FACT AND FICTION
IN ALL THINGS
'COURBET' AND 'CAILLEBOTTE'
Fact: Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet (known by the second of his two middle
names: 'Gustave') gained notoriety for his suggestive nudes-especially, his
explicit depiction of an anonymous model's genitalia in his controversial erotic
painting The Origin of the World, created in 1866.
Fact: Courbet's erotic painting entitled Sleep
depicting 2 female lovers was the subject of a police report for obscenity in
1872. Sleep, Woman with Stockings (which shows a lascivious
woman exposing her genitals), and The Origin of the World were all
deemed inappropriate for public display and were thus banned from exhibition.
Fact: The Origin of the World
was never viewed publicly until 1988. It is currently part of the permanent
exhibition at Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
Fact: The model for The Origin of the World remains
a mystery to this day, although long presumed to be one of Courbet's numerous
secretive mistresses who doubled as artistic subjects, with the top contender
until recently being Courbet's Irish mistress and model Joanna Hiffernan.
Authorities now believe that the model may have been the Parisian ballet dancer
Constance Queniaux: the mistress of Ottoman
diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha (aka Khalil Bey) who actually commissioned the
creation of the painting in 1866 by Caillebotte for his erotic collection of artwork. The same uncertainty exists surrounding Courbet's other nude models,
whose identities were kept secret and never revealed, in
order to protect their reputation.
Fact: Not much is known about Courbet's personal life. He
was never married but had a mistress with whom he had a daughter in 1847. This
mistress left with her child in the early 1850's and Courbet never maintained
contact with them after the separation. He had countless physical relationships
with various women and could have very well had other illegitimate children
with these other mistresses.
Fact: Courbet also gained notoriety for his political views
during the rule of the Paris Commune. He was forced to flee France in 1873, in order to avoid a large financial penalty for the key role
he played in the destruction of the Vendome Column. He resided in Switzerland
until his death on December 31, 1877 of liver disease exacerbated by heavy
drinking.
Fact: Courbet was an
inspiration to many of his contemporaries and a laughingstock to others. He was
openly admired by Ferdinand Victor Eugene Delacroix and James Abbott McNeill
Whistler, and was a role-model and teacher to many younger aspiring
Impressionists, including Edouard Manet and Edgar Degas. His relationship with
Jules Joseph Lefebvre was likely antagonistic since Lefebvre was accepted by La
Salon as a legitimate artist notwithstanding his propensity for painting
semi-explicit nudes, and Courbet was not.
Fact: There were three Caillebotte brothers: Gustave (the
oldest), René (the middle sibling), and Martial (the youngest).
Fact: Gustave was a famous painter, and Martial was a renowned photographer. Not
much is known of René, who died
suddenly in 1876 at age 25 of an undisclosed and mysterious illness presumably
cardiac in nature. Given the artistic creativity of his two brothers, it is
conceivable that he had similar talents as well, though never documented.
Fact: Gustave and Martial both inherited millions, and
spent most of their leisure time collecting stamps and devoting their energy to
their various other hobbies (music and photography for Martial; gardening,
yacht building and collecting paintings for Gustave).
Fact: Gustave, although trained as an attorney and painter,
gave up his professional efforts to become a recluse, dying alone in his garden
when he was 46 on February 21, 1894 of 'pulmonary congestion'. The true cause
of his sudden and unforeseen death is unknown, and could have very well been
the result of foul play.
Fact: Martial
lived with his brother Gustave in Hauts-de-Seine prior to Gustave's
purchase of his country home that he named Petit Genevilliers.
Fact: Charlotte Berthier was an alias for Anne Marie Hagan:
Gustave's long-time companion (from a lower class) and the eventual heiress of
his estate. It is rumored that Gustave insisted that Anne Marie use the
fictitious name in order to disguise her identity and
distract attention from the fact that she had worked as a prostitute before
becoming his mistress.
Fact: Marie Minoret was Martial's wife, and had tremendous
animosity towards Anne Marie Hagan aka Charlotte Berthier, to the point that
Martial's relationship with Gustave was eroded by restrictions placed by his
wife on how often he could see his older brother.
