. He was desperate to paint Gautreau, believing a painting of her would make his name.
