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Home , Alfred Stevens (painter), Gustave Boulanger, James Tissot

FASHIONABLE MODERNITY: AGENCY AND SPECTACLE IN JAMES TISSOT’S PORTRAIT OF THE MARQUISE DE MIRAMON

MAURA GLEESON

A THESIS PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

2014

To Margaret, Gerard and Charlotte

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Melissa Hyde, for the generous amount of time, advice and encouragement she provided throughout this project. My fascination with James Tissot and the Marquise grew from a paper I wrote for Dr.

Hyde's "Fashioning Identity" seminar, where she first recommended that I look deeper at the women portrayed in his paintings. I am grateful to my committee member, Dr.

Sheryl Kroen, whose source recommendations and vast knowledge of the nineteenth century shaped my understanding of the modern Paris Tissot encountered in the 1860s.

I would also like to thank my committee member, Dr. Joyce Tsai, whose suggestions were extremely helpful to my interpretation of modernity’s impact on Tissot and his art.

This thesis would not have been possible without other helpful contributions. I would like to thank Sally McKay at the Getty Research Institute, who provided access to

Tissot’s letters to the Miramon family. I also want to recognize and thank Dr. Weltman-

Aron at the University of Florida for her generous help in transcribing them. I am grateful to Jenny Zentner for providing information on nineteenth century Japanese collecting that was useful to my reading of the portrait. Finally, I am thankful for my family and friends who have lent their support throughout this journey- especially my wonderful parents, Margaret and Gerard, who believed in me from the start.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

page

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... 4

LIST OF FIGURES ...... 6

ABSTRACT ...... 9

CHAPTER

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 11

Modernity, Modernism and Tissot’s Education ...... 13 Rethinking the Marquise ...... 17

2 FASHIONING AGENCY ...... 27

Rethinking Fashionable Portraiture ...... 30 Fashion and the Feminine Realm ...... 33 Gendered Consumption and Collecting ...... 35 Between the Public and Private ...... 39 Rethinking Fashionable Portraiture ...... 48

3 PUBLIC SPECTACLE AT THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION ...... 63

National Spectacle at the Exposition ...... 65 Artistic Motives ...... 69 Consumerism and Taste at the Exposition ...... 72 Gendered Realms ...... 76 Artistic Frustrations in 1867 ...... 79

4 CET ÊTRE COMPLEXE ...... 97

Artificial Realism ...... 99 A Question of Nationalism ...... 105 The Complex Being ...... 110

5 CONCLUSION ...... 128

Future Research ...... 129 Post Script ...... 130

WORKS CITED ...... 132

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 136

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure page

1-1 James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 21

1-2 James Tissot, Copy of Ingres’ Portrait of Madame de Sennones (1814), 1857...... 22

1-3 James Tissot, Portrait of Mlle M…, c. 1860. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press)...... 23

1-4 Gustave Courbet, Portrait of Madame Mathilde de Cuoq, c. 1852-1857. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum...... 24

1-5 James Tissot, Circle of the Rue Royale, 1868. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay...... 25

1-6 James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html ...... 26

1-7 Tissot, Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c. 1867-68. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press)...... 26

2-1 James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 50

2-2 James Tissot, Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L., 1864, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris...... 51

2-3 James Tissot, Les Deux Sœurs, 1863, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris. .... 52

2-4 Aimée Zoé Lizinka de Mirbel, Portrait of Xavier Feuillant, 1838. Private Collection...... 53

2-5 Fashion plate from La Mode Illustrée, 1857...... 54

2-6 James Tissot, Young Ladies looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. First version. Oil on canvas, location unknown ...... 55

2-7 James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Second Version.Oil on canvas, 27 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches. Cincinnati Art Museum...... 56

2-8 James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Third version, oil on canvas. Private collection...... 57

2-9 James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquis and Marquise of Miramon and their children, 1865, Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris...... 58

2-10 Ingres, Portrait of the Baronne de Rothschild, 1868, oil on canvas. Private collection...... 59

2-11 “Morning Toilette”, Cartoon from La Vie Parisienne. c. 1860s ...... 60

2-12 Manet, Young Lady in 1866, 1866, oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York...... 61

2-13 Carolus-Duran, Young Lady with a Glove, 1869, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris...... 62

2-14 James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html ...... 62

3-1 James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles...... 83

3-2 Tissot, Les Rendez-Vous, 1867. Oil on canvas, location unknown...... 84

3-3 Tissot, Meeting of Faust and Marguerite, 1860. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay...... 85

3-4 James Tissot, Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L., 1864...... 86

3-5 Tissot, Les Deux Sœurs, 1863. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay...... 87

3-6 James Tissot, Japanese Girl Bathing, 1864. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon...... 88

3-7 James Tissot, Young Lady Holding Japanese Objects, 1865. Oil on panel...... 89

3-8 James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Third version...... 90

3-9 James Tissot, The Fireplace, 1869, Oil on canvas. Location unknown...... 91

3-10 Alfred Stevens, La Dame en Rose, 1867. Private collection...... 92

3-11 Manet, Young Lady in 1866, 1866...... 93

3-12 James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html ...... 93

3-13 Tissot, Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c. 1867-68. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press)...... 94

3-14 Tissot, l’Escalier, 1869. Private collection...... 95

3-15 Edgar Degas, Portrait of James Tissot, 1868. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art...... 96

4-1 James Tissot, Portrait of Madame de Sennones, 1857. Copied after Ingres, 1814...... 116

