Artist Stories

Five Artist Models You Should Know About

Guest Profile 26 July 2020 min Read

Did you know that many well-known artworks were modeled on living figures? In fact, the real stories of these famous faces are often fascinating in their own right. Read below for an introduction to five fascinating women who were immortalized by artists as models.  

Agnès Sorel

Five artist models you should know about: Jean Fouquet, right wing of the Melun Diptych, Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels
Five artist models you should know about: Jean Fouquet, Melun Diptych, Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, c.1450, Royal Museum of Fine Arts, Antwerp, Belgium.

The daughter of a minor French nobleman, Agnès Sorel was only 22 years old in 1444 when King Charles VII declared her his maîtresse-en-titer or official mistress. The first woman in French history to hold this title, Agnès quickly developed a reputation for creating controversy.

She scandalized courtiers with her low-cut gowns. She also caused a stir when she appeared in public wearing diamonds, which at that point were forbidden to anyone but the king. No doubt the most shocking event in her brief life (Agnès died at 28) was her depiction in Jean Fouquet’s Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels. Occupying the right wing of a larger diptych, Agnès appears in the painting as the Virgin Mary in the Madonna lactans pose. She appears dressed in blue with one breast exposed. Several clergymen protested the use of her likeness for that of a holy figure (given Agnès’s role as the king’s mistress).

Laure

Five artist models you should know about: Eduard Manet, La Negresse,
Five artist models you should know about: Eduard Manet, La Negresse, c.1862, The Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, Italy.

Five artist models you should know about: Eduard Manet, Olympia
Five artist models you should know about: Eduard Manet, Olympia, 1863, Musee d’Orsay, Paris, France.

Not much is known about Laure– not even her full name. What we do know is that she was a Creole woman spotted by Édouard Manet in Paris. In his notebook, he wrote she lived at “rue Vintimille, 11, third floor.

She proved to be a favorite subject of his, appearing in both Music in the Tuileries Garden (1862) and the infamous Olympia (1863). In the latter in particular, Laure’s own appearance has been reduced to an accessory of the titular white sex worker. More recent scholarship, however, including a recent show at both Paris’s Musée d’Orsay and New York’s Wallach Collection, has attempted to bring more awareness to the role of artist models of color throughout history.

Fanny Eaton

Five artist models you should know about: Joanna Boyce Wells, Study of Fanny Eaton (Head of a Mulatto Woman)
Five artist models you should know about: Joanna Boyce Wells, Study of Fanny Eaton (Head of a Mulatto Woman), 1861, The Paul Mellon Fund, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, USA.

Five artist models you should know about: Simeon Solomon, The Mother of Moses,
Five artist models you should know about: Simeon Solomon, The Mother of Moses, 1860, Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington, DE, USA.

Born to a former slave in Jamaica in 1835, Fanny Eaton moved to London as an infant. As an adult, Eaton helped support her family (she eventually had ten children) by working as a sitter for works by members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. By the late 1850s, she was employed by the Royal Academy of Art, where records show she earned several shillings for three sittings in July 1860. Some of her best-known appearances include The Mother of Moses (1860) by Simeon Solomon and The Mother of Sisera (1861) by Albert Joseph Moore. Aside from posing as characters in narrative works, Eaton’s regal looks made her a popular subject in her own right. Another example of her likeness is her 1861 portrait by Joanna Boyce Wells.

Loie Fuller

Frederick Glasier, Portrait of Loie Fuller, 1902
Five artist models you should know about: Frederick Glasier, Portrait of Loie Fuller, 1902, United States Library of Congress, Washington, DC, USA. Shorpy.

Jean de Paleologu, Poster for Loie Fuller at the Folies-Bergere,
Five artist models you should know about: Jean de Paleologu, Poster for Loie Fuller at the Folies-Bergere, 1897, Bibliotheque National de France, Paris, France.

Loie Fuller (real name Maria Louise Fuller) made her Chicago stage debut in 1866 at age four, and thus began a life lived in performance. After 25 years touring the United States with vaudeville acts, burlesque shows, and even a stint with Buffalo Bill, Fuller made a name for herself with her ‘Serpentine Dance,’ which she performed using lengths of silk and multicolored lighting.

By 1892, word of Fuller’s innovative style carried her to Paris, where she danced at the Folies-Bergère. In 1900, she was the only woman performer to have her own pavilion at the Exposition Universelle. Eventually, Fuller became an icon of the Art Deco movement and posed for several artists throughout the early 1900s. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, for example, produced several works based on her likeness. She also modeled for Folies-Bergère posters. Outside of her career on stage, Fuller also experimented with stage lighting and held several patents for lighting formulae.

Audrey Munson

Arnold Genthe, Miss Audrey Munson with Buzzer the Cat,
Five artist models you should know about: Arnold Genthe, Miss Audrey Munson with Buzzer the Cat, 1915, United States Library of Congress, Washington, DC, USA.

Karl Bitter, Isidore Konti, Pomona or Abundance, 1916, The Pulitzer Fountain
Five artist models you should know about: Karl Bitter, Isidore Konti, Pomona or Abundance, 1916, The Pulitzer Fountain, Grand Army Plaza, New York, NY, USA. Wikimedia Commons.

Audrey Munson is perhaps one of the most famous women who nobody has ever heard of. Born in upstate New York in 1891, teenaged Audrey later moved to New York City to pursue a career as a stage actress and chorus girl. In a plot twist straight out of a movie, she was “discovered” by a photographer while window shopping on Fifth Avenue. She subsequently became the New York art community’s favorite nude model.

Thanks to the attention of sculptors like Isidore Konti and Herbert Adams, within a few years Munson’s likeness appeared on monuments across the United States, from the Priestess of Culture at San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts to the Pulitzer Fountain in Manhattan’s Grand Army Plaza. In 1915, Munson gained further recognition as the poster girl for the upcoming San Francisco World’s Fair. Aside from a stint in silent films, Munson also later wrote articles about the role of the artist’s model and advocated for more recognition of women in the arts.


Author’s Bio:

Olivia Land

Art history undergrad, writer, and self-professed museum rat based in New York City. When not thinking or writing about art, can probably be found running, reading, or doing the New York Times crossword.

Follow Olivia on Instagram.

Recommended

Belkis Ayon, The Supper, 1991 Artist Stories

Exploring the Collographs of Belkis Ayón, Cuban Master of Printmaking

Belkis Ayón's transgressive art explored a secret all-male religion called the Abakuá in Cuba. She died tragically aged just 32, leaving behind some of the finest print-making of the 20th century.

Candy Bedworth 1 June 2023

Artist Stories

Stroll Through Paris with Edward Hopper

Edward Hopper is known as one of the premier recorders of American mid-century life. Or mid-century malaise might be a better way to put it:...

Louisa Mahoney 22 May 2023

Jean-François Millet, The Gleaners, 1857, Musée d'Orsay, Paris, France Artist Stories

Jean Francois Millet: The Peasant Painter

French artist Jean Francois Millet painted some the world’s best known artworks of peasants toiling in rural landscapes. Explore his life and work!

Candy Bedworth 12 April 2023

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self Portrait in a Straw Hat, 1782, National Gallery, London, UK. Detail. Artist Stories

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun Travels Across Europe

Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun was a French portrait painter working in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. While her subject matter and color palette...

Natalia Iacobelli 16 April 2023