“The Madame X Files” by Hamish Bowles was first published in the January 1999 issue of Vogue. For more highlights from Vogue’s archives, sign up for our Nostalgia newsletter [here](link).

John Singer Sargent’s 1884 portrait of Virginie Avegno Gautreau, famously known as Madame X, is a masterclass in image-making. Gautreau flaunts her striking beauty and embraces her role as society’s exotic ornament—a “professional beauty.” She is a sphinx without mystery, “prophetic of all the sophisticated chic of Vogue,” as historian Philippe Jullian observed in 1965. But who was this enigmatic woman, whose allure still captivates more than a century after Sargent immortalized her in oil?

John Singer Sargent, born in Florence in 1856 to American parents, led a nomadic childhood, traveling extensively across Europe. By the 1880s, after training under the esteemed Carolus-Duran and at the École des Beaux-Arts, he had made a name for himself in Paris as both a portraitist and a painter of exotic scenes from Italy, Spain, France, and Morocco. It was almost inevitable that he would be drawn to the infamous Victoire Gautreau—throughout his career, Sargent was fascinated by unconventional, exotic beauties. He had already captured the wild charm of Rosina Ferrara, a girl from Capri, and the mystique of Moroccan women, like the one in his 1880 painting Fumée d’Ambre Gris. Later, he produced some of his most vibrant portraits of spirited subjects, including the haughty Spanish dancer Carmencita, the lively Wertheimer sisters (Almina, Ena, and Betty), the eccentric Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, and the legendary Vaslav Nijinsky. He once called the dazzling Rita de Acosta Lydig “Art in its living form,” and Madame Gautreau’s striking, almost symbolist beauty likely inspired similar admiration.

Sargent found her “strange, weird, fantastic, curious.” Determined to paint her, he embarked on an elaborate courtship, enlisting the help of a mutual friend, Ben del Castillo, to whom he wrote: “I have a great desire to paint her portrait and have reason to think she would allow it… Tell her I am a man of prodigious talent.” Virginie Gautreau agreed. The sittings began in Paris in 1883, and that summer, Sargent traveled to the Gautreaus’ country estate, the Château des Chesnes in Brittany. There, amid ancient oaks, the Gautreaus had planted tropical palms and pampas grass, reflecting the fashionable exotic tastes of Third Republic society.

Born in Louisiana just before the Civil War, Virginie Avegno was a true Southern belle, raised in the art of charm at her family’s Parmlange Plantation—a grand, romantic estate built a century earlier by her ancestor Claude Vincent de Ternant on the banks of the False River (once part of the Mississippi). The house still retains its antebellum elegance, with its stately columns, twin pigeonniers, and an avenue of live oaks draped in Spanish moss. Virginie may have inherited some of her mystique from her grandmother, Virginie de Ternant Parlange, a formidable woman who reportedly saved the plantation by shrewdly entertaining both Confederate General Richard Taylor and Union General Nathaniel Banks—family legend claims they slept in the same room, though at different times.She was also a devoted Francophile. She decorated Parlange with Parisian furnishings and hired French court painter Edouard-Louis Dubufe to create portraits of herself and her three children—Julie, Marie Virginie, and Marius. Dubufe, known for painting Empress Eugénie and the Prince Imperial, portrayed her in midnight blue with royal ermine. These portraits still hang in the corners of her salon today. The carefully preserved calling cards in her collection—now used by her descendant Angèle Parlange in textile designs—reveal how highly she valued prestigious connections.

Her daughter Marie Virginie married Confederate Major Anatole Placide de Avegno, a lawyer who died from injuries at the Battle of Shiloh. Disillusioned by the Civil War, his widow took her two daughters—Virginie and Louise, already showing signs of great beauty—to Paris, never to return to America. They settled at 44 rue de Luxembourg (later renamed rue Cambon, where Coco Chanel would establish her fashion house) in an upscale neighborhood near the Madeleine.

From this elegant address, Marie Virginie de Ternani Avegno worked ambitiously to secure high society for her striking daughters. However, Virginie, excluded from the highest circles, settled for wealth instead, marrying banker and shipowner Pierre Gautreau. Gautreau, a shadowy figure, was said to be so infatuated with his beautiful wife that he initially agreed to a marriage in name only. This arrangement left Virginie free for romantic escapades, earning her a scandalous reputation. Rumors linked her to French Republican leader Léon Gambetta (who died before her portrait was completed) and the notorious gynecologist Samuel Jean Pozzi, nicknamed “Docteur Dieu” by Sarah Bernhardt.

Pozzi, an art connoisseur with a collection of antiquities and works by Tiepolo and Guardi, had already been painted by Sargent in 1881. Sargent later described him as “a very brilliant creature,” while his cousin Ralph Curtis called him “the great and beautiful Pozzi.” In Dr. Pozzi at Home, Sargent depicted him dramatically in a crimson robe, its loose elegance hinting at seduction. One hand rests formally on his chest, evoking grand portraits of the past, while the other plays with his robe’s sash, suggesting intimacy.

When the painting debuted at London’s Royal Academy in 1882, critics largely overlooked it—though Sargent’s friend Violet Paget (writing as Vernon Lee) praised its “insolent magnificence, as if it kicked other people’s pictures aside.” The suggestive details, much like the fallen strap in Virginie’s later portrait, went unnoticed.Here’s a more natural and fluent version of your text:

After its inclusion in an avant-garde exhibition in Brussels two years later, critic Emile Verhaeren dismissed it, saying it was “like a champagne glass filled too quickly—more foam than wine.” Pozzi was as vain as Madame Gautreau, and while rumors suggest a romantic connection between them, this remains unconfirmed. Still, the doctor did acquire Sargent’s intimate painting Madame Gautreau Drinking a Toast for his private collection.

