Sargent And A
Toast To Madame Gautreau
By Russell Hewey
John
Singer Sargent is most notably admired for being one of America’s foremost
accomplished portraitists. During
his lifetime and unto the present, his name has become associated with
portraiture of a level greater than that of photographic re-representation, but
that of psychological analysis. And, what work to better document his
unwavering ability to push the limits of traditional portraiture, than his
notorious painting, Madame X.[1] Well-known and highly critiqued, this
painting has firmly stood the test of time by intriguing audiences with both
its seductive and mysterious subject, from its scandalous unveiling at the 1884
Salon de Paris to its current day hanging at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.[2]
But,
while Sargent was in the midst of completing what would become one of his most
striking works, he produced a small-scale study of the same subject at ease,
unaltered, and free from inhibitions, known as Madame Gautreau Drinking A
Toast.[3] This painting, caught in the shadow of Madame
X, was rather unknown, yet its importance
is unquestionable. Coming with its
own history, this study not only provides insight into the lives behind the
late eighteenth century Parisian social scene, but serves as a precursor to
later works that would be just as influential in Sargent’s complete oeuvre as that of Madame
X.
And, although never exhibited, Madame Gautreau Drinking A
Toast in its own right deserves a place
alongside the celebrated works in Sargent’s notable canon.
Painted
in the summer of 1883, Madame Gautreau Drinking A Toast shows a women in profile, dressed in a black dress
and covered in a shawl, with one arm playfully extended in the act of toasting
a man removed from the frame.
Sargent, in the midst of working on Madame X, paints the same subject in the same dress in the
same profile. It is clear with its
fast, definable brush strokes, that this smaller scale[4]
painting is a study of Madame Aurélie Pierre Gautreau before the formal
full-length portrait now-known-as Madame X was completed in 1884.[5] Sargent paints his subject surrounded
by a dark background and in dim, neutral tones. This palette presents Madame Gautreau in a crepuscular light
that falls upon her figure in a seductive, and entrancing manner. Gently pointing out her features against
the dark background, Sargent focuses on his subject’s distinct profile and
alluring neck, making it the most defined and most highly painted part of the
canvas. Contrariwise, her body,
her arms, the floral-adorned table, the lamp and the champagne flute are all
depicted in a sketchy, informal style that alludes to the flirtatious nature of
the sitter. This woman as Sargent
paints her is at home, carefree and enjoying the evening’s company; she is, for
all intending purposes, comfortable and confident in being the center of
attention. Sargent, whose
“expressed ambition was to paint things ‘just the way they looked,’”[6]
composes Madame Gautreau uninhibited and normal (like her reputation perceives
her) as the Parisian gay socialite that she was.
Born
on January 29, 1859, Virginie Amélie Avegno moved to Paris with her family at
the age of eight, after the postwar affects of America’s Civil War left
Louisiana in an unhealthy state of disease and depression.[7] Mademoiselle Amélie, spent her early
years attending a boarding school in Paris, when on its completion, she was –
as noted by her mother – of appropriate age for marriage candidacy. Controlled by her mother, Marie
Virginie Avegno, “Amélie was allowed to attend select parties, tea, and musical
evenings, social gatherings that could expose her to the right sort of
marriageable men.”[8] These “right sort of marriageable men”
would eventually conclude with Amélie marriage to Pierre-Louis Gautreau, who
although unattractive and double her age, had “a solid reputation, plenty of
money, and a handsome country house in Brittany” (where Madame Gautreau’s
portrait would eventually be completed).[9] This appropriate marriage opened the
door for Amélie and her mother to enter the upper-ring of Parisian society; it
also opened, under the safety net of her husband’s sound reputation, the
freedom to challenge cultural boundaries and social acceptances.[10] And, Madame Gautreau was not afraid to
shock.
