Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau

[
John Singer Sargent, "Madame X (Madame Pierre Gautreau)", 1884, oil on canvas, 234.95 x 109.86 cm, Manhattan: Metropolitan Museum of Art.]

Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau (29 January 1859 [New Orleans parish Birth Records 1859 ] – 1915) was a Parisian socialite, artists' model and an American expatriate. She is perhaps most widely known as the subject of John Singer Sargent's painting "Portrait of Madame X".

Family

Virginie Amélie Gautreau was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on 29 January 1859, the daughter of a wealthy French Creole family. She and her mother moved to France when she was 8 years old where they quickly ensconced themselves in the highest echelons of French society. Her father Anatole Avegno had been killed in the Battle of Shiloh during the Civil War five years previously.

Madame X

A pale-skinned brunette with fine, cameo-like features and an hourglass figure, Virginie became one of Paris's most conspicuous beauties. To enhance her ivory complexion Gautreau wore lavender-colored face and body powder. She was known to dye her hair with henna and pencil in her eyebrows. She also attracted much admiration due to her elegance and chic avante-garde style. She married a French banker Pierre Gautreau but that did not prevent her seeking the company of other men. Subsequently she became notorious for her numerous infidelities.

She posed for paintings by several noted 19th-century painters, most famously for John Singer Sargent's " Portrait of Madame X," which created a cultural scandal when it was exhibited in 1884 at the Paris Salon. The scandal caused Virginie to retire from society.

Her and Sargent's intertwined stories are the subject of "Strapless" by Deborah Davis (Tarcher Penguin 2004).Her story is also the subject of "I am Madame X: A novel" by Gloria Diliberto (Scribner 2004).

Sources

# New Orleans Parish Birth Records 1859

Notes