4-2 Ingres, Portrait of the Comtesse d’Haussonville, 1845. The Frick Collection. .. 117

4-3 Whistler, Symphony in White No. 1, 1862. National Gallery of Art ...... 118

4-5 Edgar Degas, Portrait de Madame Morbilli, 1869. Location unknown...... 120

4-6 Tissot, French Soldiers, 1870, watercolor and pencil (black and white reproduction)...... 121

4-7 Tissot, The First Killed I Saw, 1870. Etching of original drawing, reproduced in Ten Etchings, 1875...... 122

4-8 Manet, Guerre Civile, 1871. Institut national d’histoire de l’art...... 123

4-9 Tissot, Bastien Pradel, 1870. From Ten Etchings, 1875...... 124

4-10 James Tissot, The Rubens Hat, from Ten Etchings, 1875...... 125

4-11 Tissot, By the Window, from Ten Etchings, 1875...... 126

4-12 Tissot, Gallery of the HMS Calcutta, from Ten Etchings, 1875...... 127

Abstract of Thesis Presented to the Graduate School of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts

FASHIONABLE MODERNITY: AGENCY AND SPECTACLE IN JAMES TISSOT’S PORTRAIT OF THE MARQUISE DE MIRAMON

Maura Gleeson May 2014

Chair: Melissa Hyde Major: Art History

In 1866, James Tissot painted the full-length portrait of Thèrése Feuillant, the

Marquise de Miramon, in her private room at the Château de Paulhac. The work was originally intended for the family’s home until Tissot asked to borrow and submit the painting to the 1867 Universal Exposition. This massive world fair demonstrated

Emperor Napoleon III’s political prowess by highlighting Paris’ modern industry and consumerism, and the Marquise was one of the few paintings chosen by the selective jury to represent French art that year. Contemporary art historians have not studied the importance of the Marquise in relation to Tissot’s body of work during the 1860s.

Despite the avowedly feminine fashion and domestic setting of her portrait, I argue that the Marquise’s pose and gaze, as well as the collection of eighteenth century and

Japanese art on display in her room, demonstrates her elite lineage and intellectual agency beyond the nineteenth century norms for women.

Following the 1867 show, Tissot rocketed to public and financial success, receiving numerous commissions from the fashionable elite in Paris. Tissot’s participation in the Exposition, from which many of his contemporaries were rejected, would also have a profound impact on his critical reception then and now. Based on a

close reading of his Portrait of the Marquise, my thesis offers a corrective to the received understanding of Tissot as a plagiarist who pandered to middle class tastes, and instead considers the ways in which his art engaged with modernity, consumerism and gender. I examine how Tissot’s art and career provides important insight into the lucrative roles art played in constructing the modern, fashionable identities of the nineteenth century elite, and discuss the impact of these ideas on the critical biases toward the value of his oeuvre.

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

A discerning critic once rightly said of James Tissot, “He is a troubled soul.” However this may be, there is something of the human soul in his work and that is why he is great, immense, infinite. Vincent Van Gogh, 18801

In a letter to his brother in 1880, Vincent Van Gogh praised the timeless ability of

Tissot’s paintings to speak to their viewers’ humanity. The Nantes-born painter’s most popular works depict the modern fashionable elite of Paris and London, which led to his quick rise to financial wealth and fame in the 1860s and 1870s. The level of Tissot’s success was due in part to his social position as an art collector and dandy, but also to his ability to adapt his compositions to the most recent changes in fashion and taste.

Critics did not share Van Gogh’s favorable opinion of Tissot’s work. Edmond de

Goncourt maintained that he was an “ingenious exploiter”2 of mass culture and that his works reflected his ever-changing “appassionements”3 that did not contribute to any intellectual capacity of high art. My thesis will examine how such opposing views of

James Tissot and his work has created a tension that persists in current scholarship on and attitudes toward his paintings.

I will take as my case study Tissot’s 1866 Portrait of Thèrése Feuillant, the

Marquise de Miramon (Figure 1-1). The importance of this work to Tissot’s success in the 1860s has not been thoroughly studied by contemporary art historians. Shortly after

1 V. Van Gogh, Letter to Theo van Gogh, 24th September 1880.

2 Edmond de Goncourt, “Mardi, 3 Novembre 1874”, from his Mémoires de la vie littéraire, 1866- 1886. p. 596. The full text of Goncourt’s entry will be considered in Chapter 3.

3 Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la Vie Littéraire Vol II: 1866-1886. P. 596 Translated by Michael Wentworth, “Cet être complexe”, in James Tissot (ed. Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz), p. 14. Full text will be considered in Chapter 3.

Tissot began exhibiting paintings with “modern sentiment” at the Paris Salon, the

Miramon family commissioned Tissot for two portraits: a large scale family portrait in

1865, and the portrait of the Marquise in 1866.

Although it was a private portrait intended to be viewed inside their home, Tissot wrote to the Marquis in October 1866 and asked to borrow and submit the painting to the 1867 Universal Exposition, a massive fair constructed to display Napoleon III’s political prowess. His letter suggests that exhibiting the highly “original” portrait would benefit both the family’s social position and Tissot’s growing popularity.4 Following the

Exposition, Tissot received numerous commissions from other members of the wealthy elite who wanted similar compositions. This surge in popularity enabled him to purchase a plot of land on Haussmann’s Avenue de l’Imperatrice, on which he built a lavish house and studio between 1866 and 1868.5

Despite his professional success in the public sphere and close friendships with artists who also painted scenes of modern life, a significant amount of tension rose between Tissot and his contemporaries in the late 1860s. This increased following his move to England during the 1871 Paris Commune, and even more so after his refusal to participate in the first Impressionist show. My thesis will examine the influence of his actions at this time on the critical regard for his paintings that has continued in subsequent generations.

