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- [00:02]
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- [00:57]
Cassie Zachary
History of Fashion is a production of dress media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
- [01:12]
April Callahan
Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are friends, fashion historians and your.
- [01:20]
Cassie Zachary
Hosts, Cassie Zachary and April Callahan. A long overdue hello dress listeners. Please know that we have missed you.
- [01:30]
April Callahan
Right, Cass oh my gosh, April. I cannot believe how long it's been since we were recording. At the top of this, we were like we're going to be a little rusty. It's been, it's been some time because.
- [01:42]
Cassie Zachary
As many of you might know, we have been on our annual winter hiatus, which usually is a couple months. But basically today we are re emerging from our quote unquote hibernation with the debut episode of season eight, eight of Dressed. This is episode number 530 to be.
- [02:00]
April Callahan
Exact, which is just bananas. Season eight. April I still remember, and I say this all the time, being at our very first recording session, not having any idea what we were doing, being so incredibly nervous, practicing our scripts before we even sat down. We've come a long way, which seems.
- [02:19]
Cassie Zachary
Like preposterous at this point.
- [02:21]
April Callahan
Yes, we are so, so excited to be back, dress listeners. And just know that we extended our hiatus from releasing new episodes a little bit longer. A lot longer actually, to be expected. We had originally just planned our usual two months. But you know, producing almost 100 episodes a year as a team of two has been no joke and we really needed this little bit of a break. And I'm not going to lie, having this space and time has been very rejuvenating. Would you agree? April?
- [02:51]
Cassie Zachary
Yes. And also too just you know, we have not exactly been resting on our laurels. We have been teaching classes, we have been planning all these upcoming trips and tours which I'm sure you guys have heard about by now or we'll hear about later. But we have been working so we just haven't necessarily been recording new episodes.
- [03:11]
April Callahan
Yes. And you may have noticed that we have switched networks which we are now very excited to be a part of the Airwave team and we look forward to growing our show with their support.
- [03:21]
Cassie Zachary
Yes. And speaking of teams, we have an assistant now which is something new for us and much, much, much needed. So our part time assistant, Erin has joined us. And Erin, welcome to the team as well.
- [03:34]
April Callahan
Yes. And I also want to say that this time off, dress Listeners, has really given April and I this space to bring a lot of thought and care to the launch of our brand new Season 8, which is what we are doing today. Not that we don't always bring thought and care to the show, but we did decide it was time for a bit of a reset after all of this time, after all of these episodes. And when we started the show, April and I wrote almost every single episode, which is just insane from scratch.
- [04:04]
Cassie Zachary
Original research or based on things that we had already researched.
- [04:08]
April Callahan
Weeks of work and for each episode. But season after season, the show gradually became more interview focused. And of course we absolutely love and will continue to highlight the work of our peers in season eight. But we also wanted to get back to doing what we both love, which is our own primary source research, which I've missed so much. And so we are super excited to announce not one, but two soon to become regular features or series on the shows. Do you want to talk a little bit more about those, April?
- [04:35]
Cassie Zachary
Sure. So first up, in season eight, every once in a while you're going to get a dressed Diaries episode and in those we're going to be transported back in time using primary sources. So perhaps a contemporary newspaper article or a magazine article, maybe personal journals or diaries. But we're going to do this to highlight one significant, fascinating and often controversial event straight from the pages of fashion history. And the other series is what we're bringing you today, Fashion scandals. So each episode, as the title suggests, will bring you the scalding hot fashion history.
- [05:14]
April Callahan
Goss, what better way to start season eight than with this fashion scandal series, the subject of which is a legendary fashion scandal that swirled around one of history's most famous paintings. And I am talking about Madame X. So dress listeners, some of you might know a little bit about this painting already. But today we're going to take you on a deep dive to meet Madame Gatrou, the woman depicted in what is now arguably the most famous work by artist John Singer Sargent. And this episode is in fact inspired by her return to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Was it not April?
- [05:50]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, yes, because she was traveling for a bit, first in Boston and then abroad in London. And this is actually something that we talk about in detail in our two part 2023 episode fashioned by Sargent with Dr. Erica Hershler, when we discussed the role of fashion at large within Sargent's work. So you can tune back into those two episodes if you'd like to learn a little bit more. But I also want to say Cass, and you reminded me to put this in the episode if you happen to miss seeing Madame X in Boston or London recently. She's back at the Met now, obviously. But coming to the Met in April 2025 is, is the Sargent in Paris exhibition. And this is just an entire exhibition of Sargent's work. This is going to run through August and of course Madame X will be there.
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April Callahan
But.
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Cassie Zachary
But enough about that.
- [06:39]
April Callahan
Let's get back to her and dress listeners. The fact that the painting is titled Madame X rather than after its sitter who is named Madame Gatrou, is rather telling, especially in the wake of this scandal the painting caused in Parisian art circles when Sargent debuted it in 1884. And this was a scandal all the more salacious given the fact that both Madame Catroux and Sargent were not Parisian or even French, they were both American.
