Born in New Orleans on January 29, 1859, Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau was a Parisian socialite married to a French banker and shipping magnate. She was celebrated for her fashion and beauty routine that emphasized her hair and her pale skin. One of John Singer Sargent's famous paintings is of her: "Portrait of Madame X" (1884). Unfortunately, the painting caused a scandal: her fair complexion was perceived as a symptom of poor health, and her dress (at first with only one strap) was provocative. It's hard not to read moral superiority rather than aesthetic judgment in the reviews. Eventually Sargent sold it to its current place, the Met in New York--and the portrait is considered one of the artist's greatest works. Gautreau had other portraits commissioned, too. She died in 1915.
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