Sans titre

Portrait of Gustave Courtois by Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret (1884).

Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret

In late 1880, Gustave Courtois and Dagnan-Bouveret rented a double studio on the first floor of 147 Avenue de Villiers, in a newly constructed building with large glass windows.

There, they hosted Carl Ernst von Stetten, 1857–1942,

Nisus and Euryalus.

Companions of the Trojan Aeneas, they confront King Turnus and his Rutulians, who oppose the Trojan settlement in their territory. Attacking the sleeping Rutulian camp at night, Euryalus and Nisus manage to kill several of them, including King Rhamnes, the noble lord Remus, and the handsome young Serranus.

Fleeing after Euryalus seizes their weapons, they are pursued by Volcens, Turnus's lieutenant, who sees a moonlit reflection on the robbers' helmets. Nisus manages to escape, but Euryalus, burdened by his loot, is surrounded. Nisus comes to his aid and kills two Rutulians with his javelins. Volcens, furious, kills Euryalus with a sword stroke, but Nisus avenges his friend by killing Volcens, and dies in turn.

The Balcony of My Caravan, Bonnard 1912

He stayed there regularly until 1938, when he settled permanently in Le Cannet, which he had frequented every winter since 1927.

Marthe & Pierre

“Playwright and Dancer” by Marc Kundemann.

Provincetown artist Marc Kundemann (b. 1963) here references an episode from the Queer seaside resort, frequented in the early 20th century by artists, writers, and intellectuals.

Among these bohemians, Tennessee Williams (1911–1983) met, during his first stay in Provincetown in the early summer of 1940, a 22-year-old dancer named Kip Kiernan, who lived there in poverty with his lover, Joe Hazan.

Nov. 1940, Tennessee Williams in New York

The dancer Kip Kiernan

Tennessee and Kip, who became lovers for the duration of a summer, are the subject of the autobiographical play that Tennessee Williams wrote in 1941, a short play entitled "The Parade, or Approaching the End of a Summer," telling the story of Don, a 29-year-old writer living in a summer resort, who is madly in love with a young dancer named Dick. For Don, however, love may never be more than a distant echo of a procession. As the monotonous month of August passes,

This play inspired Marc Kundemann's painting.

Self-portrait by John Constable, detail of a drawing in pencil and watercolour, c. 1804

On the right, Apelles, Alexander's favorite painter, painted the mistress nude at his request.

Nicolas Vleughels, Apelles Painting Campaspe, 1716

Faced with such beauty, the artist at work fell in love. Alexander, realizing this, gave her to him as a token of his admiration for Apelles.

Alexander the Great ceding Campaspe to Apelles, anonymous, 17th.

Pliny's anecdote featuring Alexander the Great, his beautiful concubine, and the greatest painter of antiquity was bound to inspire artists. It provided them with an opportunity to depict a confrontation between an artist and his prince, in a scene of indulgent voyeurism.

Some have interpreted it as a scene of candaulism, that is, the sexual arousal of a person exposing or sharing their spouse with one or more other people.

In the Divine Comedy, after traversing the nine circles of Hell, Dante ascends Purgatory to finally reach Paradise.

On his journey, he encounters penitents who must atone for their sins through suffering and knowledge before they, too, can enter Paradise.

On the first terrace, the proud penitents are depicted carrying enormous stones on their backs and, bent under their weight, forced to acknowledge their faults and renounce their pride.

Always remaining in the family of Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925) and by descent, Jacques-Émile Blanche claims he wanted to burn this double portrait. Henri de Régnier (1864-1936) refused to allow the painting to be exhibited: the reason being Pierre Louÿs's hatred for Henri de Régnier, who had betrayed their pact of friendship.

Meanwhile, Jacques-Émile Blanche had given it to Pierre Louÿs and dedicated it to him, and it has remained in his family ever since.

This portrait of two famous writers, associated with the Parnassian aesthetic and decadent symbolism, depicts the young poet and novelist Pierre Louÿs, then twenty-three years old, sporting a handsome mustache and a white orchid in his buttonhole, his gaze distant, hinting at a smile. Meanwhile, Henri de Régnier, almost thirty, more austere and imperious, holds his cigarette at monocle height.

Belonging to the same cosmopolitan circle of friends and intellectuals, these two contrasting personalities, so different in their demeanor, were at that time in love with the same woman, Marie, daughter of the poet José-Maria de Heredia.

Marie de Régnier between her husband Henri de Régnier, on the left, and her lover Pierre Louÿs

Henri de Régnier married her in 1895, but she became Pierre Louÿs's mistress in 1897. However, this romantic rivalry made them brothers-in-law in 1899, when Louÿs married Louise de Heredia, Marie's younger sister.

Nephew of the painters Federico and Pedro Madrazo, through whom Ochoa likely met Blanche, the young "hidalgo", a regular summer visitor to Dieppe, became a close friend of Blanche, who, palette in hand, is depicted with the haughty and self-assured gaze of the elegant socialite he was.

Raymond Rivoire (1884-1966), a French sculptor born in Cassel, in northern France, participated in the Salon des Artistes Français from 1905 onward, receiving the silver medal in 1921 and the gold medal in 1929.

Julie Duvidal de Montferrier, Bacchus enfant (1822)

Julie Duvidal de Montferrier (1797–1865), a French painter, is also known by her married name, Julie Hugo, having married Count Abel Joseph Hugo (1798–1855) in 1827, brother of the great writer Victor Hugo.

Portrait of Abel Hugo by his wife, Julie Duvidal

At the Salon of 1819, Julie Duvidal de Montferrier exhibited this self-portrait with a turban,

Julie Duvidal de Montferrier, Self-Portrait at 22

along with its companion piece, a portrait of her sister Zoé. Long lost, as it belonged to the family of the Marquis de Montferrier, it was attributed to François Gérard (1770–1837).

Portrait of Zoé Duvidal de Montferrier at 19