4 Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, August 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8).

5 Wentworth, James Tissot, 58. Wentworth notes that Tissot began building the mansion in 1865 and was living at his new residence by 1868.

Modernity, Modernism and Tissot’s Education

Before I examine Tissot’s significance to nineteenth century art history, it is necessary to first explore the profound impact that rampant developments in the industrial, economic and social and physical structure of Paris had on the arts, and especially on painting. The canonical Art Historical canon, written as a continuous narrative that explores the “victory of the future over the past”, separates nineteenth century artists into two general categories: the ‘official’ and the ‘avant-garde’, or

‘modern’ tradition.6 Official painting was seen as a continuation of the hierarchical tradition of subject matter and style established by the Renaissance. The Academy, which governed ‘official’ art, favored history painting and portraiture over lesser subjects such as genre scenes, landscape and still life. Modernist artists, on the other hand, sought to insist on the autonomy of painting by rejecting traditional, idealized subject matter in favor of realistic depictions of contemporary life. These ideologies were reflected in the formal characteristics of the works themselves. Official art placed emphasis on line and contour through draugtsmanship, whereas the avant-garde dissolved the trompe-l’oeil effects of traditional painting by using the medium itself to highlight the surface flatness of their canvases.

Tissot arrived in Paris as these major changes were taking place. Although he had a traditionally Academic education, my thesis will explore the impact of modernity and modernism on his works. The designation of all nineteenth century art into two distinct categories is inherently problematic, especially in determining the difference between Modernist paintings and paintings of modern life. Rosen and Zerner define

6 Rosen and Zerner, “Realism and the Avant-Garde”, from Romanticism and Realism, p. 134- 138.

modernity in terms of the “ideal of historical change” that impacted painting between

1800 and 1950, during which formal characteristics and subject matter underwent a significant transformation.7 Within this category a number of artists, including Tissot, became fascinated with the Realist movement, which was associated with modern life.

This subject matter dealt with capturing aspects of contemporary society borrowed from both “high art and mass culture.”8 Charles Baudelaire’s influential essay “The Painter of

Modern Life” considered the notion that paintings of modernity should capture the

“moral and aesthetic feeling of their time”, and encouraged artists to turn to widely disseminating fashion prints to understand and interpret the present.9 Other artists pioneered a Modernist view about art and its meaning. Their paintings, considered some of the first abstract works, no longer imitated reality, but called attention to the reality of art itself. These artists, used paint to call attention to the picture plane and emphasize the two-dimensionality of the canvas. While Tissot did not adopt this style, he interacted with many avant-garde artists during his first few years in Paris.

In 1857, Tissot began his education in official art by registering as a copyist at the Louvre, and trained under Hendrik Leys and Louis Lamothe. His earliest exhibited works were meticulously detailed medieval narrative scenes, but he also copied the works of famous French painters alongside friend and fellow painter Edgar Degas. His slick brushstrokes, virtuoso draftsmanship and expert use of color were exemplary of

7 Rosen and Zerner, “Realism and the Avant-Garde”, Romanticism and Realism, 133.

8 Nigel Blake and Francis Frascina, “Modernity; the social and the aesthetic”, from Modernity and Modernism, p. 127. “By ‘modernism’ we refer to those new social practices in both ‘high art’ and ‘mass culture’ which engage with the experiences of modern life, with modernity, by means of a self-conscious use of experiment and innovation.”

9 Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”, from The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays, trans. Jonathan Mayne (1964: Phaidon Press), 2.

traditional French painting. The only surviving example of Tissot’s student work is a copy of Ingres’ 1814 Portrait of Mme de Sennones (Figure 1-2). She is portrayed in three-quarter length, wearing a lavish red velvet gown and large selection of glittering jewelry. Despite the sumptuous materials surrounding the sitter, her facial expression suggests a somewhat detached mood. Her preoccupied expression is emphasized by the massive mirror behind the sitter, which does not reflect an equally magnificent room but rather only the back of her head. The calling cards tucked into the frame indicate the sitter’s social relationship to the artist, whose signature is just visible on the top card.

Ingres’ detailed depiction of the sitter’s fabric, jewelry, and flawless skin followed the centuries-old tradition of elite portraiture that idealized their sitter’s natural features.

Ingres’ subject matter and careful use of color to enhance the perspective of his compositions influenced Tissot’s modern subjects of fashionable high society women.

The growing Realist movement in Paris also influenced Tissot. The highly finished canvases of traditional art were criticized for their artifice, and new art focused instead on the immediate, not the staged, action, as well as a more painterly application of color. Tissot first experimented with Modernism by way of portraiture, which he studied through visiting Gustave Courbet’s studio. He attempted to reduce the massive debt accumulated by his move to the city by painting portraits for neighbors and other clientele in a Realist manner.10 Few examples of these survive, but the ones that are documented in his photograph albums show tightly cropped depictions of introspective women, which were influenced by Courbet’s Realist portraits on display in his studio.