- [07:08]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, it was actually the Americans who were the talk of the town in Paris in the wake of the opening of that year's annual Salon de Paris, which at the time this was really considered to be one of the most important annual art exhibitions within not just Paris, not just France, but the entire Western hemisphere. So before we can get to the events of this very fateful day in late April 1884, first we might need to meet the players. The American born it girl of Paris high society, Virginie Amelie Avignon Gautreau, and the man who would famously or maybe even infamously immortalize her for all time, John Singer Sargent.
- [07:50]
April Callahan
Virginie Amelie, who went by Amelie, was born to parents Marie Virginie Ternon and anatole Avigno in 1859. And as the saying goes, she was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. So she was really born into this luxurious life in one of the most intoxicating cities in the world. And I'm not talking about Paris. I'm talking about New Orleans. Both of her parents descended from generational wealth, and their families were part of southern high society. So at the time of her birth, her father was a successful lawyer in New Orleans, and her mother, Virginie Marie, for her part, came to the marriage with her own fortune as part of an established Creole family. And in this case, Creole is referring to a person of European descent born in the West Indies or Spanish American colonies. And so this family held some of the regions, and so her family held some of the region's most profitable plantations. So the connections to Paris also ran deep from these wealthy Creole families like Marie Verginese. And she was raised between New Orleans and Paris, with French being her first language and dress.
- [08:54]
Cassie Zachary
Listeners, you may have already made the connection here, but it is worth noting that Virginie Amelie, Madame Gautreau, was born in 1859, and this is really the eve of the Civil War. So her mother's family's wealth was achieved largely thanks to enslaved laborers on the plantations that they owned, the repercussions of which would come with the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, during which Amelie's father, Anatole, would perish in April of 1862 as the result of wounds received on the battlefield fighting for the Confederacy. Amelie was only three years old at this time, but she would remain in the vicinity of New Orleans with her mother until 1867, when Virginie Marie decided to relocate the pair to Paris. And this was following the unexpected death of Amelie's sister. Amelie's older brother had already passed away some years earlier, so now it was really only Amelie and her mother who remained, and nothing was keeping them from a fashionable life as expats in Virginie Marie's other second home, Paris.
- [09:55]
April Callahan
By all accounts, Amelie's life growing up was more French than Creole or American, and she was carefully cloistered away in a convent school until she reached her teenage years. Virginie Marie, her mother, had grand aspirations for her daughter, who had grown into quite the unique beauty she had inherited her father's distinctively aquiline nose and copper colored hair. And this is something Amelie would enhance later in life, it is said, with the aid of henna. And by all accounts, Amelie was beautiful, albeit perhaps unusually so. And this was from a very early age. She was curvaceous, she possessed a highly sought after porcelain complexion, and. And because of this, by the time Amelie was in her late teens, her mother felt it was time to officially introduce her daughter into the Parisian marriage market with the hope of Attracting a husband from an established French family. The only aspiration, of course, any wealthy young woman could really have at this time.
- [10:55]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and this husband was found in the form of the much older Pierre Louis Gautreau, and his family had made their fortune in banking and international shipping. He also spent a great deal of time in South America on their business ventures. So sometimes Cass, he went by his other nickname, not Pierre, but Pedro. And by most accounts, the marriage was more of mutual convenience and stability than a steamy romance. And some sources suspect that they had an agreement from the very beginning that the marriage would never be consummated. I'm just saying we don't know that for sure, but what we do know is that they both had their own money. Pedro was twice Amelie's age. Amelie was 19 when they married, and he was, I think, maybe even a little over 40. But he was very happy to bask in the limelight that came his way when they emerged into Parisian high society as a married couple, because Amelie's beauty was captivating and was really only enhanced by her husband's very generous allotment for her wardrobe.
- [11:59]
April Callahan
So word of this season's new American beauty spread quickly, and it was not long before her appearances at the Paris Opera society balls and other fashionable Parisian haunts were reported on in French fashion magazines and Parisian gossip columns. And this includes publications like Le Figaro and Le Gazette Rose, two of the most popular French publications of the late 19th century. Amelie was frequently described in the press as appearing to be a, quote, unquote, living statue. And it's also worth mentioning that when the press began reporting on her wardrobe and her unusual and statuesque beauty, that she was still technically a teenager at this time. She was 19 years old. So she was really becoming a fixture of the press and, by extension, the public eye from a very young age.
