Latest news with #JohnSingerSargent
Vogue
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
From the Archives: Who Was Madame X? Hamish Bowles Shares the Back Story on John Singer Sargent's Most Famous Sitter
'The Madame X Files,' by Hamish Bowles, was originally published in the January 1999 issue of Vogue. For more of the best from Vogue's archive, sign up for our Nostalgia newsletter here. John Singer Sargent's 1884 portrait of Virginie Avegno Gautreau, universally acclaimed as Madame X, is a definitive study in image-making. La Gautreau flaunts her otherworldly looks and her chosen role as that exotic ornament to society, a professional beauty. She is a sphinx without a secret, 'prophetic of all the sophisticated chic of Vogue,' as Philippe Jullian, historian of fin-de-siècle culture, noted in 1965. But who was this fascinator whose mystery remains compelling more than a century after Sargent captured it in sensual oil paints? John Singer Sargent, whose career is celebrated in a retrospective at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., from February 21 to May 31 (and then traveling to Boston), with a related show of drawings at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from February 14 through May 9, was born in Florence in 1856. His American parents led peripatetic lives and raised their children gypsy fashion, traveling restlessly across Europe. By the early 1880s, after a solid schooling in the atelier of the respected academician Carolus-Duran and at the École des Beaux-Arts, Sargent was already establishing a name for himself in Paris as both a portraitist and a painter of exotic genre scenes of Italy, Spain, France, and Morocco. It seems inevitable that he should have been bewitched by the notorious Victoire Gautreau since throughout his career, Sargent was drawn to unconventionally exotic beauties. He had already delighted in the feral charms of Rosina Ferrara, a Capri girl, and mysterious Moroccan beauties like the one imbibing incense in his Fumée d'Ambre Gris, painted in 1880. Later, he produced some of his most spirited portraits when presented with sitters like the haughty Spanish dancer Carmencita; the art dealer Asher Wertheimer's lively daughters Almina, Ena, and Betty; the madcap Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney; and Vaslav Nijinsky. He called the fabulous and extravagant beauty Rita de Acosta Lydig 'Art in its living form,' and presumably Madame Pierre Gautreau's symbolist looks inspired similar sentiments. Sargent found her 'strange, weird, fantastic, curious.' Fascinated, he determined to capture her as a sitter, and he embarked on an elaborate courtship. He began by enlisting the help of a mutual friend, Ben del Castillo, to whom he wrote, 'I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to propose this homage to her beauty... tell her that I am a man of prodigious talent.' Virginie Gautreau conceded. The sittings began in Paris in 1883, and that summer Sargent set off for the Gautreaus' country estate, the Château des Chesnes at Paramé in Brittany. Here, among the immemorial oaks that gave the 1708 house its name, the Gautreaus had planted clumps of pampas grasses and tropical palms in accordance with the fashionably exotic taste of Troisième République society.
Washington Post
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
Before ‘Madame X,' John Singer Sargent was even more dazzling
NEW YORK — The Metropolitan Museum of Art's 'Sargent and Paris' exhibition builds to a single moment, a single painting and a single scandal in the life of the young American artist. In 1884, a decade after he had arrived in Paris as a precocious 18-year-old, John Singer Sargent unveiled a portrait of a Louisiana-born Creole woman named Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau at the Paris salon. It caused a sensation that still ripples today.
Vogue
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Vogue
Everything You Need to Know About Félix, the Couturier Who Is Believed to Have Designed Madame X's Dress
In Deborah Davis's 2003 book Strapless (a fascinating read), the author definitively attributes it to Maison Félix. The Metropolitan Museum's Elizabeth L. Block, who has written extensively about the house, is slightly more cautious, writing that 'The draw of Félix for women who traveled in artistic circles supports the view that Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau wears a Félix dress in John Singer Sargent's famous painting of 1883–84, Madame X.' There is a contemporary report that links Gautreau to Maison Felix, renowned for its attenuated silhouettes. Although a competitor with the House of Worth—which is now being celebrated with an exhibition in Paris—Maison Feéix has been relegated to the sidelines of fashion history, this despite the house being called 'a shrine' when it closed in 1901. Although Vogue was founded eight years after Madame X made her debut, it's there I started digging deeper. A Félix dress was featured in the magazine's first issue, dated December 17, 1892. Block's article was a foundational source as were periodical and book archives. From these I have created an impressionistic time line of the history of the house and its intersection with Gatreau. As you'll read, the roots of the house are in hair. Coiffeur Joseph-Augustin Escalier, known as Félix, a favorite of Empress Eugenie, established the business as in 1846 and it came into the hands of brother hair dressers Auguste Poussineau and Émile Martin Poussineau, about 11 years later. The duo added millinery and then dressmaking to their activities and became known for attiring not only aristocrats and fashion leaders but some of the most famous actresses of the day, chief among them Sarah Bernhardt. 