Tissot’s Portrait of Mlle M, for instance, focuses on the disposition of the woman herself

10 George Bastard, James Tissot, 260. Bastard alleges that Tissot was 100,000 francs in debt when he first moved to Paris.

instead of fashion or surroundings included in later works (Figure 1-3). Her slouched position and half-shut eyes makes her seem drunk or asleep, unlike the typically elegant women of his later works. It is likely that Tissot was influenced by the paintings on

Courbet’s studio, especially the large scale painting of Mme Mathilde Cuoq, who is seated in the center of the work (Figure 1-4). Courbet and his circle of friends represented “a union of the socially and artistically progressive”, which protested the formal views of art and painting and focused on a psychological representation of the sitter.11

Malcolm Warner suggests that the international artists Tissot came into contact with in Paris and London also influenced his style. Through his friendship with James

Whistler, whom he met in 1857, Tissot met numerous French, British and American artists who influenced his interest in international styles, from academic art, to

Impressionism and the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood.12 He also studied the satirical fêtes galantes of eighteenth century French and British painters such as Watteau and

Hogarth, which were coming back into vogue in the mid-nineteenth century.13 His close relationship with artists outside of France led him to change his name from Jacques to

James in 1859.14 Tissot’s earliest friends in Paris, James Whistler and Edgar Degas,

11 Nochlin, The Politics of Vision, 12.

12 Modern inventions, such as the railroad, allowed artists of many different countries to travel and correspond more freely with each other about their work.

13 Malcom Warner, “Comic and Aesthetic: James Tissot in the Context of British Art and Taste”, from James Tissot, 37. Warner suggests that his paintings of fashionable society “suggested to his...audience how they might behave in an eighteenth century manner.”

14 Wentworth, James Tissot, 15. Wentworth notes that through James Whistler, Tissot likely came into contact with Fantin-Latour, Legros, Bacquemond, George Lucas, Edward Poynter, and George de Maurier.

were also influenced by the same changes and ideas. It was common for artists to learn from and inspire each other, and Tissot was no exception to this rule. However, my thesis will explore how, as Tissot rose to public and financial success, his friends’ criticism of his style became increasingly negative and by the end of the 1860s considered him a plagiarist.

Rethinking the Marquise

Tissot’s paintings were “forgotten in the rush to modernism” at the fin-de-siécle.15

Between his death in 1902 and the first retrospective exhibition of his work in 1968, the only study published on Tissot was in 1936 by costume historian James Laver.16 The

1968 retrospective catalogue17 introduced a discussion about Tissot’s work, which continued to grow in the years following Wentworth’s 1984 biography.18 There is now a considerable amount of research on Tissot’s paintings, much of which concentrates on

1871 onward, when he moved to London. Tissot’s work and career in the 1860s has not yet been fully evaluated by art historians. His private portraits, particularly those of women, remain unstudied.

In current publications, the Marquise has only been discussed as a gateway to what art historians deem the “most important commission of [Tissot’s] career”: the large- scale conversation portrait of the Circle of the Rue Royale, which depicts Réne

15 Michael Wentworth, “Cet Être complexe”, from James Tissot, 25.

16 Laver, James. Vulgar Society: The Romantic Career of James Tissot, 1836-1902,. London: Constable & Co., ltd., 1936.

17 Wentworth, Michael, Henri Zerner, and David S. Brooke. James Jacques Joseph Tissot, 1836-1902: A Retrospective Exhibition. Providence, RI: Rhode Island School of Design, 1968.

18 Wentworth, Michael. James Tissot. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1984.

Cassagnes de Beaufort, the Marquis de Miramon, among eleven other members of the exclusive gentleman’s club (Figure 1-5).19 This painting and the portraits of Eugene

Coppens de Fontenay and an Unidentified Man demonstrate Tissot’s ability to portray individual character and “distinguished virility” of the fashionable male elite in Paris.20

(Figure 1-6, 1-7)

Despite Tissot’s reputation as a painter of women, Michael Wentworth has noted that he was “a remarkably good portraitist of men.”21 Tissot’s paintings place the fashionable elite in the spotlight, focusing simultaneously on the seduction and anxieties associated with material culture at the forefront of modern Parisian society. His male portraits are described as “sharper and better-flavored” than his female works, whose

“generalized and flattering portraits” have often been criticized for their artificiality.22

However, it was the composition and style of the Marquise that influenced his male commissions, indicating that viewers in 1867 saw the work as more than a simple feminine portrait. The attitude toward his paintings of women has prevented the

Marquise from receiving a fair and thorough examination. My thesis aims to explore questions about this painting and Tissot’s career that have not yet been considered.

Firstly, my paper will examine the likelihood that the work was a collaborative effort between artist and patron, as it portrays the Marquise as having a strong, individual character beyond a mere femme à la mode typical of other paintings of

19 Christopher Wood, Tissot, 36. Michael Wentworth describes this portrait as “Tissot’s masterpiece” (Wentworth, James Tissot, 60).

20 Cogeval and Guégan, “James Tissot: The Circle of the Rue Royale”, from Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 152.

21 Wentworth, 61.

22 Wentworth, Tissot, 61.

modern life at this time. I argue that although Tissot paints her in socially appointed feminine attire and domestic realm, the items on display in her private room as well as the position of her body and gaze subtly demonstrate intellectual agency beyond the typical expectation of nineteenth century women. Its influence on Tissot’s later male portraits indicates that the painting was an important example of the stylish modernity that Paris’ fashionable men and women hoped to exude.