Highly
critiqued and often talked about, Madame Gautreau was at the center of Parisian
highlife:
“L’Évenement reported her appearance in a dress of salmon-coloured
velvet…. Le Figaro raved about
her dress of red velvet with a bodice of white satin, as did La
Gazette Rose about her white satin dress
with pearl netting…. In 1880, a reporter from The New York Herald saw her in France and filed a flowery story describing
her magnificence.”[11]
As well as challenging the
expectations of appropriate female dress, she, popularly known as une belle
professionelle, pushed the limits of
cosmetics, becoming “internationally famous for her pale, luminous skin, a
constant subject of debate among admirers and detractors who wondered if she
ingested small doses of arsenic to maintain her ghostly pallor”[12]
In truth, Madame Gautreau applied an “excessive rice powder make-up on her
delicate blueish skin to dramatise her appearance, amplifying her painted
eyebrows, henna-coloured hair, and deep red lips.[13] Without doubt, her elite status in
Parisian aristocratic society and her uncanny ability to attract public
attention is what sparked Sargent’s interest in proposing a portrait, who with
his recent successes at the Salon de Paris was looking for something bold and
attention-grabbing.[14] Sargent used his connection with Madame
Gautreau’s cousin, Benjamin Castillo to introduce the idea, saying “he
[Sargent] had ‘reason to think she would allow it and is waiting for someone to
propose this homage to her beauty.”[15] Sargent’s proposal was a success, for
in February 1883 he begins to work on studies starting at Madame Gautreau’s
home on Rue Jouffroy in Paris and eventually moves in the summer to the
Gautreau’s country plaza, Les Chênes, in Brittany.[16]
Throughout
the upcoming months, Sargent works diligently on studies that will eventually
lead to Madam X. However, slightly distracted, Sargent
draws a study once believed to be simply related to Madame Gautreau
Drinking A Toast, but recently has ignited
curiosity amongst Sargent scholars and Art Historians. The sketch in questioned, titled Head
in Profile,[17]
was perceived by Trevor Fairbrother as a preliminary sketch for this painting
done in the same year, but according to Yale University Art Gallery’s current
catalogue, “Elaine Kilmurray and Richard Ormond argue that the drawing is not
of Mme Gautreau, but of a young man.”[18] Both the figure in Madame Gautreau’s
portrait and the figure in this sketch are clearly related; their heads both
tilted to the same degree, with gazes undoubtedly similar in intent. However, there are subtle differences
that support Kilmurray and Ormond’s argument that Sargent’s intentions may have
been to sketch his young friend and artistic contemporary Albert de Belleroche.[19]
In
regards to them as subjects, Sargent was clearly artistically intrigued and
fascinated by both of them, having painted and sketched Belleroche and Gautreau
ad nauseam throughout his career as a portraitist.[20] And, after further revealing the
charcoal drawing underneath the lines of the pen and ink Head in
Profile, Kilmurray and Ormond provide insight into the development of
the drawing from a study of Gautreau to a clear representation of Belleroche:
“The
shape of the nose, ears, and back of the head have become more rounded and a
thinner upper lip has become fuller, altering what seem to have been the more
angular features of Virginie Gautreau into those of Albert de Belleroche…. It
seems to fuse the male and female sitters.”[21]
This notion, of course, has been
used to support certain speculations in regards to Sargent’s sexuality. A lifetime bachelor, Sargent was
closely affiliated with other prominent men like Henry James and Oscar Wilde,
who in their own lives were plagued by homosexual scandal.[22] One could relate Oscar Wilde’s
affiliation with Lord Alfred Douglass to Sargent’s platonic relationship with
Belleroche:
“While their
friendship indeed reflects this kind of mentor/student relationship, Sargent’s
portraits of Belleroche, in their sensuality and intensity of emotion, push the
boundaries of what was considered appropriate interaction between men at this
period.”[23]
Although, there is no concrete
evidence of any romantic involvement between artist and subject, Sargent
clearly sought to display a fusion of gender, “woman in a man and a man in a
woman.”[24] And within this fusion, Sargent, like
Madame Gautreau, endeavoured to raise the boundaries of gender representation
in the public eye.
Exhibited
at the Salon de Paris in 1884, Madame ***, (now
titled as Madame X) quickly
became the target for harsh criticism.
