Strapless. John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. Author: Deborah Davis.

Strapless is a story about John Singer Sargent’s famous portrait of socialite, Amelie Gautreau. While it provides biographical background on these two figures, its main focus is on the years these two US expatriates lived in Paris and collaborated on a work intended to increase the cachet of both individuals. The “Madame X” portrait, which currently hangs in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, became the subject of scandal when exhibited at the 1884 Paris Salon. While there was wide criticism of the sitter’s position, her gown and Sargent’s technique, the foremost complaint revolved around the sexual suggestiveness of the model’s fallen right shoulder strap.

Davis begins with Gautreau’s family (the Avegnos) in the New Orleans area. Like most slave-owners of the time, they had an estate in the city and a plantation on the Louisiana agricultural lands. While the family owned over 100 slaves, there is only one reference to them: “tending to the animals and the crops were 147 slaves, watched by an overseer” (Davis, p.13). It is shocking that a book published in 2004, (one that details shopping in Paris over four pages), dedicates only one sentence the lives of those who were owned and mistreated by the Avegnos. Information about these particular slaves would not have been difficult to exhume from the historic record. Family correspondence, records of punishments or escapes, oral history of former slaves, archaeological excavations of slave quarters on family property, artifacts (like whips, torture devices, manacles), all of these methods were available to the historian. But Davis, in a pattern typical throughout the book, avoids topics of human rights, politics or suffering. The majority of the book concerns Belle Epoch Paris between 1870 and 1900. Remaining consistent with her evasion of the slavery issue, this author is able to talk about Parisian history without mentioning the primary culture clash between traditionalist nationalists and cosmopolitan modernists; an issue that divided French society among all classes, including that of her subjects. She mentions Alfred Dreyfus as a patient of the doctor who introduced Sargent and Gautreau, but ignores the Dreyfus Affair that was so central to that culture clash. She spends three pages on the presence and musical significance of Richard Wagner in society, without any reference to his influential anti-semitism. To indicate that Ms. Davis is not very political is like saying ISIS is a tad impertinent.

Of course, this is a story about Parisian High Society’s horror regarding a painting transgression of proper mores. While the author may exhibit deficits of conscience, anyone picking-up this book and expecting to read riveting social commentary is not paying attention. It is a book one reads as a break from worldly concerns; much like the reasons why someone would take time-out in an art museum to admire Sargent portraits in the first place. This does not excuse lapses in historical content or social conscience, but it does explain it.

While Davis exhibits little political awareness, she does show a touching affection for Sargent and Gautreau, as well as a concern for the trajectory of their lives before and after the scandal of 1884. She tells a good story. One empathizes with the rise of these two outsiders and their dramatic fall; then watches them intrepidly dust themselves off and struggle to revive their reputations. It’s a real life personal drama with all the importance of a fallen strap.

Davis, Deborah. Strapless. John Singer Sargent and the Fall of Madame X. New York: Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2004.