Chapter 2 will examine Tissot’s decision to exhibit the Portrait of the Marquise at the 1867 Universal Exposition. The portrait differs in subject and composition from Les

Rendez-Vous, the other work he submitted to the Exposition. I argue that Tissot exhibited these works to market his abilities as a painter, from which he hoped to benefit financially. The works indicate a transformation from his Leysian, medieval works to that of a new, modern style that responded to new advances in art at the time. The paintings reflect major transformations to Paris’ artistic and social structures on display at the

Exposition, which were gauged toward the new bourgeois middle class instead of the elite aristocrats who shaped popular taste. I will focus on Tissot’s understanding of this change, which was major factor in the Marquise’s selection by the jury. That Tissot was one of the few artists accepted to the Exposition from which his friends were rejected, elicited a tension that would persist throughout the following decade and in contemporary interpretation of his work.

Chapter 3 of my thesis addresses the critical biases towards Tissot’s art associated with modern and traditional art. As evidenced by Van Gogh’s letter, Tissot was respected and taken seriously by some avant-garde artists immortalized by the traditional canon of Art History. Yet, other members of the elite art world often criticized

his artistic style and financial success. The avant-garde aspects of Tissot’s painting are hidden beneath detailed depictions of Parisian fashion, and the artificiality of his painting style, which allowed Tissot’s to rise to the height of financial and social success in Paris.

Tissot’s artistic ambiguity incensed his friends and critics, and increased after 1870 when he fled to London after fighting in the Siege of Paris. His lengthy stay in England appeared to his Parisian colleagues as a cowardly decision driven solely by his desire to make money. Critical interpretation of his work has damaged Tissot’s position in the long-term Art Historical canon, which favored the bold honestly of the Parisian avant- garde. Regardless, I will argue that the deliberate ambiguity of Tissot’s style, career and political affiliation allowed him to move through the upper echelons of fashionable society and the artistic avant-garde, two groups entirely at odds with each other, while also maintaining public favor and a financially successful career.

The goal of my thesis is to demonstrate that the Portrait of the Marquise shows a more powerful depiction of its sitter’s individual character than has been previously considered. Its public exhibition in 1867, which was originally unintended, indicates

Tissot’s desire to market his new artistic modernity and the importance of fashionable consumption to an international platform. Lastly, I will examine how Tissot’s paintings provide insight into the lucrative role of art and artists in fashionable society. Many of his compositions, and especially the Marquise, reflect the rigidly gendered moral and political codes of nineteenth century society, but also subtly highlight distinct contradictions between idealism and reality that lay just beneath their surface.

Figure 1-1. James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Figure 1-2. James Tissot, Copy of Ingres’ Portrait of Madame de Sennones (1814), 1857.

Figure 1-3. James Tissot, Portrait of Mlle M…, c. 1860. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press).

Figure 1-4. Gustave Courbet, Portrait of Madame Mathilde de Cuoq, c. 1852-1857. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum.

Figure 1-5. James Tissot, Circle of the Rue Royale, 1868. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay.

Figure 1-6. James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html

Figure 1-7. Tissot, Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c. 1867-68. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press).

CHAPTER 2 FASHIONING AGENCY

I thought the last portrait of Madame de Miramon, which I certainly painted most advantageously, by its innovation... will be more remarked upon than any of my paintings...23 James Tissot, 1866.

In his letter to the Marquis de Miramon, Tissot expressed pride in the portrait of

Thèrése Cassagnes de Beaufort (Figure 2-1). The Marquise stands by the fireplace in her private parlor at the Château de Paulhac, the Miramon’s lavish country estate. She wears a salmon pink Watteau peignoir over a loose, white lace tea gown. Her gloved right hand clutches at the velvet fabric and pulls its left side across her right hip, revealing a white lace handkerchief that has been stuffed into her pocket. She wears a black lace scarf tied loosely around her neck, from which dangles a large silver crucifix set with rubies. Thèrése’s hair is pulled tightly into a chignon style, which highlights the flawless skin of her thirty-year old face. She turns her head to the viewer’s left, addressing someone- or something- outside the canvas.

Although the room appears to be a large space with high ceilings, Tissot has cropped his composition to a small space. The deep red walls hold four paintings: two genre, or perhaps religious, scenes and two small portrait miniatures. Matching red velvet and floral curtains hang in the background, in front of which stands a low

Japanese screen decorated with herons. A Louis XVI stool sits in front of the screen; its fringed cushion is nearly hidden from view by the colorful fabric and thread heaped on top. The grey marble floor of the room is almost entirely covered by a thick, brown fur

23 Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, August 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8). “J’ai pensé au dernier portrait de Madame de Miramon qui est certes ce que j’ai peint de plus avantageux et qui par sa nouveauté ainsi que par les initiales du [livret] (soit dit entre nous) serait je l’espère plus remarqué qu’aucun de mes tableaux... “ Many thanks to Dr. Weltman-Aron at the University of Florida for her help in translating these letters.

rug. The stone fireplace has been dressed in heavy red drapery that cascades to the floor as gracefully as the Marquise’s dress. On top of the mantle is an assemblage of items. Two tall candlesticks flank a large stone bust of a woman dressed in eighteenth- century fashion. Her low cut bodice and Apollo knot hairstyle are much more formal than the Marquise’s relaxed attire. Thèrése’s left hand glove sits on the mantle beside a

Japanese Hirado ware dragon-fish sculpture and a circular bowl that holds Japanese azalea bonsai flowers, whose color perfectly matches the Marquise’s dress.