Fact: Martial Caillebotte and Marie Minoret had two children: a son, Jean, and a daughter,
Geneviève. Geneviève, rather than Jean, inherited the
majority of unsold paintings in Gustave Caillebotte's collection from
his estate. There is no evidence that Jean had been disinherited, in contrast
to his fictional portrayal in this novel.
Fact: Gustave only painted two female nudes: Naked Woman
Lying on a Couch, 1873; and Nude on a Couch, 1890. The brunette
model for the first piece was anonymous and unidentified, while the second
redheaded model is uncontestably a depiction of Anne Marie Hagan (aka Charlotte
Berthier), pictured in the early years of her relationship with the artist.
Fact: Gustave painted a handful of male nudes-unconventional
subject-matter at the time, leading to rumors that he was homosexual. His
reclusive behavior and the fact that he remained a bachelor until his death
added to this unfounded conclusion.
Fact: Francois Salle was a slightly younger contemporary of
Gustave Caillebotte with only one notable painting of historically consequence,
of a male model posing nude for a group of art-school students (The Anatomy
Class at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, 1888). Gustave and Francois (or easily
the male model) could have very well crossed paths given their interest in
depicting the naked male form on canvas.
Fact: Gustave was an art collector and had a vast
collection of Impressionist paintings. There is admittedly no documentation of whether or not he owned any Courbet pieces.
Fact: Pierre-Auguste Renoir (known by his
second-hyphenated name 'Auguste') was a close friend of the Caillebotte family,
spending much of his time with Gustave at his estate at Petit Genevilliers. He
was the executor of Gustave's Will and the 'caretaker' of Gustave's vast
collection of Impressionist paintings until they were eventually passed on to
Genevieve Caillebotte: Martial's daughter, after Renoir's death. Caillebotte
had donated these paintings to the French government, but Renoir was
unsuccessful in his attempts to facilitate Gustave's wishes since the Republic,
unbelievably, declined the generous bequeathal. Many of these paintings were eventually
purchased by Dr. Albert C. Barnes of Philadelphia and reside at the Barnes
Foundation Museum, including Woman with White Stockings.
Fact: Auguste Renoir was a womanizer who had affairs with
virtually all of his nude models (including the infamous
Suzanne Valadon). He eventually married Aline Charigot, whom he had depicted
nude in some of his most famous pieces.
Fact: Erotic photography as a genre was conceived in the
mid-nineteenth-century, and was practiced by the French portrait photographer
Felix-Jacques Antoine Moulin, among others. In 1851 his explicit photographs
were confiscated, and he served a one-month prison sentence because of the
obscene nature of his nude portraits.
Fact: N-methylaminophenol (also known as Metol) is a
developing powder used in black and white photography. It was developed in
1891, and was widely used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by
both amateur and commercial photographers. Ingestion of even a small amount
leads to the formation of met-hemoglobin in the bloodstream: a 'poisoned' form
of hemoglobin that cannot bind oxygen. The disorder leads to rapid death by
'hematologic' asphyxiation.
Fiction: Everything else
PART I
MORE THAN
A FEW DAYS
PRIOR TO
ARRIVAL
APRIL 2 -
JUNE 1, 1876
CHAPTER ONE
It was the last day of May in 1876 when the letter, marked with
Switzerland postage, finally arrived. With a gracious "thank you" to her
landlord for accepting the delivery while she was out, Nicole Bruante climbed
the three flights of stairs two at a time up to her attic room and ripped open
the seal. Sitting on the edge of her bed, she pulled out the single sheet of
paper and breathed a sigh of relief when, after unfolding and reading his
reply, she learned that the answer was 'yes'.
Just about two months earlier she had waited patiently in line
behind a dozen other patrons at the Montmartre postal station to send off the
written plea that she held nervously in her hand. Who would have thought that
on that very day and as a direct consequence of mailing her letter, fate would
put her into direct contact with the man who could help materialize her request
into reality. As she had counted out the correct combination of hard-earned
coins and placed them with a metallic jingle into the outstretched palm of the clerk
behind the counter, she thought he looked familiar.
