I Am Madame X - Hardcover

Diliberto, Gioia

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743211553 ISBN 13: 9780743211550

Publisher: Scribner, 2003

Synopsis

Follows the life of Virginie Gautreau, the subject of John Singer Sargent's famous and controversial portrait, from her Creole heritage and flight to France during the American Civil War, to her troubled adolescence and marriage to a prominent banker.

About this title

Review:

Mystery is often more alluring than knowledge. A fictional memoir of the legendary American-born beauty Virginie Gautreau, the subject of John Singer Sargent's famous 1884 painting, Portrait of Madame X, Gioia Diliberto's I Am Madame X risks dashing cold water on one of the loveliest and most persistent mysteries in Western art history: what the model is thinking. Following in the footsteps of Tracy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring, though with much more historical documentation at her disposal, Diliberto gives voice to a woman whose memory rests on this single painting. A gem of Belle Époque Paris, Virginie Gautreau had fled Louisiana with her mother during the Civil War. Married at a young age to a French banker, she attracted every kind of attention with her unusual beauty and her daring fashion sense. Her affairs were widely whispered about. Diliberto presents a vivid picture of Virginie's life and times, and brings to life one model's troubled but stimulating relationship with the artist who immortalized her. --Regina Marler

About the Author:

Gioia Diliberto is the author of biographies of Jane Addams, Hadley Hemingway, and Brenda Frazier. She lives in Chicago with her husband, Richard Babcock, and their son, Joe. I Am Madame X is her first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0743211553
• ISBN 13: 9780743211550
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 261