This chapter will examine the remarkable innovation of Tissot’s Marquise, which depicts Thèrése’s individual character and fashionable intelligence. The painting was influenced by the artist’s recent interest in modernity, which changed his subject matter and style and was instrumental to his success. By 1866, Tissot had been living in Paris for ten years, following his move from Nantes to study art at the dismay of his father, who was a linen draper.24 His works had been exhibited in the Paris Salon and at the

Royal Academy in London, which increased his popularity with the society elite as well as the bourgeoning wealthy middle class. Starting in 1863, Tissot exchanged his medieval subject matter for modern paintings, which he exhibited at the Paris Salon in the hopes of attracting more wealthy patrons. Theophile Thoré, an early supporter of

Courbet and Manet, examined his Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L. and Les Deux Sœurs at the 1864 Salon and described his change in style as “the new, the unexpected, and the

24 Wentworth, 9. Wentworth draws from the most complete account of Tissot’s family, an article written by George Bastard in 1906. Original source: George Bastard, ‘James Tissot’, Revue de Bretagne, 2nd ser. 36 (November 1906), 253-278. Following his arrival in 1857, Tissot began copying paintings at the Louvre and studying under Louis Lamothe and Hippolyte Flandrin.

original”25 (Figure 2-2, 2-3). These modern works, which first attracted the Miramon family to Tissot’s art, were shown a year after the infamous Salon des Refusés that celebrated works such as Whistler’s Girl in White and Manet’s Luncheon on the

Grass.26

Little public information exists about the patron. Thèrése de Cassagnes de

Beaufort (née Feuillant) was born in 1836 in Paris to Xavier Feuillant and Marie

Chauveau-Dupois. Her father, the comte Feuillant, was a cavalry officer and Gentleman of the Chamber of Charles X.27 He had also made a fortune in the northern French coal mines, which Thèrése inherited to restore her husband’s financial security after their marriage in 1860.28 Rêne Cassagnes de Beaufort, the Marquis de Miramon, was paternally connected to Napoleon I, his father’s godfather.29 Their wealth and connections to the Emperor and Bourbon royalists would have wielded a significant amount of power for the pair, which was prominently depicted in the two portraits they commissioned from Tissot: a family portrait in 1865 and the Marquise in 1866.

In this chapter, I will discuss the differing representations of the Marquise in the

1865 family portrait and her individual painting. I argue that, among other things, the

Marquise complicates the separately gendered practices of consumption in nineteenth century Paris. Women learned to be confined to the domestic realm in part through the

25 Thoré, “Salon de 1864”, Les Salons: Salons de 1864-1868. 102. “Il y est maintenant et il doit s'y encourager, à cause même des critiques aveugles et incompétentes d'un certain public, lesquelles prouvent que M. Tissot a du neuf, de l'imprévu- de l'originalité.”

26 Gary Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, 306-309.

27 D’Hozier, Armorial général de la France, p. 455.

28Stéphane Guégan, James Tissot (Paris: Musée d’Orsay), 8.

29 D’Hozier, 455.

use of fashion and fashion plates, despite major urban changes that prompted them to leave their homes and participate in public consumption. Though both men and women were modern consumers of fashion and art, women’s participation was considered less intelligent than that of men. However, despite her avowedly feminine costume and domestic setting which indicate an adherence to the nineteenth century social norms,

Tissot presents the Marquise not as a flirtatious femme or doting mother, but instead as an intelligent individual. Though contemporary art historians regard the painting as a flattering portrayal of the “ideal modern beauty”, the Marquise had a significant impact on two male portraits commissioned of Tissot the following year. These distinct similarities indicate that the painting demonstrated an important message about women’s power and thoughtful engagement to nineteenth-century viewers.

Rethinking Fashionable Portraiture

For centuries, portraiture had been important to construct a sitter’s personal and social identity. In the nineteenth century, Paris’ high society broadened to include wealthy business magnates who profited from the rise of European industry, who looked to publicly exhibit their elite social status through portraiture.30 In his discourse on modern portraiture at the Salon of 1859, Charles Baudelaire posited that the careful choice in “gesture, glance, clothing and [setting] decor” were important to representing the sitter’s true character.31 Baudelaire wrote that this required “immense intelligence”

30 Gabriel Badea-Paün, The Society Portrait, 15-16. Badea-Paün’s book examines the variety of changes and similarities of high society portraits in pre- and post-revolutionary France.

31 Charles Baudelaire, “Salon de 1859“, Oeuvres complètes de Charles Baudelaire, Vol 2 (1868: M. Lévy). “Le portrait, ce genre en apparence si modeste, nécessite une immense intelligence. Il faut sans doute que l’obéissance de l’artiste y soit grande, mais sa divination doit être égale. Quand je vois un bon portrait, je devine tous les efforts de l’artiste, qui a dû voir d’abord ce qui se faisait voir, mais aussi deviner ce qui se cachait. Je le comparais tout à l’heure à l’historien, je pourrais aussi le comparer au comédien, qui par devoir adopte tous les caractères et tous les

on the part of the artist, who worked to create the perfect balance between the aesthetic and moral beauty and power of their sitter. Tissot understood these issues to be at stake with society portraiture. The innovation of the Marquise incorporates elements of eighteenth century portraiture with modern fashion to produce an image of Thèrése

Feuillant that celebrates her aristocratic heritage while forging her own identity as a modern woman.32

The Marquise accords with many conventions of eighteenth century portraiture, but also includes modern changes that “undermine [it’s] traditional preoccupations”.33

The bust on her mantle is believed to be an eighteenth century family member’s portrait sculpted by Philippe-Laurent Roland.34 Between their faces are two miniature portraits of men, one of which is likely the 1838 Portrait of Xavier Feuillant by Aimee Zoe Lizinka de Mirbel (Figure 2-4). These prominent allusions celebrate the Marquise’s Royalist heritage, which includes a long line of artistic patronage.35

However, the Marquise’s private room is not perfectly ordered. The casual heap of Thèrése’s embroidery on the fringed Louis XIV stool in the background, and the

costumes. Rien, si l’on veut bien examiner la chose, n’est indifférent dans un portrait. Le geste, la grimace, le vêtement, le décor même, tout doit servir à représenter un caractère.”