"Have we met before?"
He met her gaze with eyes a shade of blue that could easily be
called lavender-which is when she immediately knew who he was, because only one
person she had ever met had eyes of that color. "Yes, while you posed
anonymously for my brother: Gustave Caillebotte."
She saw him study her name 'Nicole Bruante' printed on the return
address while stamping the letter with an official posting date: 2 April, 1876. Now she was no longer anonymous...to him;
but 'identity revealed' in this case was not necessarily a bad thing. René
Caillebotte was someone she had actually thought about
time and time again over the years since that artistic sitting, so she didn't
mind at all that he now knew her by her given name rather than just an unnamed
naked woman.
The only reason she hadn't recognized him
immediately was the closely trimmed beard, and what appeared to be a year or
two's worth of hair-growth tied neatly back in true bohemian fashion at the
nape of his neck. "That was about...three years ago?" she offered-knowing exactly
how much time had passed since she modelled nude for Gustave in 1873.
He nodded and blushed, looking away as much from embarrassment as
from the task of placing her letter in a basket labeled 'international', which
made her laugh out loud. "I'm really not shy about that sort of posing, you
know. Otherwise, I wouldn't be that type of artist's model."
He looked back at her directly and smiled. He was the best looking
of the three Caillebotte brothers by far, and someone she wouldn't
mind getting to know better since her intuition told her he would probably be
good in bed. He seemed to have the same idea. "Can we meet for a drink
sometime, Mademoiselle Bruante?"
"Call me Nicole, please," she corrected him mildly-and that's how it had all started.
But it had really started, in a sense, during that nude
posing in 1873 that had resulted in Gustave Caillebotte's tastefully-explicit
depiction of her naked body, immortalized on canvas when she was 25, that he
called Naked Woman Lying on a
Couch. This piece had earned her a few months-worth of rent and food
shortly after Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet-known as 'Jean' to her alone as their
private 'pet' name, and 'Gustave' to the entire rest of the world: her ex-lover
and the father of her dear Edmond-had fled to Switzerland to escape his
government creditors. Naked Woman Lying
on a Couch was the first and as far as she knew the only female nude
in Gustave Caillebotte's growing portfolio of paintings...for a reason. Whether
he realized it himself or not, Gustave was gay, and painting her nude was
clearly a part of his ongoing cover-up.
She knew from the moment she had stripped off her clothes while he
watched, his stare cold and unemotional rather than lustful, that Gustave
Caillebotte was not a lady's man. In every previous circumstance, her 'big
reveal' was an act that never failed to elicit a flurry of verbal compliments
accompanied by a certain hard-to-miss stirring of 'male-desires-female' below-belt...but
not this time. He had studied her with the analytic eye of a scientist viewing
a specimen rather than as a potential courtier, even as he described the
overtly seductive pose that he wished her to assume-one which, under normal
circumstances, would usually lead to a romantic or often blatantly sexual
proposition that she would decide to either deflect or accept, depending on her
mood and sentiment. She had just laid herself out on the living room couch in
the apartment that he shared with his two younger brothers when René: the middle
one, and Martial: the youngest, had barged one closely on the heels of the
other through the front door.
Both men (or rather boys, since Martial was barely 20 and René only
22 at the time) stopped dead in their tracks. Gustave had 'pooh-poohed' their
stuttering apologies with a dismissive wave of a hand, clearly unconcerned with
their breach of Nicole's privacy and intent on mixing his paints, giving both of them ample opportunity to linger and gawk. Nicole
had met their awestruck gazes-grey and lavender respectively-with unabashed but
good-natured defiance, amused while at the same time thrilled by their
lust-filled scrutiny which groped her vulnerable nakedness like fingers. She
had to chuckle to herself when her gaze drifted southward to note that sure
enough, these Caillebotte brothers were reacting to her suggestive pose
in the usual heterosexual fashion.
