Meet the Women who Inspired Some of History’s Most Famous Artworks
Muse: A person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Royalty Now, where we bring you face to face with figures from the past and talk about their history.
Today, we’ll be coming face to face with reconstructions of 3 women who inspired some of the most famous art pieces of all time. For the full video with these re-creations in motion, visit us on YouTube.
A photograph of Amelie Gautreau
Portrait of Madame X, by John Singer Sargent, 1884
First, let’s talk about the woman behind this scandalously received 1884 painting by John Singer Sargent: Madame X.
The model and inspiration for this work was named Amelie Gautreau, a young Parisian socialite so well known for her striking looks that she was referred to as a “Professional Beauty.”
Amelie was an American from New Orleans, who moved to Paris with her mother at the age of 8, and eventually married a French banker twice her age.
Well known for her beauty - and marital infidelities - Amelie moved in society circles, but she wasn’t as revered as she wanted to be. Her life was marked by a grasping to get in - and stay in - the inner circle of Paris high society.
Her beautiful profile and extremely fair complexion - which she enhanced with lavender face powder and red henna dye in her hair - earned her several requests from artists. Her elegance had been described as “doe-like” by artist Edward Simmons.
“…She walked as Virgil speaks of a goddess—sliding—and seemed to take no steps. Her head and neck undulated like that of a young doe, and something about her gave you the impression of infinite proportion, infinite grace, and infinite balance. Every artist wanted to make her in marble or paint…”
After meeting Amelie at a social gathering in 1881, Artist John Singer Sargent was immediately enamored with her looks.
Sargent had arrived in Paris in 1874, at just 18 years old, bright and ready to paint. It wasn’t long before he achieved success. He exhibited at the salons of 1877, 78 and 79, earning an Honorable Mention for his portrait of his mentor, Carolus-Duran. For the critics, Singer Sargent could do no wrong. He was the up and coming artist of the decade.
By 1883, he had established his own studio, and he was ready to truly make a name for himself in the Paris artworld.
He soon conceived of a plan, to paint a life-size portrait so stunning and seductive, that all of Paris would sit up and take notice.
Sargent was able to persuade the beautiful Amelie to pose for him, after begging a friend in a letter to put in a good word for him, writing “If you will see her in Paris, you might tell her I am a man of prodigious talent.”
Sargent knew the portrait was a risk. Amelie, a married woman, would be shown in a revealing dress, and a sensual pose. However, he convinced her that the portrait would be good for them both - it would elevate her beauty and notoriety even further, and hopefully cause a little bit of a stir.
They had no idea just how much of a stir it would cause.
The pair got to work - between social engagements, Amelie would visit Sargent’s studio and sit for hours, which she quickly got tired of. Over the course of the next few months, Sargent painted and sketched dozens of studies for the portrait, trying out numerous poses and backgrounds. He became frustrated with what he called Gautreau’s “Unpaintable Beauty”, and admitted to his friend Vernon Lee that he was struggling to do her justice.
The painting took nearly 2 years to complete, but eventually it was accepted into the Salon of 1884, under the title Portrait of Madame X. Sargent and Gatreau held their breath, waiting for the critical reaction.
Unfortunately, the work was universally panned by critics, and considered the scandal of the season. Critics called the work salacious, absurd, like a caricature, saying her skin tone was corpse-like, and that it was extremely inappropriate for a married woman to pose so seductively for a portrait.
In fact, the portrait was even more daring than we see today, originally displayed with one strap sliding down her shoulder, which was painted over after the exhibition.
Amelie’s own mother tried to have the work pulled from the salon - saying “My Daughter is Lost.”
The scandal caused Sargent to flee to London, where he continued to work, but would never again paint anything as daring, reverting to much more wholesome imagery.
For Amelie’s reputation, the damage was done. She would never reach the highest echelons of high society, and although she modeled for several other artists whose works were admitted to the Salon, her beauty would eventually fade into obscurity.
Now, of course, Portrait of Madame X is one of history’s renowned paintings. It’s a perfect study of how conventions change over time. The black dress is something we see every day now on the red carpet, but in the 1880s was considered so shocking that even an actress would not have worn it for a portrait.
Like many artists, Sargent was misunderstood at the time, but celebrated today. So, let’s see Amelie Gautreau, brought to life, now:
The Crystal Ball, by John William Waterhouse, 1902
Our next muse inspired one of my favorite painters, John William Waterhouse. I’ve always been enchanted by his romantic paintings, depicting stories from mythology and Arthurian legends. He began painting in the 1870s, and had a career lasting over 40 years.