32 Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8).

33 McQuillan, Impressionist Portraits, 15. In the introduction to her book on Impressionist portraiture, Melissa McQuillan defines traditional French portrait conventions as well as the modern changes that interrupted these formal elements, including a more deliberate focus on emotions and anxieties that reflect the human psyche.

34 “The J. Paul Getty Museum announces two new acquisitions”, Press release, April 18, 2007.

35 It is possible that Tissot also knew Xavier Feuillant, and that this inclusion of the portraiture miniature could be included out of respect for the public figure. In his letter to the Marquise he includes in a post script: “Mes hommages respectueux à Madame Miramon et si le fou de Xavier est avec vous bien des amitiés pour lui.” Many thanks to Dr. Weltman-Aron at the University of Florida for her help in this translation.

individual strands of the fringed dressing on the fireplace, which twist out of place and over each other, highlight a sense of immediacy which is further emphasized by the sitter’s movement. The calling cards left by her friends are placed in the mirror frame at disorganized angles. The intimate friendliness of the portrait highlights the Marquise’s character, as she is pictured comfortably among her personal collection of family art and

Japanese items. The color and display of her personal items complement each other produce a “picturesque” disorder that recalls the height of eighteenth century portraiture.36

In her study of French interior furnishing, Leora Auslander notes that a household’s rooms were “coded” according to their user’s gender.37 Women’s rooms in the nineteenth century were often designed in a Rococo style, which flattered their feminine character, whereas men’s rooms were modern, “sober and heavy” to match the essence of their masculinity.38 The coded femininity of the portrait is emphasized through the mélange of eighteenth century art adjacent to the sitter; however, the juxtaposition between aristocratic art and her modern collection of Japanese art suggests that the Marquise is not a conventional image of fashionable femininity, but that she also participates in more intellectual methods of consumption and collecting associated with masculinity.

36 Mary Sheriff, Fragonard, 83. In her examination of Fragonard’s paintings, Sheriff discusses the “artful naturalness” of eighteenth century picturesque works. “In making a picturesque composition, then, nothing was to appear purposely arranged by the painter, and everything was to seem as if derived from the natural appearance of the object depicted.” This artificial structure allowed a painting to appear realistic to the viewer. Likewise, the Realist aspects of Tissot’s portrait are undermined by the careful planning and executed of its artist and patron.

37 Leora Auslander, Taste and Power, 285.

38 Auslander, 286.

Fashion and the Feminine Realm

Starting in the 1850s under the direction of Baron Haussmann, the city’s medieval cobbled streets had been torn up and replaced by wide, paved boulevards that increased the flow of traffic around its center.39 Massive stores such as Au Bon

Marché focused their marketing campaigns on enticing young women into their

“exhibition spaces” by distributing large quantities of fashion plates to smaller boutiques and provincial stores.40 Printed images advertised continually changing fashions, but they also reflected the socially appointed gender roles for women.

Despite the numerous changes to its social and political structure since 1789, widespread expectations of the female sex remained largely the same: to maintain their virtue until they became wives and mothers. Young girls were educated according to the same standards voiced by John Jacques Rousseau one hundred years earlier: they learned to make and keep a happy home while their husbands worked away from the domestic sphere.41 These distinctions were somewhat blurred by the modern city.

Department stores gave women the opportunity to leave the home and browse the public sphere, purchasing clothing and other items for themselves and their family. The store was a space not only for them to see products, but allowed for them to be seen by the rest of Paris. Fashion plates not only advertised these products, but also highlighted

39 Jean Des Cars, Paris – Haussmann: “Le Pari d’Haussmann”, p. 72.

40 Iskin, “Selling, Seduction and Soliciting the Eye”, Modern Women and Parisian Consumer Culture, 38. Iskin’s book examines the influence of new consumer practice on Impressionist subjects.

41 These distinctions were voiced in Rousseau’s Émile, or Treatise on Education, which was first published in 1762. The fifth chapter of his book focuses solely on the education of girls, recognizing that they should learn separately from boys an early age in order to be competent wives and mothers.

women’s ‘ideal’ existence: an elegant interior decorated with their own purchases. The modern domestic woman not only wore fashion- she was fashionable in every aspect of her life. This lifestyle was prominently depicted in department store advertisements, which began to reach huge audiences by the 1860s.

An 1862 plate from La Mode Illustrée depicts two women standing by a mantle in a domestic parlor (Figure 2-5). The scene evokes the life style of a Parisian woman á la mode. The engaged fluted column to the left of the elaborate fireplace, whose tracery is just visible between the women’s’ skirts, indicates the nineteenth century revival of 18th century styles. A large mirror hangs on the wall, in front of which a Japanese-style vase and small figurine of a cross-legged man are displayed. Heavy brocade curtains flank either side of the composition. The two women stand placidly at the center of the print.

The hems of their elegant dresses barely graze the shiny floor. Both women carry important feminine accessories in their left hands- a handkerchief and fan.