It took Gustave a few days short of one month to complete Naked Woman
Lying on a Couch, which was remarkably speedy artistry at least by Nicole's
standards having been used to Jean's slow and meticulous style. This was long
enough though for Martial to set himself apart from René, in the most
unflattering of ways.
Martial was as socially awkward and clumsy as he was physically,
sporting a pear-shaped body topped with a head (and mind) that resembled
a cinder-block. He was the low-brow and bumbling representative of the sibling
triad, with no sense of boundaries or self-insight whatsoever. It took him just
a few days of wandering in to the living room as an
openly voyeuristic visitor to brag about his photographic talents, sitting
eagerly on the edge of an arm chair with his eyes roaming freely over her naked
body like he owned her. He chit-chatted with her while Gustave worked,
oblivious and maddeningly silent, about an idea for a photographic style that
he called the 'body-scape' that involved erotic poses quite similar, and
different, to the one she was currently executing for Nude Woman Lying on a
Couch. His 'brainstorm' was to
photograph the most intimate parts of a woman's anatomy, including all of the off-limit regions, in a bold and unapologetic way
that would push the boundaries of the art-photograph firmly into the realm of
'explicit' but in the name of artistic expression. It was no surprise to
Nicole at all when he proceeded to inquire, after mentioning the imagined
series only a handful of times, if she would agree to be the starring model.
"No thank you," she had responded without even a split-second's
hesitation-not because she couldn't use the money, and not because she was
self-conscious about the type of explicit nudity that he had in mind (because
God knows she desperately needed the first, and would in all likelihood have
secretly enjoyed the second-given the fact that she had been the anonymous
model for Courbet's The Origin of the
World depicting exactly the type of unabashed exposure on canvas that
Martial had in mind on photographic paper); but because she didn't want to encourage
Martial's rough-and-ready romantic aspirations, which were as unsubtle as
Gustave's predilection for men rather than women.
While Martial could be likened to a bull-in-a-China-shop, Gustave
was akin to the resident cat, rarely heard or seen while roaming the aisles and
shelves, harboring a covert agenda that he shared with no one. Gustave gave the
appearance of aloof and uncaring simply because he lived in his own little
world where those on the outside were as irrelevant as insects buzzing around his
head. There was nothing personal or malicious underlying his cold exterior-it
was just who he was. While Gustave unknowingly insulted those around him by
evading personal interaction entirely, Martial's brand of insensate disrespect
took the form of exact polar opposite, inserting
itself inappropriately into conversations and situations in the most intrusive
and unsolicited way imaginable. She was happy to finish the job if only to
escape those two, but in the process she had sacrificed the promise of something
exciting and potentially meaningful with the third.
René was a different breed altogether. In glaring contrast to his
brothers, he was dashing, handsome, and courteous. Although traversing the
living room was a requirement for entering and exiting the apartment, his
interactions with her were usually limited to eyes respectfully averted but for
a brief glance and a nervous smile, which went a long way to peaking
her interest and winning her heart in advance. She had always viewed him as out
of reach though, mainly because she was a family employee of sorts...and a
confidential one at that. She was not in the habit of getting involved with
business associates although exceptions were occasionally allowed, as with Jean
for the most poignant case in point; but at that point in her life, in 1873,
her ex-lover's unexpected departure was still painfully fresh in her mind,
which meant that she wasn't even close to prepared for another relationship that soon anyway. But
now, three years into her life of solitude, a fortuitous meeting in of all
places the post office had given them a chance to rekindle the spark that had
briefly passed between them in that cramped and close-quartered bachelors'
apartment.
She met him for a glass of wine that very night, where the
conversation led them first to the recipient, and then to the reason, for her
letter-posting that morning. She had to debrief him first on her stormy romance
with the hard to understand and even harder to live with Courbet, and to
quickly clarify what she knew might appear as a written correspondence between
absent husband and pining common-law wife, which couldn't
be farther from the truth.
