Latest news with #LeBaiser
Daily Mail
13-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
The remarkable story behind the kiss photo that melted hearts - and what happened to the 'happy' couple
It was a scene that melted hearts all over the world - a besotted couple in a clinch in the city of love. But Robert Doisneau's Le Baiser de l'Hôtel de Ville (The Kiss at City Hall) was not all that it seemed. For Francoise Delbart and her lover Jacques Carteaud were not being spontaneous on that day in Paris in 1950. Instead, Doisneau had gotten permission to photograph the aspiring actors in romantic poses in different locations after seeing them kissing. The shoot was commissioned by American magazine Life to show the return of romance to post-war Paris. The black and white shot subsequently appeared in the popular magazine but was then forgotten until 1986, when a poster company re-discovered it and turned it into a global hit. By the 1990s, it adorned hundreds of thousands of posters, as well as postcards and even tea towels and chocolate boxes. Now, the image is set to appear among 400 of Doisneau's most striking works in an exhibition at Paris's Maillol Museum. The images have been selected from around 450,000 that the photographer took during his career. Ms Delbart, who died aged 93 on Christmas Day in 2023, was a 20-year-old when Doisneau photographed her. The identity of the couple in the Kiss at City Hall remained a mystery for decades. Many believed that Doisneau had randomly snapped a romantic pair. A series of couples came forward to claim they were the lovers in the image. Among them were Jeal-Louis and Denise Lavergne, who filed a suit in 1992. That claim prompted Ms Delbart to come forward with a signed original print from Doisneau, proving she was the woman in the photo. Furious, she also took legal action and demanded Fr100,000 as a share of the profits generated by the use of the image. Although a court rejected both suits, Doisneau confirmed that Ms Delbart and Mr Carteaud had been the lovers and that they had willingly posed for him. He said before he died in 1994: 'I would never have dared to photograph people like that. Lovers kissing in the street, those couples are rarely legitimate.' Ms Delbart's romance with Mr Carteaud did not last long. She later said: 'Jacques looked a bit like Burt Lancaster. We split up when he met someone else and we lost touch.' He went on to become a wine producer and died in 2006. Ms Delbart, who appeared in several France films in the 1950s and 1960s, married Alain Bornet, a director and screenwriter, in 1962. The couple had no children and Mr Bornet died a decade ago. Ms Delbart sold her original print of the famous picture for €155,000 in 2005. She said in 2022: 'I was with my boyfriend. We didn't stop kissing … Robert Doisneau asked us to pose for him. 'We did a series of snapshots. They appeared in Life magazine but no one paid attention.' The exhibition at the Maillol Museum is being curated by Doisneau's daughter, Francine Deroudille. She said the chosen works 'offer a social commentary on a harsh and unforgiving world and capture a wide range of human experiences', the Times reported. Doisneau had a difficult childhood, with his mother dying when he was seven and his father having been killed in the First World War. Left an orphan, he was raised by an aunt. Doisneau was educated at a craft school and went on to be hired as a photographer at the Renault car factory in Paris. But he was sacked for lateness and for falsifying time cards. After the Second World War, he got a job working for Vogue as a fashion photographer.
The Guardian
13-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Very desirable' rare cast of Rodin's The Kiss is up for auction
Auguste Rodin's sensual portrayal of tragic lovers caught in an embrace before being killed by a jealous husband is one of the world's most recognised works of art. The French artist had the idea for The Kiss (Le Baiser) in 1882, and the larger-than-lifesize marble artwork emerged a decade later. By then, Rodin was the most influential international sculptor of the age. Dozens of versions of The Kiss were made before Rodin's death aged 77 in 1917 and dozens more official reproductions and copies emerged after, making it one of the most replicated pieces of art in the world. Now, a rare bronze of The Kiss produced during Rodin's lifetime, signed by the artist and which has been in private hands for most of the past century, will be auctioned this month. The bronze, measuring 60cm high, was one of the first three cast in this size and has retained the artist's original detail. It was commissioned in 1904 by the Argentine Jockey Club to be presented as a marriage gift to Lucien Mérignac, the French fencing world and Olympic champion. Auctioneering expert Raphaël Courant admitted he was surprised to discover what he described as 'a very beautiful work, very sensual' in the living room of a family apartment in western France. 'It's a very desirable object and it's increasingly rare to see this kind of work by Rodin outside of a museum,' he told the Observer. The bronze, estimated at about €500,000, was cast in France in July 1904 and presented to Mérignac two months later in Buenos Aires as a fitting symbol of love to mark his marriage to Christina Ruiz de Castillo. Rodin had initially intended to include the ill-fated lovers in his massive bronze doors, The Gates of Hell, commissioned in 1879 by the French government for a new Paris museum. The figures are of Paolo and Francesca, tragic lovers from Dante's narrative poem The Divine Comedy, who were killed by Francesca's husband after he caught the 13th-century Italian noblewoman in an embrace with his own younger brother. The lovers were condemned to wander eternally through hell. Rodin later removed the couple from the gates and transformed them into a standalone marble sculpture measuring 1.8m that was presented to the Paris Salon in 1898 and is today in the city's Rodin Museum. After the success of The Kiss at the Salon, Rodin contacted the Maison Barbedienne foundry and agreed a 10-year contract to reproduce the sculpture. A total of about 60 bronzes measuring 60cm are believed to have been struck. Sign up to Art Weekly Your weekly art world round-up, sketching out all the biggest stories, scandals and exhibitions after newsletter promotion The Mérignac bronze has a dedication to the fencing champion on its base. Mérignac and his wife later moved back to France and settled in La Flèche in the west where he was a fencing instructor at the Prytanée military school. Christina died in 1923 and, 14 years later, Mérignac married one of his students, Agathe Turgis. They moved to Angers in the Loire valley and when he died in 1941, Turgis continued to teach fencing. The anonymous private owner was one of Turgis's pupils. She spotted the bronze in a local antique shop and bought it for her Angers flat. 'You really don't expect to see a work of this kind and size in such a domestic setting,' Courant said. The bronze will be sold by auction house Chauviré & Courant in Angers on 25 April.
