Ad Blankestijn: Portrait of Madame X by Sargent (1884)

Portrait of Madame X by John Singer Sargent is an enormous painting, nearly two meters tall, of a woman posing flirtatiously in a form-fitting black satin gown with two jeweled straps and a plunging heart-shaped neckline, a dress that both reveals and conceals. She looks off to the right, staring into the middle distance, her mouth tightly closed, her delicate nose turned slightly downward. She has the arrogant look of someone who doesn't have to work for her money. Her right arm is twisted, her hand resting on a bare wooden table. Her left hand, with a wedding ring visible, holds a folded fan. Her brown hair is pulled back from her bare shoulders. The only jewelry she is wearing is a small diamond tiara on her head. The woman's pose - body turned toward the viewer, head in deliberate profile, arm twisted - is somewhat unusual. The painting is dominated by the woman's cold and pale flesh, which contrasts with the dark dress and brown background.

[Portrait of Madame X by Sargent (1884)]

What are we seeing?

This painting destroyed Sargent's career in France because of the scandal it caused - something that is completely incomprehensible today. The sitter, "Madame X," was Madame Amelie Gautreau, a French-American socialite who had lived in Paris since 1867 and was married to a banker and shipping magnate. She was a fair-skinned brunette with fine, cameo-like features and an hourglass figure. Her unnaturally pale skin was rumored to be caused by the ingestion of small amounts of arsenic, which, combined with the lavender powder she liked to sprinkle all over her body, gave her an unnatural glow. It was this glow that enchanted Sargent - and that he would struggle to capture in the studio. She was admired for her elegance and style. She also attracted much amorous attention, which she did not shy away from, and her extramarital affairs were so well known that they were written up in tabloid scandal sheets.

The painter, Sargent, was in his late twenties and trying to make it in Paris. Sargent hoped to enhance his reputation by painting and exhibiting a portrait of the (in)famous Madame Gautier. The painting was not commissioned by her, and he pursued her for the opportunity, unlike most of his portrait work where clients sought him out. Working with his sitter's complicity, he emphasized her daring personal style by showing the right strap of her gown slipping off her shoulder. Sargent also brought out her true character, as one contemporary put it, "her studied, indifferent, statuesque presence stopped parties, stopped traffic in the street." The painting took more than a year to complete, in part because Sargent could not settle on a pose and sketched Madame Gautreau from many angles. Another reason was that Amelie Gautier had many social engagements and was difficult to book for the necessary painting sessions. Sargent complained of "the unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness" of Madame Gautreau.

With much trepidation, the 1884 Salon arrived - and this was a complete disaster. The portrait was roundly condemned for the sitter's "blatant inadequacy" of attire by the standards of the day. The woman's suggestively flirtatious pose and revealing costume, which both indiscreetly hinted at the woman's reputation, provoked a firestorm of outrage. The Parisian public is always vocal and expressive. It became a scandal of epic proportions. One French critic wrote that if one stood in front of the portrait during its exhibition at the Salon, "one would hear every curse word in the French language." Before the first day of the exhibition was over, Amelie's family petitioned the Salon to remove the painting, a request that was denied. But Sargent himself removed the painting, fearing that Madame Gautreau's family would try to destroy it. He kept the work in his own possession for over thirty years.

In an attempt to save his reputation and that of his sitter, he made one important alteration to the painting. What we see today is not the original version - as originally exhibited, a strap of her dress had fallen over Gautreau's right shoulder, suggesting the possibility of further revelation. "One more struggle," wrote a critic in Le Figaro, "and the lady will be free." (Perhaps unknown to the critic, the bodice was constructed over a metal and whalebone foundation and could not have fallen; the shoulder straps were ornamental.) But in the eyes of onlookers, it represented debauchery. "Of all the undressed women at the Salon this year, the most interesting is Madame Gautreau because of the indecency of her dress, which looks as if it were about to fall off." So Sargent overpainted that part and added a securely fastened strap to his model's right arm - but it was too late and the disaster could not be averted. Incidentally, an unfinished version of the same pose, with the position of the right shoulder strap left in the original position, is in the Tate, London, and there exists also a photograph of the original painting (see below).