"I'm still in touch with Jean only because of our son. He will never
return to Paris, and has long since set me aside as a fond but distant memory
from his forgotten past. I am over him too."
"I see," he said warmly, the hope nearly beaming from his
purple-blue eyes.
She had then proceeded to tell him about her financial troubles, but
taking caution to minimize the true extent of her desperation out of pride;
followed by an explanation of her idea that revolved around the paintings that
she had stashed away at Jean's pointed request when he had fled in the middle
of the night, in 1873. No one wanted any of his highly controversial nudes,
especially The Origin of the World (a sensational piece for which she had posed when she was only 18, in
1866) but others as well including Woman with a Parrot; Woman with
White Stockings; and Sleep: this last one actually
being the subject of a relatively recent police report because it depicted
two 'lesbian' lovers (actually, Nicole and a friend half-playing the part) enjoying
a post-coital embrace.
Thirteen paintings, all of them secretly featuring her as the
bold and uninhibited nude model, were either propped against the walls of her
attic room or hanging, so that she could admire them whenever she pleased. Some
of them were well known, while others were never-before-seen such as the nearly-finished
but unsigned piece that Jean had been working on the very night he had been
forced to flee that he had named Waking
Nude Preparing to Rise even prior to its completion-the title penciled in
with haste on the paper backing right before he rushed out the back door
carrying his speedily-packed travel trunk. This one (his last depiction of her)
portrayed her sitting, with legs folded underneath her on rumpled bedclothes
leaning on an outstretched arm, with the other raised upward and bent as a
'cradle' for her head: turned to one side and slightly obscured in the shadow
of early morning-the 'classic' pose presented in a way meant to represent a
sleepy nude 'stretch' at daybreak.
The most notorious one of all and her very favorite: Jean's
self-proclaimed masterpiece called The Origin of the World, shunned by Le
Salon as a shocking pornographic atrocity-she had intentionally hung
right next to her grandmother's crucifix on the angled wall at the foot of her
bed, which was squeezed into the tiny window-alcove of her attic flat. The
pairing of female anatomy with religious icon she viewed as a statement of
sorts, her logic being that a woman's womb deserved just as much recognition as
humanity's divine creator since life sprang from that earthly vessel at God's fertile
command, placing both on equivalent footing. Hanging them side-by-side was actually an act of devotion and reverence rather than
sacrilege, so that she could worship both
life-giving entities equally, exactly as each so well deserved.
She explained how Jean had his own financial difficulties to deal
with, but that she had reached out to him in that letter with the hope that he
would honor his paternal responsibility to their son by agreeing to her plan. Edmond-who
was now nine but was only six years old when his father left-was Jean's only
minor-aged 'bastard' (how she despised that term). The
rest of them had already reached or passed the age of consent including his
daughter who was now in her early thirties, being estranged from 'Papa' at the
tender age of three when her mother: Courbet's mistress at the time, had walked
out on him due to her partner's infidelity, in the late 1840's. So, if she
could only find a willing buyer for the shockingly erotic paintings that Jean
had instructed her to hide away and keep safe, then she would give the proceeds
once collected to her mother 'Elle' (short for Noelle) to use for her dear Edmond.
He had by necessity been living under his grandmother's custody these last few
years, since a tiny attic room and a mostly absent nude-model mother who barely
had the means to support herself were less than ideal circumstances for raising
a little boy. She felt in her heart-of-hearts though that Jean wouldn't refuse her, because after all their son's welfare
was at stake and her plan would make hundreds of francs available for their
mutual cause. That type of money would last for years and years if spent wisely
in support of Edmund's upbringing.
René nodded his head in agreement and understanding, as if it was a
predesignated signal for fate to step out unannounced from behind the shadows
and join them, quiet and unassuming, at the table. At that exact moment (that
she later recognized as one of her life's true inflection points), René looked
across at her as fortune's spokesman and smiled knowingly. "I do believe I have
a buyer for you, Nicole."