Even after marriage, Madame Pierre Gautreau remained a striking figure in high society. She avoided the conservative designs of couturier Charles Frederick Worth, instead collaborating with the more publicity-savvy Félix Poussineau to create bold, dramatic outfits. Though she shunned flashy jewelry (not wanting it to distract from her famously luminous skin), she freely used cosmetics—dyeing her hair auburn, penciling her brows, and dusting her skin with a soft mauve powder (Sargent later described it as “a uniform lavender, like blotting paper”). Some, like Sargent’s biographer Stanley Olson, even speculated that she took arsenic to achieve her unnaturally pale complexion. When her portrait was unveiled, Ralph Curtis remarked that she looked “decomposed,” while artist Marie Bashkirtseff noted her shoulders had “the tone of a corpse.”

Madame Gautreau proved a difficult subject—restless and impatient. Sargent complained to Vernon Lee about “struggling with her unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness,” struggling to settle on the right pose. He captured her in various moods: listlessly raising a toast by candlelight, gazing out a window, playing piano, or lounging with a book—each sketch emphasizing her bored, provocative demeanor. One study even showed her sprawled on a sofa, her dress slipping to reveal an ankle and the delicate heel of her evening slipper.

Eventually, Sargent positioned her against an Empire table, its circular top supported by sirens—a fitting symbol. In this bold pose, the 24-year-old socialite leans forward, one arm draped sinuously over the table’s edge while the other gathers her fan and the lush folds of her satin gown with an almost greedy grip. A crescent moon—then a fashionable hair ornament—glitters in her hennaed hair, subtly evoking Diana, the huntress goddess. This detail, however, was not Sargent’s addition but part of Gautreau’s own calculated self-presentation. As a final touch, he painted one of her jeweled shoulder straps slipping down, a gesture of deliberate, sensual carelessness.

At 28, Sargent was already a favorite of Parisian critics and had high hopes for this portrait. His mentor, Carolus-Duran, assured him it would be well-received at the Salon. Though accepted in 1884, Sargent grew uneasy about its reception—an unease that proved justified when the painting caused an uproar. As his friend and biographer Evan Charteris delicately put it, “the public took it upon themselves to denounce the… flagrant insufficiency of the sitter’s attire.”

Today, it’s hard to grasp the scandal it provoked, especially given the era’s double standards and Paris’s notoriously libertine society. Madame Gautreau was already notorious in the tabloids as a woman of questionable virtue. But knowing her reputation was one thing—seeing her brazen sensuality captured so vividly on canvas was another matter entirely.

This version keeps the original meaning while improving flow, simplifying complex phrasing, and removing archaic or overly formal language. Let me know if you’d like any further refinements!Exposing her to the fashionable world was another matter entirely. Society women mocked Sargent’s honest portrayal of his subject’s heavy makeup, while art critics made merciless jokes. Albert Woolf of Le Figaro quipped about her fallen shoulder strap: “One more struggle, and the lady will be free.” Sargent, regretting his initial choice, later repainted the strap to its proper position.

Virginie Gautreau realized too late how scandalous Sargent’s bold depiction had made her. After a somber lunch at Ledoyen with the artist, Ralph Curtis found himself back at Sargent’s studio on Boulevard Berthier, confronted by a tearful Mme Gautreau and her mother, Mme de Ternant Avegno. The latter later cornered Sargent, creating a scene, begging him to withdraw the “shameless portrait” from the Salon, declaring her daughter “ruined.” She cried, “All of Paris is mocking her… she will die of shame!” Sargent refused, claiming Salon rules forbade removal, but he personally retrieved the painting before the exhibition closed, fearing the furious Gautreau family might destroy it.

Crushed by the criticism, Sargent abandoned his Parisian ambitions and fled to London, eventually settling in Whistler’s old Tite Street studio. His later work, filled with impressionistic light and English countryside charm, was a far cry from the dramatic intensity of Mme Gautreau’s portrait. Though British patrons were initially wary of his bold style, by the century’s end, his portraits became status symbols for aristocrats and wealthy Americans.

The 1884 Salon scandal didn’t break Mme Gautreau’s spirit. Seven years later, she posed for Gustave Courtois, a respected but uninspired academic painter. His unflattering depiction showed her beauty fading—thickly penciled brows, powdered skin, pink ears. Defiant as ever, she hadn’t learned her lesson; Courtois slyly referenced Sargent’s scandal by painting one strap slipping off her shoulder. Her pearl bracelet dangled carelessly over a hand clutching a sheer stole. This phase of her life inspired Robert de Montesquiou’s biting verse:

To keep her figure, she must now constrain it,
Not to Canova’s mold—but to a corset.

By 1906, with Sargent now the leading society portraitist, Mme Gautreau had softened toward her infamous image. She told him the Kaiser adored her portrait, calling it the most captivating likeness he’d ever seen, and urged Sargent to exhibit in Berlin. But by 1915, consumed by despair over her lost beauty, she became a recluse, hiding behind veils and banishing mirrors from her homes.

A year after her death, Sargent arranged for Madame X to be sold to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for a symbolic £1,000. Even his harshest critics, like de Montesquiou and Roger Fry, admitted it was a masterpiece. Sargent himself remarked, “I suppose it is the best thing I’ve done.””That thing I have done.”