- [12:44]
Cassie Zachary
And this is something that Deborah Davis addresses in her book, Strapless John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. And I just want to give some credit here where credit is due, because I am not a hardcore art historian of Sargent, and there are so many people's work that I looked at to research this episode, including Stephanie Herdrick, Erica Herschler, and past dressed guest Elizabeth Block, who's been on the show a couple of times now, and of course, the aforementioned Davis, and all of these women have worked on the subject of Madame X far, far, far more than myself. So, cash, you know, I did, though, tumble down the rabbit hole a little bit, doing my own primary source research. I looked at French gossip Columns and which mention La Belle Gautreau's exquisite beauty and her growing fame within Parisian circles. And I found this one travel journal from a Portuguese traveler who had traveled to Paris, who recalled, upon seeing Madame Gautreau, describing her as this, an American blonde, pink and white, like a magnolia bud blossoming in a ray of sunlight. So. Right. Quite the description. And then another writer in a daily Parisian journal that I found once remarked of her quote, I have seen the famous Madame Gautreau many times. Not a muscle of this porcelain beauty showed any emotion whatsoever. End quote. So, again, she was really kind of cultivating this aura of this calm, cool demeanor and maybe even like a little bit of Sang Froid of a living statue, which she's referred to in the press again and again and again as.
- [14:23]
April Callahan
You're gonna have to define Sang Froid for me, because I can't be the only person who doesn't know what that means.
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Cassie Zachary
Cold blood is what it technically translates to. So it's. It's more of, like, detached removement. Right.
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April Callahan
Oh, okay.
- [14:38]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [14:39]
April Callahan
There you go.
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Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [14:40]
April Callahan
Fabulous word. As you know, dress listeners, April's vocabulary is high, high above mine, but that's a fantastic word. So Madame Catrou actively participated in what we might call self fashioning today. She really used her outward physical presentation to establish herself as one of Paris's most fashionable beauties. So as an American, quote, unquote outsider, Amelie indulged a certain measure of theatrics that perhaps young French beauties of her same station would not be able to get away with.
- [15:11]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, for sure.
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April Callahan
And a family friend once noted for the Paris Telegram that, quote, her doting husband, her quote unquote producer, as one might almost call him, used to be proud to carry for her a little jeweled bag of cosmetics. Pierre Montrouge, she would demand. And before an interested group of spectators, she would proceed to make up her face, which was then quite a new departure among women of quality. End quote. So, really, at this time, makeup was still very much associated with sex workers and stage actresses.
- [15:42]
Cassie Zachary
Yes. And exactly what cosmetic enhancements Amelie was using was also the topic of some public debate in the press. Rumors circulated that her unusual alabaster complexion was the result of consuming small amounts of arsenic to induce and maintain her pallid hue. We don't know if this is true or not, but what we do know for certain, and we know from receipts and family records, is that she used copious amounts of rice powder and possibly even more extreme forms of making oneself up for special occasions, which was known as enameling, but we're going to get to that in a moment.
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April Callahan
So to say that Amelie was enjoying her newfound celebrity is maybe a bit of an understatement. And she counted some of Paris's artistic and intellectual elite as part of her inner circle. Again, that same family friend wrote in the Paris Telegram, quote, all the Paris social and literary and artistic world were at Madame Gautreau's feet. Poets dedicated their verses to her, politicians used her to further their own ends. And artists of the day painted her.
- [16:48]
Cassie Zachary
Including one John Singer Sargent, who by this time in the late 1870s and the early 1880s had already cemented his reputation in Paris as a painter. And this was no easy feat as an American in the hallowed halls of French art academies, salons and critical circles. But Sargent was American by way of his legal papers only. He was born to American parents in Italy in 1856, and he didn't even get this cast visit the United States until he turned 20. So Sargent grew up in this rather itinerant, somewhat frugal existence all throughout Europe, as his physician father, Fitzwilliam Sargent, indulged his mother Mary's wanderlust. And, and she just wanted to travel, she just wanted to keep going. And usually she claimed this was due to her ailing health and her never ending search for a cure at all of Europe's wellness centers. So in 1874 the Sargent family relocated to Paris to encourage John's interest in becoming an artist. And this was a move which paid off when the 18 year old was accepted as a student into the atelier of Carolus Durand, one of the most respected painters and portraitists in all of France.
- [18:07]
April Callahan
So respected was Caroluse Durand that he had already been made a knight in the French Legion d'honneur before Sargent even came to study under him. And this relationship between the two was really formative in terms of Sargent's development into becoming this renowned portraitist that he would eventually become, and we have to remember at this time that photography was still very much a novel form of portraiture, and painted portraits would still very much be favored by high society for decades to come. And thus this really could provide a stable and livable income for young working artists like Sargent, who came out of the gates as a success really quite quickly. His first submission for the official Paris Salon was accepted in 1877, and the following year his portrait of Carole Ooster Hahn earned him an honorable mention prize, which within the French painting academy meant that the 22 year old American painter was really a hot commodity.
- [19:04]
Cassie Zachary
And you may remember from our two part episode on fashion by Sargent, that to keep his advantage of being seen as a young painter with fresh ideas, Sargent was unusually involved in styling his clients for their portraits with him. He would personally sift through their high end wardrobes to make his final selection of what he thought that they should wear. And sometimes he even went so far as to help them commission new haute couture looks for the express purpose of his portraits.
- [19:33]
April Callahan
And we do know that Sargent had long admired La Belle Coutreau, as Amelie was known, who is now one of the most sought after fashionable women in the world's very own capital of fashion. And there is some indication, according to Deborah Davis, that Amelie and Sargent perhaps might have had several occasions to meet in person. And this would have been when Sargent was painting one of his other most famous works. And that is of the celebrated ladies man Dr. Pozzi in 1881. And let's just say Dr. Pozzi was considered devastatingly handsome, charismatic, and he also happened to be an early practitioner in the field of gynecology. He was essentially the male equivalent of Amelie's it girl status. So it's no surprise then that the two were friends and widely assumed actually to be much, much more.
- [20:20]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and we have to remember here at this time in Belle Epoque Paris, that love affairs amongst high society were sort of institutionalized and accepted in terms of men's patronage of elite courtesans. And also likewise, it was not necessarily unheard of for married women to take a lover while her husband looked the other way. And it is said that Dr. Pozzi was the most favored by all women in Paris in this regard, including his quote unquote patient, Amelie Gautreau, who may have paid multiple visits to Pozzi while he was in his sitting sessions for his portrait with Sargent.
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April Callahan
So it seems Sargent himself may have also not been immune to Potts charms. And the infatuation he developed for him is evidenced in not only the raw sensuality of Sargent's painting of Potsy, but also the friendship and working relationship between the two has been cited as Oscar Wilde's inspiration for the relationship between the portraitist and Dorian in the Portrait of Dorian Gray.
- [21:25]
Cassie Zachary
And I just have to say guys, this blew my mind when I found this out. I had no idea, and especially in the context that I've actually written actual works and researched the fictional wardrobe of Dorian Gray. And I've also written about the homoerotic nature of this portrait of Potsy before. So when all of this came together and I found us out. It made perfect sense and like I literally texted a few people being like, did you guys know this? Yeah.
- [21:55]
April Callahan
So dress listeners, you might be wondering, where's the fashion? Where's the Madame Gautreau scandal? And don't you worry, that is coming right up right after a word from our sponsors.
- [22:14]
Cassie Zachary
Hey there travelers.
- [22:15]
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- [22:40]
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- [23:35]
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- [23:46]
Cassie Zachary
Well, welcome back duress listeners. Thank you for your patience as we were setting up the scene which leads to the eventual realization of Sargent's most famous work, Madame X. It does seem likely that Sargent may have met Labelle Gautreau before she sat for him for this portrait. But he didn't know her well enough to ask her directly. Instead, in 1882, he had a mutual friend float the idea to Amelie, who agreed and arranged Sargent to stay with her and her husband at their home on the French coast the following summer. And the weeks spent with the Gautros were spent really planning the portrait, doing preparatory sketches of Amelie and the initial phases of the life size portrait itself. And several of these preparatory works also show Amelie in that same form fitting dress that she is immortalized in for all time in the painting Madame X. So the selection of the gown, it seems to have been done for Amelie's existing wardrobe, and it came with an easy consensus among all involved.
- [24:50]
April Callahan
Any of you who may not be familiar with this painting, we are going to, of course, post it on our Instagram account this week. We actually did a reel a couple weeks ago about the portrait as well, but let us describe it here for you. It's actually somewhat straightforward in its composition. So against an ochrey brown background, Amelie is posed, standing next to a simple wooden table with spun legs. And her right hand rests on the table in a somewhat odd manner, which one critic called debone. But this somewhat unusual flexibility in her joints was something that had been written about in Amelie's deportment. And again from this family friend we have quoted multiple times at this point wrote that quote, Madame's rather unnatural attitude in Sargent's portrait was curiously, her most characteristic pose. She was very loose, joined, if one can express themselves that way. And one of her greatest charms was her suppleness and her easy carriage, which she inherited from her Creole ancestors.
- [25:52]
Cassie Zachary
So while the positioning of Amelie's hand on the table is notable, she is standing with the front of her body facing the viewer, but with her head turned to the left in complete profile. And she's putting on full display the most distinctive feature of her face, her father's aqualine nose. Her left hand falls loosely to her upper thigh, clasping a closed black fan, which matches the color of her dress. And the dress, of course, we have to speak about this. Cass, would you like to do the honors?
- [26:23]
April Callahan
Absolutely. So the dress was actually chosen because of the striking contrast it provided against Amelie's famously alabaster complexion. So the dress is really this inky black and has what could best be described as a heart shaped bodice. The wide arcs of the heart barely conceal her breasts and are held up by thin metallic or jewel chains that really function as straps. And then the bodice narrows almost impossibly at the waist, emphasizing exactly why Madame Gatroux's figure was so legendary. And while the rendering of the bodice implies the softness of velvet, her slim skirt gives off the slight sheen of maybe what would be a taffeta or a matte silk. And this descends over the curves of her hips in an asymmetrically draped column to the floor.
- [27:11]
Cassie Zachary
So one of the most curious features of Sargent's positioning of Madame Gautreau is that we cannot see the rear of the dress, which in 1884 might have certainly had a substantial bustle, and that would have protruded shelf, like from the rear of the dress.