For the first time in Sargent’s career, a painting yielded relentless
slander. In an article from Art
Amateur, the reviewer catches an overall
sense of the Parisian reaction to Sargent’s unveiling at the Salon:
The portrait is
simply offensive in its insolent ugliness and defiance of every rule of art….
The drawing is bad, the colour atrocious, the artistic ideal low, the whole
purpose of the picture being, not an artistic and sensational tour de force still within the limits of true art, as Sargent’s
Salon pictures have hitherto been, but a willful exaggeration of every one of
his vicious eccentricities, simply for the purpose of being talked about and
provoking argument.”[25]
Although, Madame
X clearly shocked and challenged the
public’s understanding of conventional art, Madame Gautreau Drinking
A Toast adheres to the acceptable standards
of female portraiture.[26] Romanticized under dim light, a
portrait of Madame Gautreau in the latter style would have definitely
maintained Sargent’s status in the eyes of the Parisian society as a
consistently excellent portraitist, but he would have failed to exceed his own
reputation. Although, the styles
differ, the paintings are not mutually exclusive. Sargent clearly uses the sketched painting of Madame
Gautreau, to study her distinctively unique profile, its repeated alterations
easily apparent around the figure’s face. Also, the reddening of her ears,
applied by the sitter cosmetically, is also noticeably similar between the two
works. Both figures wear the same
outfit, with hair that remains pinned loosely up to expose the swan-like neck. But, what does differ, most strikingly,
of course, is Sargent’s tonal management of the skin.
Sargent’s interest in painting Madame Gautreau, lies not only in her
flaunting character as a Parisian socialite, but also with his fascination with
her alluring skin colour and his obsession with painting it accurately: “Any
minor variation invisible to her admirers would have wildly irritated a
perfectionist such as Sargent. It
was as if Gautreau’s skin became an ever-shifting canvas that Sargent could not
duplicate.”[27] And, as one might argue, it was the
challenge of Gautreau’s skin that influenced Sargent to reinterpret the
methodology of painting female portraiture away from the classic romantic style
as seen in Madame Gautreau Drinking A Toast,
which in its dimly lit chromatic theme would have hidden rather than have
exposed Madame Gautreau’s notoriously pale, lavender skin.
At the closure of the Salon, Madame X
was taken down and was returned to Sargent’s studio in England, where it was
kept discretely housed until 1924 when it was sold to the Metropolitan Museum
of Art.[28] However, Madame Gautreau
Drinking A Toast, now hung at Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, has passed through a couple of hands. The inscription by Sargent at the head
of the painting reads “témoignage d’amitié” or a “testimony to friendship,” where the painting is regularly
believed to be a gift from Sargent to Madame Gautreau’s mother.[29]
The enticing question lies in how and for what reason did this painting change
hands from the Gautreau’s personal collection to the hands of Doctor Samuel
Jean Pozzi. Painted by Sargent a
couple of years earlier,[30]
Dr. Pozzi, famous as an illustrious flirt and scandalous womanizer throughout
the later part of the nineteenth century, was the Casanova of Madame Gautreau’s
era.[31] And, as one correspondence between
Pozzi and a companion insinuates there is no question in the legitimacy of a
scandalous acquaintance between Madame Gautreau and the doctor: “Madame
Gautreau of the swan’s neck will be taking tea at my house the day after
tomorrow…. If you want to see her
again, come.”[32] There is no proof of the painting’s
exchange but one source suggests that a memorial to “a young woman at the
height of her beauty would have been a magnificent trophy for a man who
collected women.”[33] The painting stayed in Pozzi’s hands
until the selling of the estate in 1919, upon which Isabella Stewart Gardner
acquired Madame Gautreau Drinking A Toast.[34]
Throughout this infamous period in Sargent’s life, his portraits of
Madame Gautreau were able to effectively acquire a history of their own. And it is this history associated with Madame
Gautreau Drinking A Toast, does one obtain
a deeper understanding of the Parisian lifestyle surrounding the turn of the
century. Alongside Madame X, this
portrait exposes une belle professionelle as a woman who thrived on attention and lived for scandal. In regards to Sargent, this study
provides information into the mind of a perfectionist, who sought to challenge
gender identities and portray things as he saw. Undoubtedly, Sargent’s
contribution in portraiture left a permanent mark upon the Gilded Age, and his
study of Madame Gautreau actively, in its own right, partook in developing part
of that contribution.
 |
| Sargent's Madame Gatreau Drinking A Toast |
 |
| Sargent's Dr. Pozzi at Home |
 |
| Sargent's Head In Profile |
 |
| Sargent's Madame X |
[1] See Figure 4
[2] Fairbrother,
“The Shock,” pg. 90.
[3] See Figure 1
[4] 32 x 42
centimeters, and 208.6 x 109.9 centimeters, respectively
[5] Kilmurray, John
Singer Sargent
[6] Bodkin,
“John Singer Sargent”
[7] Davis, Strapless,
pg 120
[8] Davis, Strapless,
pg 120
[9] Davis, Strapless,
pg 122
[10] Sidlauskas,
“Painting Skin”
[11] Davis, Strapless,
pg 122
[12] Davis,
“Madame X Speaks”
[13] Moss, “John
Singer Sargent”
[14] Morgan,
“Sargent, John Singer” and Mahon, “A Technical Study”
[15] Mahon, A
Technical Study”
[16] Davis, Strapless,
145
[17] See Figure 3
[18] Moss, “John
Singer Sargent”
[19] Moss, “John
Singer Sargent”
[20] Davis, Strapless,
pg. 210
[21] Moss, “John
Singer Sargent”
[22] Davis, Strapless,
211
[23] Moss, “John
Singer Sargent”
[24] Davis, Strapless,
213
[25] Weinberg,
“John Singer Sargent”
[26] Davis, Strapless,
66
[27] Sidlauskas,
“Painting Skin”
[28] Weinberg,
“John Singer Sargent”
[29] Davis, Strapless,
66-67
[30] See Figure 2
[31] Davis, Strapless,
231
[32] Davis, Strapless,
230
[33] Davis, Strapless,
210
[34] Kilmurray, John
Singer Sargent
Bibliography
- Bodkin, Thomas. “John Singer Sargent.”
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review,
Vol. 17, No. 66 (June, 1928). Pp. 257-265.
- Davis, Deborah. Strapless: John
Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. New York, New York: Penguin
Group, Inc. 2004.
- Davis, Deborah, and Elisabeth
Oustinoff. “Madame X Speaks.” The Magazine Antiques. Vol. 164, No. 5 (2003). Pp 116-125.
- Fairbrother, Trevor J. “The Shock of John Singer
Sargent’s Madame Gautreau.” Arts Magazine. Vol. 55. (Jan. 1981). Pp 90-97
- Kilmurray, Elaine, and Richard Orman,
ed. John Singer Sargent. Millbank, London:Tate Gallery Publishing,
LTD.
- Mahon, Dorothy, and Silvia
Centeno. “A Technical Study
of John Singer Sargent’s Portrait of Madame Pierre Gautreau.” Metropolitan
Museum Journal, Vol. 40. Pp. 121-129.
- Moss, Dorothy. “John Singer Sargent,
‘Madame X’ and ‘Baby Millbank.’ Burlington Magazine, Vol. 143, NO. 1178 (May, 2001). Pp. 268-275.
- “Sargent, John Singer.” The Oxford
Dictionary of American Art and Artists.
Ann Lee Morgan, Oxford University Press, 2007.
- Sidlauskas, Susan. “Paintin Skin, John
Singer Sargent’s Madame X.” American Art, Vol. 15, (Fall 2001). pp. 9-33
- Weinberg, H. Barbara, and Stephenie L.
Herdrich. “John Singer
Sargent: In the Metropolitan Museum of Art.” The Metropolitan Museum of
Art Bulletin. New Series. Vol. 47, No.
4. Pp 1-64.
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