| Birth: | Jan. 29, 1859
New Orleans
Orleans Parish
Louisiana, USA | | Death: | Jul. 25, 1915
Paris, France | 
Artist's Model. A celebrated beauty of 19th Century Paris, she is best remembered as the subject of John Singer Sargent's controversial "Portrait of Madame X". Raised initially in New Orleans, she was the child of a wealthy Creole family. Her Confederate officer father having been killed at the 1862 Battle of Shiloh, Virginie (sometimes referred to as "Amelie") moved to Paris with her mother at the age of eight. Soon, she was much in demand by Parisian society, and was known to color her hair and use make-up from a young age. Marriage to banker Pierre Gautreau did not inhibit her enjoyment of male company; the multiple marital infidelities caused no scandal in the societal milieu of the time, but John Singer Sargent's portrait did, indeed. Posed in Sargent's Paris studio between 1883 and 1884, the large (seven-foot tall) work was exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1884 to a loud and immediate outcry. Sargent had painted Virginie with one strap of her gown pulled off the shoulder, which audiences of the day viewed as an overt sexual invitation. The resulting scandal ruined the painter's chances of a career in France and left the model shunned. Sargent was thereafter to live and work in London, while Virginie largely withdrew from society, though several other noted artists were to paint her. Sargent went on to a long, distinguished career; he painted the strap back onto the shoulder, and today "Madame X" has an honored place at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (to which Sargent sold it in 1916). The full story is told in Deborah Davis' 2003 "Strapless: John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X", and dramatized in Gioia Dilberto's novel "I Am Madame X" (2003). Several noted beauties, including Nicole Kidman, have posed for photographs evocative of the once-salacious painting. At her death, Virginie was separated from her husband, but she was buried in his family's tomb. (bio by: Bob Hufford)
Family links:
Parents:
Anatole Placide Avegno (1835 - 1862)
Marie Virginie Ternant Avegno (1838 - ____)
Search Amazon for Virginie Gautreau | | | Burial:
Chateau des Chenes
Saint-Malo
Departement d'Ille-et-Vilaine
Bretagne, France
Plot: Gautreau family crypt |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Originally Created by: Bob Hufford
Record added: Jul 02, 2009
Find A Grave Memorial# 38977354 |
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