- [27:29]
April Callahan
Yeah. Although I will say that there was another distinctive silhouette of that period that was the Princess line, named famously after fashion icon Princess Alexandra, future Queen of England, which was distinctive in that it had no horizontal waist seam and no bustle. But it is, as you said, it's hard to tell from this portrait what style she might have been wearing because it is separated into a bodice and skirt. Yeah, I guess.
- [27:54]
Cassie Zachary
And we just can't see the back. We don't know, basically. We don't know.
- [27:57]
April Callahan
Exactly.
- [27:58]
Cassie Zachary
Essentially, this is a matter of some consternation to art and fashion historians alike. And that's because the dress's overall styling and potentially an important element like the bustle, can sometimes give us clues as to its designer. And in the case of Madame X, this really, in many ways remains a mystery, despite multiple sources that are out there floating around in the world stating that the dress was the creation of Maison Felix, which was a couture house known to be a favorite of Madame Gautreau's, not only for her wardrobe, but also her hairstyles as well.
- [28:34]
April Callahan
Yes, and more than a handful of primary sources associate Amelie with the well established couture house of Felix, who in the day was a direct competitor of the much more well known Charles Frederick Worth, who had actually established itself as a purveyor of high fashion some years prior to Worth. And while lesser known today, in Amelie's day, Maison Felix was patronized by celebrities and royalty alike who really enjoyed the house's full service offerings, meaning that the house really styled clients from head to toe. So from undergarments to millinery. And then you have the couture house, which remarkably, even offered services of an on site hair stylist, which is amazing. So shout out here again to past dress guest Elizabeth Block, who has done quite a bit of research on couture's connection with Felix and was very generous in sharing it with us for this episode, but also the episodes we did with her, I think, last year or maybe two years prior on the Gilded Age fashion. So if you want to check that out, you can.
- [29:34]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, it was really funny, Cass. I sent her a message about this connection between Madame Gautreau and Felix, and then, completely out of chance, I ran into her that same night at a museum opening. And her take on the designer of the dress, and it seems to be many other scholars of Sargent, is that we will simply never know. We do know that not only Maison Felix, but also this dress in particular, was a favorite of hers. In Stephanie Herdrick's work on Sargent and Madame X, she cites a French critic as saying, quote, the woman in question was to be represented in la costume that she was particularly fond of. End quote. So while the dress depicted in Sargent's portrait of Madame Gautreau may indeed have been the work of Maison Felix, another quite curious assertion appears in, once again that Paris Telegraph article written by a quote, unquote, family friend. And just from an academic perspective, I want to say here that this article was published decades later, in 1925. So how much veracity here we can count on is a little bit questionable. But I think it's important to note that the friend in this article plainly wrote, quote, all of her gowns were designed by her husband, and he told me that many of them he draped on her beautiful form himself. When she arrived at the presidential ball, dressed in the black velvet dress without jewels in which Sargent painted her, she made an immense impression. So could it be, Cass, that it was Pedro Gautreau who was perhaps the famed beauty's secret sartorial weapon?
- [31:16]
April Callahan
We don't know with not, but you never know. And that's not to say that, you know, her husband had to be the one to even execute said hypothetical creations, right? Because in reality, most oak couturiers of Amelie's era, and almost certainly ones that she patronized, did not know how to construct or sew from start to finish the haute couture creations that bore their labels, right? So really, they functioned as designers or creative directors and then relied on teams of pattern makers, seamstresses, tailors, embroiderers, and other specialist artisans to materialize their ideas into reality. So perhaps her husband, you know, freely gifted his ideas into these couture tastes to create. We'll never know. But the fact of the matter is that we may never know who designed the dress depicted in Sergeant's Madame X. And does this even really matter in light of the fact that the dress itself was not the genesis of the scandal surrounding the painting, but rather the perceived wantonness of both the subject and the manner in which Sargent chose to portray her?
- [32:23]
Cassie Zachary
And the manner in which she was originally portrayed is actually not how the painting appears to us today. When the painting debuted in the 1884 Paris Salon, the right strap of Madame Gautreau's dress was painted as if it had sensuously slipped off her shoulder. So given that, and also the, you know, fairly considerable sex appeal of this dress, it was already pushing the boundaries a little bit at this time. Typically, styles like. Typically styles like this, which. Which do absolutely appear in fashion plates and photographs from the period, but typically it would be an actress or maybe even a courtesan who would go for such a sultry look, not a woman of high society. So Amelie's fallen strap kind of also implied this act of removing one's clothes or perhaps dressing again after an erotic encounter. For courtesan, a portrait like this may have been considered maybe an expensive calling card, but the public reacted very, very differently. In the case of Mrs. Amelie Avegno.
