Before it became one of the most famous vertical wall art portraits hanging in New York, a single slipped dress strap destroyed a socialite's reputation and chased an ambitious 28-year-old artist out of Paris.
When painter John Singer Sargent unveiled his portrait of Parisian socialite Virginie Gautreau at the 1884 Paris Salon, he expected praise. Instead, he triggered a public uproar that ended his Parisian career overnight.
What made the 1884 Paris Salon reaction so hostile?
The controversy started with the dress strap. In Sargent's original composition, the right jeweled strap of Gautreau's black satin gown dangled off her shoulder down her arm. To conservative 1884 Paris, that single detail was viewed as an explicit signal of loose morals.
The public reaction went beyond the dress. Gautreau was famous for coating her face and body in lavender-tinted powder, tinting her hair with henna, and rouging her ears. Sargent painted that distinct complexion accurately, but critics found it terrifying. Newspaper reviewers described her skin as looking bluish and decomposed. One critic wrote that standing in front of the portrait exposed visitors to every curse word in the French language.
Why was John Singer Sargent so obsessed with painting her?
The portrait was not a paid commission. Sargent was a 28-year-old American painter living in Paris, eager to prove his skill with a bold masterpiece. Virginie Gautreau was an American-born woman from New Orleans married to a wealthy French banker, known throughout Paris for her dramatic profile and striking beauty.
Sargent pursued her for months in 1883, writing to a friend about his passionate desire to paint her portrait. He spent months sketching her in his studio, noting that her skin had a uniform lavender tone that fascinated him as an artist.
How did the scandal affect Virginie Gautreau and Sargent?
The social fallout was immediate. Gautreau's mother, Marie-Virginie Avegno, stormed into Sargent's studio shouting that her daughter was ruined and would die of humiliation. She demanded that Sargent remove the canvas art from the exhibition floor, but Sargent refused.
Once the Salon closed, Sargent took the painting back to his studio and painted the fallen strap firmly back up onto her shoulder. Even with the correction, the damage was done. Portrait commissions and custom framed posters requests in Paris dried up completely, prompting Sargent to close his studio and move permanently to London.
Why did the painting end up named Madame X?
Sargent kept the canvas in his personal studio for over 30 years. In 1916, he sold the portrait to The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for $22,500.
Writing to Met director Edward Robinson at the time of the sale, Sargent wrote that he considered it the best thing he had ever done. To protect the family's privacy decades after the scandal, Sargent requested that the museum list the work under the title Madame X rather than using Gautreau's real name.
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