CHAPTER TWO
As it turns out Gustave Caillebotte was a collector. "His first
passion is stamps, and his second is paintings-and I don't mean his own," René
had explained. "All of his free time and disposable income are devoted to these
two obsessions, and I'm sure he would jump at the chance to add thirteen
notorious Courbet nudes to his already impressive collection of Parisian
artwork."
"Twelve,"
she had corrected. "I will keep the unsigned one for Edmond since without a
signature it has little monetary worth." Waking
Nude Preparing to Rise was one of her favorite renderings of her naked
body, which she would give to her son without sharing the 'secret' of the nude
model's identity with anyone other than her mother. Nicole more than anyone,
even while she would willingly agree to the most explicit and exhibitionistic
of poses in private, had a keen sense of morality and propriety in family and
public circles. In fact, she made sure that no one but
the artists themselves and her closest confidantes were aware that she was the
uninhibited poseur for countless
erotic paintings created not only by Courbet but by other well-known Realists
and Impressionists as well. Nicole had posed in daring defiance of societal
norms-some during but most occurring after
her affair with the much-older Jean...for Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet and even
Jules Joseph Lefebvre: one of Courbet's most vocal critics in public and as
close to an 'enemy' as one could get, which necessitated a great deal of
secrecy on Nicole's part when she sat for his piece called Reclining Nude in 1868, when she was 20 years old. That's why her sittings for Gustave and everyone else had
been anonymous, with the intention of separating the private person called Nicole
Bruante from the potential public notoriety of her nameless nude-model 'persona'.
And
then there was the sticky business of concealing Edmond's parentage, which
became a more pressing necessity after Jean became a national pariah of sorts
related to the fiasco with the Vendome column. Yes, it was common knowledge
that Nicole had been Jean's mistress dating as far back to 1866, when she had
first met him at the tender age of 18 answering an erotic modeling ad on a
dare; but having his baby was not universally known, by intention. They
had decided to keep her pregnancy a closely guarded secret since even in those
early days Courbet was a lightning rod of unconventionality and neither of them
wanted their child to be subjected to a decidedly negative 'bias-by-association'.
Thus, when their son came into the world (conceived on the very day her posing
for The Origin of the World was
completed and born just nine months later, in 1867) they quickly whisked him
away to stay with her mother, who was recently widowed (God rest her own dear
Papa's soul)-which had been as convenient an arrangement then as it was now. Edmond
had no idea who his father was or what his mother did for a living, and Nicole
remained determined to keep it that way-at least for now.
Because
later...much later, things might
change. Future generations might actually appreciate
rather than abhor Courbet's naturalistic view of the female body and uncensored
depiction of sexuality which he (and Nicole equally) considered a
representation of God himself: a symbol of the cyclical miracle of birth and
regeneration that is conceived in masculine devotion to his feminine
counterpart materializing in a woman's womb. Nicole had always shared in Jean's
belief that the prudish concealment of human nudity actually
cheapened the divine act of reproduction, whereas the honest depiction
of 'Adam and Eve' portrayed as nature intended did just the opposite. This is specifically
why she loved modelling nude; and proud as she might be of this philosophical
statement, the world-and her little boy-were not yet ready for this degree of physical
honesty.
But
years from now, after both she and Jean were dead and gone, someone would read
her 'confession' ingeniously concealed between the canvas and the backing paper
of Waking Nude Preparing to Rise. This
idea came to her suddenly, immediately after René's brother had confirmed his
interest in purchasing her erotic cache but before Jean had given his
permission for her to sell the sensuous paintings; so she had penned the letter
straight-away, dating it 10 May, 1876. Her hope was that Edmond, or his children, or
his grandchildren might find it, folded over twice: a cursory explanation that Nicole
Bruante had been the most prolific, 'no-holds-barred' nude model of her time; and
that the secret paternal contributor to their erotically-inclined blood-line
was the infamous artist and political activist: Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet,
who had to flee Paris and France in 1873 to avoid ridicule and financial ruin. She
and Jean's distant descendants would be able to 'fill in the blank' on their
family tree, thanks to her clandestine foresight in hiding this message of
disclosure in the family painting.