- [33:30]
April Callahan
Gautreau, Stephanie Herdrich cites the French critic Louis Dufourcod's reaction to this work. And this is a little bit of a lengthy quote, but it's worth sharing it in full because it gets to the heart of the matter, and he recognizes Amelie as being emblematic of, quote, the Parisian woman of foreign origin, raised from her childhood to be an idol. Know that in a person of this type, everything relates to the cult of the self and in the creating concern to captivate those around her. She ends up by being more than a woman. She becomes a sort of canon of worldly beauty. Her sole purpose in life is to demonstrate her skills in contriving incredible outfits which shape her and exhibit her and which you can carry off with bravado and even a touch of innocent. She is a professional beauty. End quote.
- [34:17]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and I think that this is really interesting, Cass, in terms of influencer culture today. You know, we all know that fashion and makeup are central to the profession of being an influencer. And really, it was no different 150 years ago. So, speaking of makeup, we really must explore this, because it was not only the fallen strap which critics in the public found objectionable about the portrait. It was also Amelie's extreme macchiage or makeup. And earlier I had referenced Madame Gautreau's use of rice powder, but what we did not get into is that this powder was frequently tinted with tones of lavender or blue. So the overall effect really emphasized the paleness of her skin. And in person, it seems from what people have written about her, it really, really worked for her. It was considered a bit eccentric, but not necessarily off putting. And Sargent even wrote about her habit of tinting her skin in this manner. And in a letter to a friend, he wrote, quote, do you object to people who are far day to the extent of being a uniform lavender or blotting paper color? If so, you would not care for my sitter. She has the most beautiful lines. And if the lavender or chlorite of Potash La Ange be pretty in and of itself, I should be more than pleased. End quote. And, listeners, I'm sure many of you do not know this term fardet. I had to look it up myself in French. It doesn't necessarily have an exact English translation, but its closest equivalent might be.
- [35:49]
April Callahan
Painted lady, which was yet another rumor swirling around Amelie Gautreau, that she was a practitioner of yet an even more extreme form of macchiage known as enameling. And this is exactly what it sounds like. So, for special events, some elite women went to special salons where they could have their skin either painted or enameled for this ultimate pallid effect. And additionally, pale green or purple veins could be added as an illusion. And if this sounds over the top, even at the time, it kind of was, as women who were painted or enameled for a big event like a ball had to be careful with their movements so as to not crease or crack the paint or enamel.
- [36:33]
Cassie Zachary
This practice of enameling is something that we have actually spoken about before on the podcast, and there is a very fun episode on Madame Rachel, who was a bit of a cosmetic con woman in the 1860s, and also one such purveyor that you could go to to be enameled. So you can tune into that episode if you want to learn more about this rather obscure cosmetic art and another quote, unquote, fashion scandal that we have covered in depth in the past.
- [37:02]
April Callahan
Yes, and for Sargent's part, he acknowledged the level of artifice an Amelie's cosmetic practices, and flat out said essentially, quote, I'm going to paint the painted lady as she is. He also praised her beauty as, quote, unquote, unpaintable, while noting that she was, quote, hopelessly lazy and didn't necessarily seem entirely enthusiastic in the portrait process, which, as we know, could take several sittings and apparently several weeks. The end result, however, which was months in the making did please her. In the weeks leading up to the 1884 Paris Salon, Madame Gautreau wrote to a friend saying that Sargent had painted a quote unquote masterpiece. And apparently Sargent's mentor, Carolus Durand, agreed, assuaging any of Sargent's fears about submitting a portrait of one of Paris's most famous beauties, which undoubtedly would be one of the most sought out paintings in the exhibition. The portrait was submitted to the show with the title Madame Asterisk. Asterisks, which at that time was a customary polite gesture to protect the identity of the subject. In reality, most people would obviously recognize the many socialites and celebrities of the day that were depicted in these portraits.
- [38:16]
Cassie Zachary
And the painting did draw crowds, but not for the reasons all involved had hoped for. No one could anticipate the public backlash and vitriol which swiftly followed the exhibition's opening. But a few of the terms used to describe the portrait in the press include indecent, immodest and vulgar. And the lilac tone of her skin was called nauseating. Corpse like and decomposed.
- [38:44]
April Callahan
The.
- [38:45]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, they really went in. And the journal Love Animal was actually vicious in their attack, writing, Madame Couture's skin had been rendered like, quote, an inside out rabbit skin, greenish grayish and moldy, While another critic called the overall effect a willful exaggeration.
- [39:04]
April Callahan
And that really was the true objection to this work. The journal Art Amateur called Amelie, quote, a female clown in pantomime, indicating that Madame Gautreau was trying too hard in a manner that was inelegant, unrefined and shameful, a faux pas of epic proportions, especially given that Madame Gautroux was American. And in the past, some of her eccentricities were overlooked as charming affectations or quirks. But this time, Amelie and now Sargent had gone too far. The Parisian press, which already had a long established genre of satirical newspapers, had a field day with the nearly unanimous critical and public rejections of this work. And the painting was a hot topic of discussion for months in academic and pop culture circles alike, and became the subject of caricatures, poems, songs, essentially what we might think of as a meme today.