The portrait ended Sargent's career in Paris - the scandal guaranteed that Sargent would not receive any more portrait commissions in France, and he moved to London for good, where he became one of the most famous portraitists of the upper classes in Britain and America in history. So far, so good. Fortunately, the uproar also does not seem to have hurt Amelie Gautreau very much, for she soon resumed her prominent place in fashionable society.

[The author Henry James by Sargent (1913)]

In 1916, after moving to the United States and a few months after Gautreau's death, Sargent sold the painting to the Metropolitan Museum. He said at the time: "I suppose it is the best thing I have done,"‍ but he asked the museum to disguise the sitter's name. Hence the "X" in the title. And indeed, today, the portraits' impeccable technical skill and groundbreaking composition have caused the work to be hailed as a masterpiece.

Gautreau

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (1859-1915) was a French-American socialite. A Creole from Louisiana, Gautreau was of mixed European descent. In Paris, where she lived from 1867, she became one of the city's striking beauties, a fair-skinned brunette with fine, cameo-like features and an hourglass figure. She looked like a "living statue" and attracted much admiration for her elegance and style. She also attracted much amorous attention, which she did not discourage.

[Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau in 1878]

One of her lovers was Samuel Jean Pozzi, a gynecologist and art collector. His portrait, Dr. Pozzi at Home, was painted by the young, up-and-coming John Singer Sargent. Sargent, anxious to make a name for himself by capitalizing on Amelie's fame, asked Dr. Pozzi (whom he had painted in a papal red robe) to introduce him to Amelie, which the doctor did, resulting in Sargent's invitation to the Gautreaus' Brittany chateau, Les Chênes, where Sargent produced some 30 studies of her in pencil, watercolor, and oil.

[One of the watercolors Sargent made of Amelie Gautreau in 1883]

Gautreau posed several times for painters, in addition to Sargent. It was not that a woman of Virginie's social standing would not pose as a model (after all, there was no scandal when she later posed for Courtois and de la Gándara), it was that Sargent was seen as openly defying convention by flaunting the woman's immoral lifestyle.

Sargent

American painter John Singer Sargent (1856-1925) was born in Italy and lived most of his life in Europe. He became best known for his portraits, but toward the end of his life he also turned to landscape painting. In all, he produced approximately 900 oil paintings, 2000 watercolors, and countless sketches and charcoal drawings. From the beginning, Sargent's work was characterized by remarkable technical skill, especially in his ability to draw with a brush.

Sargent's style is realistic but often rough, bringing out the characteristics of his subjects. At a time when the art world was focused on Impressionism, Fauvism, and Cubism, Sargent practiced his own form of realism that brilliantly referenced Velázquez, Van Dyck, and Gainsborough. His seemingly effortless ability to paraphrase the masters in a contemporary manner led to a stream of commissioned portraits of remarkable virtuosity. In a few other paintings, he experimented with Impressionist techniques, such as Claude Monet Painting by the Edge of a Wood (1885).

Other portraits

In 1891, Madame Gautreau was painted again - this time by Gustave Courtois in an obvious attempt to recreate the essential elements of Sargent's painting. As you can see, although the pose and dress are just as daring, it never achieves the same power:

And in 1898, Antonio de La Gándara painted a full-length portrait entitled "Madame Gautreau." In the tonality of the colors, the privacy of her face, and the style of her dress, it was much more conservative than Sargent's painting:

P.S. In 1946, for the musical number "Put the Blame on Mame" in the film Gilda by Charles Vidor, the fashion designer Jean-Louis was inspired by the dress visible in Sargent's painting to create the dress worn by Rita Hayworth. In the movie, as in the painting, the contrast between the black of the dress and the white of the skin is striking.