She
often thought back on how it had all started. Posing nude began as a
lighthearted whim centered on the thrill of exposure and the sense of freedom, independence and rebel-like rejection of societal
conventions, but quickly became a serious vocation that instigated the
beginning of a seven-year ever-volatile romance and tenuous domestic
partnership with the father of Realism. That first sitting which had allowed
her to play the only-partially contrived role of lesbian lover with her best
friend Céleste had resulted in
the highly controversial piece called Sleep,
followed quickly on its heels by the even more shocking The Origin of the World. It was immediately after her final session
for this latter painting had ended that Edmond had been conceived-on the very same
posing-pallet and with Nicole maintaining the exact same open-legged position
as she had for months-and-months, even before the last brushstroke on the
eye-popping canvas had dried.
A few
days after they had met for drinks Nicole saw René again, this time for an
early dinner. "To say my brother is interested would be an understatement,"
were the first words out of his mouth. He went on to describe Gustave's
collection as heavy on landscapes, cityscapes and
domestic scenes, but pitifully sparse on depictions of unclothed models-boasting
only a handful of August Renoir bathers and a few obscure nude pieces by
Édouard Manet including a watercolor 'study' for his much decried Luncheon
on the Grass that disgracefully depicted two naked prostitutes picnicking
with a group of fully clothed gentleman in the woods.
Nicole
giggled when that piece was mentioned. "The girl folded over herself in the
background was certainly not a
prostitute-at least in real life!"
"How do
you know?" René asked with a quizzically raised eyebrow.
"Because
the model was me! I was barely sixteen at the time I posed for that painting."
And so
it was that Gustave, it turned out, was prepared to pay an unbelievable 500
francs for the dozen Courbet nudes in Nicole's possession, which was more than
double the amount she had hoped to earn for the set; and after he learned that Nicole
was one of the models for Luncheon on the
Grass, he also offered a generous 'finder's fee' if she would give him a
list of all the other nudes that she had posed for over the past dozen years,
to help in his now-obsessive naked-genre acquisition efforts. His very own Naked Woman Lying on a Couch would in
this way be joined by as many other pieces as possible, necessary to fill the
gap in his collection-with a focus on populating the erotic portion of his
growing assemblage of paintings with those pieces featuring Nicole as the model.
The discovery of such an unlikely buyer for her cache and for inside-information was fortuitous, but would mean nothing
in the end if Jean said 'no'. This fear was one of the reasons that the
following two months would be consumed by sleepless nights; and the other had
to do with her night-time pre-occupation with her new and, as she discovered,
exceptionally talented lover.
Where
Gustave excelled in painting and Martial in photography, René was a burgeoning
sculptor. The job in the post office was temporary, just until he could sell
some pieces and make a true living out of his passion. Since it seemed clear
that he would never ask due to his highly developed sense of propriety, she had
decided to offer. "In case you're interested, I'd be happy to pose for you."
His
initial response was silent hesitation, followed by a quiet observation that
explained his reticence. "You turned down Martial, so I just assumed..."
"Well,
you assumed wrong," she interjected in a tone that sounded more irritated than
she had intended. "Do you know why I wouldn't agree to be Martial's
'body-scape' model?" She paused for a moment just for effect, and then
continued. "If you thought it was the concept that turned me off, then
you'd be wrong again."
He
nodded his immediate comprehension. "Martial can be a bit much. He means well,
but just has no sense of boundaries. He's been like that as long as I can
remember, even when we were children."
So it
was settled. René, equipped with stone and chisel just a few short weeks after
they had started 'seeing' each other, had set himself up in Nicole's attic
apartment rather than in the shared Caillebotte-brother residence at Hauts-de-Seine since
limiting her 'exposure' to Martial would be best for all involved parties. In
any case, the bachelors' pad was even more crowded nowadays and was no longer
the exclusive boys' club that it had been a few years before.
"Gustave
has taken in a young lady of leisure, and he's preparing to paint her."
