What a question! There have been so many.
One of my all-time favorites was the beautiful Apolonie Sabatier, reknowned among the contemporary writers, artists, musicians and cultural impresarios of her time. She was famous for her private salon in Paris, her wit and conversation and especially her diplomatic ability to juggle the jealousies among all these artists—to say nothing of her stunning beauty.
The fact that she was rumoured to be a bit of a libertine didn’t harm her popularity one bit. She inspired Charles Baudelaire’s famous work Les Fleurs du Mal (He attempted suicide twice because his passion for her remained unrequited). Everybody wanted to paint her and many did. Auguste Clesinger’s life-size marble sculpture of her which he named Woman Bitten By Snake, shows a beautiful, full-bodied young woman obviously writhing in the throes of orgasm. (Yes, we get the joke, Monsieur C. You left no doubt as to the kind of snake form which she has been bitten). The sculpture got him into a bit of trouble and it took a court case to get it into the Paris Salon The problem wasn’t nudity, or the writhing. Gods and goddesses had been portrayed for centuries nude. The problem was that Clesinger had left in a bit of realistic cellulite at the gluteal fold of her left buttock—and everybody knows that no goddess would have any such thing and therefore this was the portrayal of a human, and therefore pornographic. He eventually won the case. Today she is in the Orsay, just across the river behind the Louvre.
Check this out. She is Geneviève Lantelme, by Boldini. This woman grew up in her mother’s brothel, became a popular French actress even though she was considered anaethema until they noticed she actually had talent. She married a French industrialist, then one night fell overboard her husband’s yacht and drowned. She was 26. Her death is still considered quite unsolved as everyone on board went mum.
I think she is stunning and powerful. Boldini’s portraits of some of the most famous and wealthy women of the Belle Epoch are magnificent and often underrated as they capture the nature of some of these women, their artistic nature, their independence or struggle for it, and their willpower. He didn’t like painting what he called “fluffs.” He liked strong women and it often comes through in his paintings and matches the stories told about their personalities.
Emma, Lady Hamilton. Daughter of a blacksmith from Cheshire, she received no formal education. Her father died when she was 2 and her mother and she were left to hardscrabble. She went into domestic service as a scullery wench at age 12. Through her intelligence, wit and highly developed survival skills, she became one of the most sought-after women of the early 19th century. Her life was incredibly interesting. She was eventually able to sit at the tables with kings and queens and became the love of British Admiral Lord Nelson’s life—which nearly ruined him because of the prejudices of the times. She was considered the most beautiful woman of her time. She did some spying, acting, and conducted diplomatic negotiations for Nelson and the Crown. But upon her return to England after living in Naples for decades, she was ignored by the people she had helped and eventually died penniless in the streets.
She was the most painted woman of her time My favorite is Emma as Circe by George Romney.
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