1846 Maison Félix established at 13 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré by Joseph-Augustin Escalier. 'The rise of the Maison Felix was due to the Empress Eugenie. While still the Senorita Montijo . . . Eugenie was suddenly robbed by death of her usual hairdresser. There was to be a grand ball that night, and a messenger was dispatched to secure a substitute. He returned with a certain M. Joseph, who pleased her so well that, after a few trials, she told him she would appoint him her coiffure in ordinary. One morning her coupe stopped at his door, No. 13, on the Faubourg Saint Honoré, Eugenie glanced at the number and frowned. When she entered the shop, she said: 'Monsieur, your number must be changed: it is useless to reckon on success with an unlucky number. So much influence had Eugenie that the emperor ordered the city authorities to change the number to 15, and for 40 years 15 it has remained. Eugenie objected also to the name Joseph and commanded him to change it to Felix. . . . Then she advised him to decorate his shop in mauve plush, because mauve was her favorite color, and she meant to make it the fashion. On these conditions she agreed to make Felix the fashion, and she succeeded, for his genius was very great. Felix II added millinery to the coiffure and dressmaking departments, while the third Felix, without royal patronage, has become the richest and most famous couturier in Paris.' —'Late Paris Fashions,' Wilkes-Barre Times Leader, May 13, 1900
Times
15-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Heiress: Sargent's American Portraits review — an old-style triumph
I share a birthday with John Singer Sargent: January 12. It's just a quirk of dates and means nothing. But for the kinds of inchoate human reasons that swirl about in the darker and stupider regions of the mind, it has always made him feel closer to me than other artists. Perhaps it is why I have been harsh with him in some reviews. With Sargent, it feels personal. Not that I am alone in mistrusting the talents of this flashy, quick-wristed, heiress-hunting society lapdog, who strolled about the fashionable salons of Europe in white linen sniffing out the money. For most of the 20th century Sargent (1856-1925) was looked down on by critics as a decadent presence. His pictorial talents were obvious. But so
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Aaron Taylor-Johnson shocked as he spots his doppelganger in 19th century painting
Aaron Taylor-Johnson has seemingly found his doppelganger - a French doctor who lived in the 19th century. The Anna Karenina actor, 34, and his wife Sam, 58, made the startling discovery during a recent visit to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art where they came across a painting by American artist John Singer Sargent. The 1881 artwork, called Dr Pozzi at Home, shows French doctor Samuel Jean de Pozzi posing in a striking red jacket in front of a coordinated background. But what's even more striking is the uncanny resemblance the doctor bears to British actor Aaron - he's his spitting image. The pair have the same curly brown locks, a bizarrely similar facial structure and an almost identical brown beard. Doctor Pozzi and Aaron's alikeness was in fact so startling that his wife Sam took to her Instagram page to share it with her followers. Captioning a photo of the Nowhere Boy star gazing up at the oil painting in a blue denim jacket, film producer Sam wrote: 'Aaron wondering if he once knew #johnsingersargent.' And fans were quick to spot the pair's resemblance too, with some taking to the comments section to express their shock at the 'mental' comparison. Aaron and his wife's discovery comes a little more than a month after Sam opened up on her yearning to work with her husband once again. The filmmaker and the actor met some 17 years ago on the set of Nowhere Boy, in which Aaron played a young John Lennon in the biographical film that she directed. While their collaboration was a success, the pair have only teamed up once in the years since, with the duo co-writing the 2019 film adaptation of James Frey's memoir A Million Little Pieces - which Sam directed and Aaron starred in. And speaking at an In Conversation event hosted by the magazine A Rabbit's Foot on Wednesday night, Sam explained that the couple's family commitments have made it 'complicated' for them to work together again. Explaining the situation, Sam shared: 'It's quite weird leaving the house and thinking: "I've left the best actor at home".' Instagram users were quick to take to the comments section to express their shock at the uncanny resemblance She added: 'It's the best collaborative partnership, where we know each other so well and get to work together. But we do have four children, so it's complicated.' 'If his parents are free to babysit then we can make another film together.' After falling in love in 2008, the two were engaged a year later and tied the knot in 2012, before going on to welcome two daughters Wylda, now 14, and Romy, now 13. Their family also includes Sam's eldest daughters Angelica, 27, and Jessie, 18, whom she shares with ex-husband Jay Jopling. The Anna Karenina actor has previously opened up about keeping their youngest children out of the public eye during a past interview with Harper's Bazaar. 'We live behind walls. Literally, figuratively, and deliberately. You'll never see our children or any of our most personal moments on social media or in the press.' He continued to the outlet, 'We have our professional lives and our life together, and we keep them apart.' However, Aaron has been spotted with his stepdaughters and a few months earlier in October, he shocked fans by sharing a rare photo with Jessie on social media.