"Pictured
in a nude scene?" If so, this would surprise her almost as much as the concept
of a live-in prostitute, given her theory about Gustave's sexual leanings.
"Yes,
and on the very same couch where..."
The
almost comical pregnant pause meant that René, whose sentence seemed to have
permanently trailed off, was at a definite loss for a polite way to say '...where
you bared it all that first day I barged in to discover every man's fantasy
lying right there in our communal living room, completely and unselfconsciously
exposed,' so she pulled him gently and good-naturedly off his awkward hook. "I
think you meant to say: 'on the very same couch where I was posing when we
first made our initial acquaintance'"
"Yes,"
he confirmed, the wrinkles of strain on his forehead relaxing the very moment
she rushed in to save him from what she considered to be a quite unnecessary
sense of morality. It's not like modeling without a
stitch of clothing automatically led to lascivious behavior, because it almost
never did. He was still struggling with the dichotomy of Nicole's professional
versus personal lives. "Her name is Anne Marie Hagan," he added, returning to
the original topic of conversation. "Martial actually has quite a thing for
her."
She
laughed lightly. "Why am I not surprised!" Now it seemed was the perfect
opportunity to fish. "But what about Gustave? Doesn't he have a 'thing' for her
too?"
René
waved the thought away. "I'll tell you a secret."
She knew
it! "If you're going to say he's gay, don't bother since I suspected as much."
His
eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "How in the world did you know?"
Now it
was her turn to wave his surprise away. "Women in general have an
intuition about these things, and my sexual sixth-sense is particularly
keen."
"But he
has taken great care to conceal it!"
"I
wouldn't worry. If he's gone so far as to take in a
prostitute as a 'beard', I'd say his secret is safe. Plus, unless you've posed nude for him as I have, his lack of sexual
interest in women really isn't that obvious."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning
that there is usually a characteristic physical sign that one cannot ignore,
whenever I strip and pose for an artist. Don't you remember your
reaction when you stumbled onto that scene in the living room 3 years ago? I
certainly do!"
His
cheeks were suddenly rosy again. "Was it that noticeable?"
She
laughed lightly and took his hand. "It was literally impossible to miss!"; and
distinctly flattering to both of them, she added
silently to herself.
For the
next five weeks she had posed unmoving for him in her very own apartment, her
skin itchy from lying exposed on a tattered wool blanket for so long; but her
toils were duly rewarded with dinner in one café or another followed by hours
of passion each night, both of them falling asleep
afterwards on her squeaky cot. He had positioned her in the most intimate of poses
with her head turned slightly to the side, and her expression behind closed
eyes giving the impression of building ecstasy. Her flowing hair streamed over
the edge of her left shoulder, chest and arm-arranged
by René at the start of each posing in order to accent the rounded contour of
the breast on that side rather than concealing it. Always the consummate
gentleman even in his role of erotic artist, he politely asked her to position
her arms on either side of her naked bosom with elbows pointing outward: a maneuver
that functioned to accentuate their rounded fullness; while, at her own
suggestion, her fingers strategically accented the identical 'pose' featured in
The Origin of the World, which would eventually be indelibly reproduced
in marble-being the last 'third' of a 4-foot sculpture of her head and torso
ending abruptly at her upper thighs. It was the most poignant sitting she had
ever experienced because it was shared with a man who knew her intimately that
way, and with whom she felt sexually at-ease.
By the
time Jean's affirmative reply arrived, her upper-half had been reproduced from
the top of her head to just below her breasts and elbows, with stunning
accuracy and what she considered lightning speed, given the unforgiving
artistic medium. She marveled at how he had perfectly reproduced the generous swell
of her exposed chest in a piece that he told her he would likely name Reclining Nude Pictured in an Intimate
Moment.
As a
masterpiece in progress and made of inert marble sat motionless on the floor in
the corner of her apartment, Nicole realized that she had never felt more
content. René Caillebotte was a man with whom she could easily spend the rest
of her days, offering her devotion and stability in a world that until now had
given her only chaos. Their romance had begun in earnest.