Study of Mme Gautreau

This is the rehearsal for one of the most notorious portraits of the 19th century. Through the winter of 1883 and into 1884, John Singer Sargent worked on a likeness of Virginie Gautreau, a young American who had married into Paris society and was known there for her lavender-pale skin and haughty profile. She was a restless sitter, and he filled dozens of drawings and oil sketches trying to fix the pose. This full-size version stays deliberately unfinished, with whole areas of bare canvas, while her turned head and cold profile are already exactly as they would appear in the final work. When he showed that finished portrait at the Paris Salon of 1884 as 'Madame X', the reaction was so hostile that within two years he left Paris for London for good.