John Singer Sargent was possibly the finest and best known American portraitist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His works hang in many notable homes and museums around the world, and he has long been a favorite of mine. Harper’s exhibits a number of his portraits, as well as his landscapes and other work, for your admiration and purchase.
One of Sargent’s most famous portraits was the “scandalous” (by the opinion of the time) Portrait of Madame X (Mme. Pierre Gautreau). Exhibited at the 1884 Paris Salon, the painting showed the lady in a bold black dress with decorative jeweled shoulder straps, one of which was loosely fallen off her shoulder. The impression that the dress itself was going to slip (a non-issue, as the bodice was founded on metal and whalebone, according to Wikipedia) rocked proper society, but Sargent refused to withdraw the piece. He later repainted the section to put the shoulder strap in place, and this is how the painting appears today, on display at the Metropolitan in New York City.
The brouhaha today is more amusing than shocking, but you can see if you can shock your avatar friends with a print of Madame X for your house or apartment wall.
On sale exclusively in my in-world store for L$250.