Waterhouse was successful both critically and commercially during his life, and produced so much work that every art lover now knows his name. But he was also a notoriously private man, and his inspirations, and muses, are quite mysterious to us.
His early works feature the women in his life - his sisters Jessie and Mary, as well as his wife Esther being featured as his main models.
But the identity of his most famous muse - one of the most well-recognized faces in pre-raphaelite art, remained a major mystery in the art world until 1979.
A small inscription was discovered on the back of a preparatory sketch for Waterhouse’s 1905 painting, Lamia, that simply said “Miss Muriel Foster.”
Once Waterhouse painted her for the first time, in La Belle Dame Sans Merci (The Beautiful Lady Without Mercy) at the age of 15, in 1893, she was his near-singular inspiration. We don’t know how they met, or what their true relationship was, but it was a decades long relationship through art. It’s believed that Muriel is featured in nearly every Waterhouse painting from 1893 to 1906.
For my re-creation of Muriel, I’ve composited several images, but mainly used the painting The Lady Clare for her face. So let’s see the face of one of the most famous art world beauties, Muriel Foster, now:
Our last muse today is undeniably the most famous - the alleged model for the Birth of Venus herself - Simonetta Vespucci.
Simonetta was an Italian noblewoman from Genoa, born around 1453. Much like Amelie Gautreau, Simonetta was also considered the greatest beauty of her age.
At the age of 15, she captured the attention of Florentine nobleman Marco Vespucci, while they were attending church at San Torpete in Genoa. He instantly fell in love with her. Based on his wealth and connections to the Medici family, her parents approved the match, and Simonetta moved to the very center of the Renaissance: Florence, Italy.
She became instantly popular in Florence, even catching the eye of the Medici brothers Lorenzo and Giuliano, who we also have a video about.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman thought to be Simonetta Vespucci.
Not much is known about her life there. She would have led the life of a typical Florentine noblewoman - attending festivals and social events, observing Catholicism, and supervising her household.
Unfortunately, Simonetta didn’t have time to blossom into a woman more remembered by history. She died at the very young age of 22, on the night of April 26th, 1476, possibly of tuberculosis, or, the plague.
So, you may be wondering - when did Simonetta find the time to model for all of these famous paintings, becoming the muse of Sandro Boticelli? Well, that is an interesting question, given that Botticelli’s works were all painted in the 1480s, ten years after Simonetta had died.
Portrait of an Unknown Woman thought to be Simonetta Vespucci.
The short answer is that we actually have no evidence that Botticelli’s model was Simonetta Vespucci, and the long answer is more mysterious, and possibly kind of creepy from Botticelli’s end.
Let’s look at some evidence of how the two overlapped, and why Botticelli may have felt inspired to paint a long-dead beauty over and over.
First, we know the two overlapped in life. In fact, they were neighbors, sharing adjacent houses on Florence’s Via Nuova. Sandro Botticelli was in his 20s when Simonetta was alive, and the Vespucci family regularly commissions portraits and works from him, even after her death.
Although there’s no evidence that Simonetta ever posed for him while she was alive, it’s thought that Botticelli was so struck by her appearance that he either maintained an amazing memory of what she looked like, or made his own, private sketches of her to work from later.
Strangely, he even requested to be buried at the foot of her tomb when he died, which he later was.
While many leap to the conclusion that Botticelli must have been in love with her, there’s nothing to back this up, and some scholars maintain that he was gay. At the very least, Botticelli was obsessed with her beauty, and he wasn’t the only one.
It was said that the entire city of Florence went into a month-long period of mourning after her death. They paraded her coffin, open at the top, to allow citizens to get one last glimpse of her beauty.
This obsession morphed into a kind of “Cult of Beauty” after her death. She became the personification of the very concept of beauty to the Renaissance men of Florence.
There are some…interesting tributes to her, even long after her death. Lorenzo de Medici wrote multiple poems about her, even claiming that he saw a very bright star in the night sky, which he believed could be none other than the soul of Simonetta.
The poet Bernardo Pulci describes her in his poetry as living in the realm of Venus herself.
She also features in what I can only describe as a fanfiction love story, written by Angelo Poliziano, about the fictional love affair between Simonetta and Giuliano de Medici.
She had definitely made an impression on these men.
So while we have no record of Simonetta posing, much less posing nude, for Sandro Botticelli, we do have several portraits of an unidentified, stunning strawberry blonde woman, who many interpret to be his artistic memory of Simonetta.
I’m honestly just fascinated by the phenomenon of Simonetta Vespucci in general, and if these are her, she was one hell of a beauty.
So let’s see my interpretation of Simonetta Vespucci, brought to life from these portraits, now:
