1 option
Strapless : John Singer Sargent and the fall of Madame X / Deborah Davis.
Fine Arts Library ND237.S3 D38 2003
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Davis, Deborah, 1952-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Sargent, John Singer, 1856-1925.
- Sargent, John Singer.
- Painters--United States--Biography.
- Painters.
- Americans.
- History.
- Artists' models.
- United States.
- France--Paris.
- Sargent, John Singer, 1856-1925. Madame X.
- Gautreau, Virginie Avegno, 1859-1915.
- Gautreau, Virginie Avegno.
- Artists' models--United States--Biography.
- Americans--France--Paris--History--19th century.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- 310 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 22 cm
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin Group, [2003]
- Summary:
- In the Early 1880s, Parisian gossip columns were bursting with news of twenty-three-year-old Virginie Amelie Gautreau, whose stunning looks and unconventional behavior had made her the city's hottest "it girl." The fame-hungry Gautreau soon met John Singer Sargent, an up-and-coming artist eager to collaborate on a portrait that would catapult them both to the pinnacle of society. Sargent's painting of Gautreau was shown at the 1884 Paris Salon. But while Sargent, the American son of vagabond parents, rose to lasting stardom, Gautreau -- cultivated since childhood to be admired and envied -- was ridiculed, then utterly forgotten. How did their destinies come to be so sharply overturned? The answer, Deborah Davis reveals in Strapless, lies in Sargent's portrait. Madame X, as it hangs today in New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, depicts Gautreau in a black gown with two jeweled shoulder straps. But in the original painting, one strap fell from Gautreau's upper arm in an intimation of sex -- igniting a critical frenzy that shattered Gautreau's reputation and sent Sargent in flight to England.
- Drawing on previously unexamined family papers and documents discovered in libraries and private collections, Davis explores the tantalizing mysteries at the heart of Madame X. Why did Sargent paint his subject in such a deliberately provocative manner, and why did Gautreau acquiesce? Could they have anticipated that a fallen strap would shock even decadent Belle Epoque Paris -- and agreed that celebrity would be worth the scandal? If so, what later moved Sargent to repaint Gautreau's strap to sit chastely on her shoulder? With its revelations about Gautreau's identity and an eyebrow-raising cast of characters including Richard Wagner, Henry James, Sarah Bernhardt, and Dr. Samuel Pozzi, Gautreau's notorious gynecologist/lover, this enthralling account exposes the Dorian Gray-like tale of beauty and infatuation, obsession and betrayal, that lies behind Sargent and Gautreau's masterpiece.
- Contents:
- La Louisiane 7
- City of Light 25
- A Professional Beauty 47
- The Pupil 61
- A Smashing Start 75
- Brilliant Creatures 99
- Heat and Light 111
- His Masterpiece 123
- The Flying Dutchman 137
- Finishing Touches 147
- Dancing on a Volcano 155
- Le Scandale 177
- Calculated Moves 187
- A Woman of a Certain Age 203
- A Man of Prodigious Talent 219
- Twilight of the Gods 237.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages [283]-293) and index.
- ISBN:
- 1585422215
- OCLC:
- 52208722
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.