For John Singer Sargent fanatics, Gilded Age buffs, and vogue historians alike, the story of Madame X’s infamous debut on the Paris Salon of 1884 is a story as outdated as time. When the prodigious 28-year-old painter immortalized the idiosyncratic great thing about Madame Pierre Gautreau, a fellow American in Paris, he rendered her exactly—from her auburn chignon and distinguished nostril to her lavender-tinged complexion and figure-hugging black gown, whose jeweled strap had slid off her proper shoulder.
But scandal rapidly adopted, the latter element doing little to dispel Gautreau’s already controversial fame. Savaged by critics for the portrait, Sargent famously repainted the strap within the upright place—however the harm was carried out.
In 1915, after holding onto the portray for greater than 30 years, Sargent—who finally resettled in London—bought Madame X to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Artwork, the place it has turn out to be a spotlight of the gathering. “It’s a portrait that’s so compelling, and persons are all the time so fascinated and need to know extra about her,” Stephanie L. Herdrich, Alice Pratt Brown curator of American portray and drawing at The Met, tells Vogue. Over the past three a long time, Herdrich has turn out to be a specialist in all issues Sargent, proudly calling herself Madame X’s “caretaker, journey companion, and PR rep.”
“Though folks assume they’re acquainted with the portray’s story,” she provides, “I believed there was extra to say about it.”