- [40:03]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah. In some cases, this might be considered a, quote, success to scandal or success by scandal, which was not necessarily uncommon in the art world at the time. But in fact, Sargent and Madame Gautreau's feelings and reputations were deeply bruised, and Amelie, for her part, was said to have wept at the exhibition when the painting debuted, while Sargent solemnly defended his choices with something to the effect of but I only painted her as she is.
- [40:36]
April Callahan
Where's the lie?
- [40:37]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, I mean, that may have been the case, but Madame Gautreau's mother, Virginie Marie, was having none of it. She accused Sargent of deliberately ruining her daughter's reputation and demanded of the artist that the portrait of her then 25 year old daughter be taken down. Now, let's all please remember that both Virginie Marie and Amelie had seen the portrait before the exhibition opened. So this was really more a matter of social triage and damage control than it really was their honest objection to the work, which they had both stated previously, that they thought was a masterpiece.
- [41:14]
April Callahan
And even if Sargent had agreed to Virginie Marie's demands, the matter was entirely out of his control. And he later softened to some of the accusations of her fallen strap. Presenting as a modest. And he asked the salon officials if he might temporarily remove the work to repaint the strap in its proper place and return it for exhibition. The official reply was an unyielding no. And the painting remained as submitted for the remainder of the exhibition and returned to Sargent's studio when it was over and dress listeners there it remained for decades. Sargent did eventually recant his decision about the scrap and did indeed repaint it as we see it today. But the painting was a hot potato of sorts that no one knew what to do with.
- [41:58]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, and this is because, typically speaking, a portrait of this type would be expected to sell to the sitter or to the person who commissioned the work. Work. And obviously the Gautros and the Avignos wanted a no reminder of the scandal. And for Amelie's part, she more or less retreated from high society for a few months to kind of lick her wounds. She kind of went away for the summer and Sargent made an extended sojourn to London, where he spent significant time over the next few years actually in the company of his very, very close friend, the authority, Henry James. And again, a little bit of a sidebar, hot goss tangent. What the exact nature of their relationship was was hazy, as both James and Sargent had been presumed by scholars of their work as both being gay, Amelie.
- [42:49]
April Callahan
Returned to Paris high society. But her acclaim and acceptance never really recovered to the stratospheric level she once enjoyed. Her reputation of one of Paris's great beauties did endure, however, and actually word of her beauty continued to spread around the world.
- [43:10]
Cassie Zachary
Wow, this house is cute, but can I really get in the game in this economy? I do have savings and I am responsible. Ish. Ugh. I should bury it. I'm being wild. But what if I'm not being wild, though?
- [43:24]
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- [43:27]
Cassie Zachary
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Cassie Zachary
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- [44:13]
April Callahan
About three years after the scandal of 1884, Amelie began to fear her relevance was beginning to fade and tried her hand at the stage for a period. And in another strategic move in 1891, she commissioned another portrait of herself, this time by the artist Gustave Courtois. And in a rather stunning display of self referential bravado, the right strap of her frothy gossamer ivory dress was painted fallen from her shoulder. Today this painting is in the collection of the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.
- [44:45]
Cassie Zachary
So both her short lived acting career and the painting by Courtois, which is an obvious reference to the scandal surrounding Sargent's portrait of her, can be seen as a bit of a gambit to re energize her celebrity, which was sort of waning at this point. And throughout her 30s and 40s, you can occasionally find a bit of cruel writing in the press about her fading beauty by her late 40s and some incidents of ailing health. It is believed. Get this cast. That she began avoiding her own reflection by having all of the mirrors in her homes removed. It's very sad. So sad. Pedro and Amelie had separated some years earlier and their only child, a daughter named Louise, was living her own life as a married woman at this point. And tragedy would strike in 1911, when Amelie lost both her mother and her daughter in the span of a year. And her, you know, she already had these extant hermit tendencies and they were only exacerbated moving forward. So for the last four years of her life, Amelie Gautreau, once lauded as one of the most beautiful women in the world, lived as a recluse.
- [45:59]
April Callahan
And I mean, really, this is kind of a story as old as time, right?
- [46:04]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah.
- [46:05]
April Callahan
How many Hollywood actresses have experienced similar fates? Later in life, after decades of being celebrated for their physical appearances. So, returning to this article, written by a family friend that we have now referenced several times, it was actually entitled Tragedy of a Queen of Beauty. And the impetus for writing the article, the author explains, is this renewed international interest in Sargent's portrait of Madame Grouchreau. After a decade of resting in Sargent's studio, the work began to be requested by curators and was shown in public again with increasingly positive reception. The shadow of the scandal it had created in 1884 only seemed to add to its mythology and the general public's interest. And maybe it was indeed a success to scandal after all. But not of 1884. More like 1914. And by this time, Sargent had received offers from multiple museums around the world to purchase the painting.
- [47:02]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, it took like, 30 years for people to get it, essentially. Sargent, for his part, seemingly bounced back from the scandal relatively quickly within a few years, and his reputation as a painter only grew. At the time of amelie's death in 1915, Sargent was one of the most famous painters in the entire world, with works residing in major museum collections in Europe and America. Which, given the fact that Sargent and Madame Gautreau were both Americans, it seemed that Sargent felt an American institution was the only fitting final home for his portrait of La Belle Gautreau. After being exhibited in San Francisco in late 1915, Sargent finally accepted an offer in December of that year from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to purchase the painting for a sum of then a thousand pounds, or what would be the equivalent of today, about $140,000. And this. This really, truly is a shockingly low price. Now, given a single Sargent work, this is obviously a different artwork sold in 2004 for 23.5 million. And undoubtedly Madame X is. Is his most famous work today, so it would go for exponentially more than that.
- [48:24]
April Callahan
Yeah. And this is not unique to this artwork. Right? I mean, there's so many pieces in these museum collections they got for a literal steal. And so this painting actually only became known as Madame X when it was acquired by the met in 1916. And there is correspondence still in the Met's possession that reveals telegrams between the then Met director Ned Robinson and Sargent, with Sargent noting, quote, I should prefer on account of the row I had with the lady years ago, that this picture should not be called by her name and end quote. And continuing in the tradition established at the 1884 Salon, when the painting was entitled Madame Asterisks Asterix, the Met selected the letter X as Madame Gattroux's thinly cloaked veil of anonymity.
- [49:12]
Cassie Zachary
Again, in the words of the family friend of the Gatros, who wrote, quote, of all of the careers, surely that of Queen of Beauty is the most sad and futile. End quote. And this career as a professional beauty was surely a source of pain for Amelie Gautreau. At the end of her life. She had no way of knowing that in the end she would ultimately conquer time immemorial by the way of the very object which once had caused her so much anguish. Today, La Belle Gautreau has regained her celebrity status as one of the most admired women in the world, not only as hanging from the wall of one of the greatest museums in the world, but also as one of the most famous artworks in all of art history.
- [49:55]
April Callahan
Well, I think that does it for this week. Dress listeners, thank you for joining us for our very first episode of season eight. And until our next episode, coming your way Friday, may you consider causing a fashion scandal next time you get dressed, Remember, we always love hearing from you, so please write to us@hellorusttakestry.com JustHistory.com is our website where you will find up to date information on all of our upcoming in person tours. And this of course includes April's twice weekly fashion history tours of the Met where you can see Madame X in person. And our website is also where you'll find information about our live online fashion history classes. I am very excited to bring you what Women Wore the Revolution Again in May and I offer the this class in 2023 to great success. So I'm excited to teach it again. And basically we're going to be traveling from the 1850s to the 1920s and look at how dramatically women's lives changed and also the clothing they wore with it. So in part one of this two part series, we're going to meet some of the innovators and innovations really responsible for those revolutionary changes. So I hope to see you there.
- [51:05]
Cassie Zachary
If you'd like to message us, you can also DM us us on Instagram restorepodcast, which is where we post images and reels accompanying our episodes. If you would like to search for the Instagram content related to this week's episode, you can search the hashtag dressed530 that's dressed530. Looking for a fashionable read? Head over to our dressed bookshelf where you will find more than 150 book recommendations waiting there for you. You can also find a link in our show notes to our bookshop or in our Instagram link tree.
- [51:38]
April Callahan
Do you love dress but want to skip the ads? Well, we are very excited to now be part of the Airwave Network and Airwave History plus, which is a premium ad free history subscription on Apple Podcasts featuring 27 other popular history podcasts without ads for 5.99 per month. More information is available at the link in our bio and thank you as always for tuning in and more dress coming your way soon. The History of Fashion is a production of Dress Media.
- [52:11]
Dan Souza
Hey everyone, it's Dan Souza from America's Test Kitchen. I'm super excited to let you all know that we're launching a new video podcast that takes you behind the scenes into the messy, imperfect, but riveting day to day life right here in our Test kitchen. Not only do I get to talk to my colleagues about the latest taste.
- [52:27]
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Test they attended, I just came from.
- [52:29]
April Callahan
A tasting of salted caramel apple pie bars and then roasted garlic. So I apologize.
- [52:34]
Dan Souza
Or about a recipe they're developing.
- [52:36]
April Callahan
The thing about this recipe is it's a secret. The restaurateur refuses to tell people what her secret ingredients are.
- [52:42]
Dan Souza
We also chat with amazing guests from the culinary world and beyond. The lamest joke I've ever said, I said to Maria Manford, this is great.
- [52:49]
Cassie Zachary
It's definitely.
- [52:50]
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Thank you.
- [52:51]
Dan Souza
Thanks. Make sure to subscribe to in the Test Kitchen so you don't miss an episode. You can watch in the Test Kitchen on YouTube and Spotify and listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Can't wait to see you in the Test Kitchen.