The print does more than advertise fashionable clothing. It rather aggressively asserts women’s clearly defined social realm. The swag of drapery at the right of the plate is positioned artificially; its folds blend seamlessly into the woman’s skirt. Despite their freedom to venture outside of their homes to explore the marbled halls of Le Bon

Marché, Au Printemps and other department stores for the latest wares, women were still limited in their use of these items in that they were intended only for private, domestic use. Fashion and home decoration served the same function as the ladies themselves: they were decorated and adorned for man’s viewing pleasure.42

42 Tamar Garb, “James Tissot’s ‘Parisienne’”, Bodies of Modernity, p. 82. In her study of Tissot’s series of paintings that focus on the Parisienne of the 1880s, Garb suggests that women’s fashion and adornment made her a “superficial sovereign who presides over the pleasure palaces of the city.” She argues that, while these adornments made the woman a passive

The Marquise’s private room at the Château de Paulhac is almost entirely decorated with red fabric. The paneled walls, heavy embroidered curtain and fireplace clothe the space just as her dress covers her body, and the cool marble floor is obscured from view by a thick fur rug. Sitter and setting are physically adorned in sumptuous fabric, which highlights the latest fashion in nineteenth century decor as seen in the plate from La Mode Illustrée. However, the items on display in her room are not the low standard bric-á-brac found at the department store. She appears to own a

Japanese Hirado ware sculpture of a dragon fish as well as a small folding screen and azalea bonsai flowers. Elite collectors of the 1860s would have recognized the authenticity of these items, and their presence in her portrait indicates that the Marquise participated in the intellectual collecting associated with masculine consumption.

Gendered Consumption and Collecting

Trade negotiations between France and Japan in the late 1850s introduced the culture’s aura of exotic authenticity to the Paris market.43 The rise of small Japanese boutiques drove the initial obsession for the foreign items among elite artists and collectors, many of whom were male. Whereas women appeared to desire only the latest fashionable trends, men “hunt[ed] down and uncover[ed] unexpected,

model for luxury, they were also able to exhibit their power over male spectators entranced by their beauty. Although she focuses her argument on his 1880s paintings, I believe that these issues are also at play in his 1860s paintings as well.

43 W. Benjamin, The Work of Art…, 22. Benjamin posits that the “core” of a true work of art is its authenticity, which includes the “quintessence of all that is transmissible in it from its origin on, ranging from its physical duration to the historical testimony relating to it”. He argues that technological reproduction that comes to power due to nineteenth century industrial advances “withers [the art work’s] aura.”

unrecognized and treasure” at auction houses and specialty stores.44 In the 1860s, the most fashionable treasures were Chinese and Japanese porcelain ware that had recently entered Paris from the East. Though male and female consumption both involved purchasing products, each implied a different type of intellectual agency. Men, not women, had the knowledge and understanding to recognize rare and expensive items compared to the ready-made department store items. Walter Benjamin describes nineteenth century collecting as the “primary phenomenon of study”, which did not apply to women’s consumption.45 Collecting was for the educated man, whereas consuming items for the home was a largely feminine practice.

Tissot and his fellow artists Manet and Degas, as well as art collectors Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, frequented Madame Desoye’s Japanese shop on the affluent

Rue de Rivoli.46 In the 1860s, especially after the 1867 Exposition, department stores began selling their own imitation versions of Japanese items, making a formerly elitist male activity accessible to the rest of Paris. The Japoniste Jules de Goncourt wrote in

October 1868 that the obsession for Japanese goods was “now spreading to everything and everyone, even to idiots and middle-class women.”47 Goncourt casts women as uneducated consumers who “indulge[d] in japonaiserie to the exact degree their purses

44 Auslander, Taste and Power, 298. Leora Auslander’s groundbreaking book examines interior furnishing of royal and bourgeoisie homes during the 19th century and its influence on gendered self-fashioning.

45 Benjamin, The Arcades Project, 210.

46After visiting Mme Desoye’s shop, the artist Gabriel Rossetti wrote, “I went to this Japanese shop, but found all the costumes were being snapped up by a French artist, Tissot, who it seems it doing three Japanese pictures”. Translated by Michael Wentworth in James Tissot, p. 69. Original document: D.G. Rossetti, Letters, Vol II, p. 524. Ed. Oswald Doughty and John Robert Wahl. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

47 Goncourt, October 1868, from Paris and the Arts, 1851-1896, 106.

permitted.” 48 The tone of the entry suggests that “idiots” and “middle-class women” may be interchangeable terms: highlighting his belief that women were not able to, or not interested in, differentiating between an authentic piece and the vast amount of fake items circulating in the department stores.

Having been painted in 1866, the Marquise predates the widespread vogue for japonaiserie in department stores. The dragon fish, especially, was a popular item among male collectors. The sculpture sits on the mantle of the Marquise’s room in full view. A blue and red fish tail flicks out from the frothy white waves at its base. Rising from the water, attached to the fish’s body, is the head of a dragon. Its scowling brow and bared teeth are as fierce and dramatic as the swirling waves below. The enigmatic transformation of the animal is prominent in Chinese and Japanese imagery, and the wealthy elite would have identified the high quality production of Hirado ceramic artists.49 The dragon fish subject was popular in nineteenth century porcelain, and was in many prominent Japanese collections.50

A folding screen depicting white cranes stands behind the Marquise, adding to the exotic items on display in the painting. Its small size indicates that it was likely used to cover the fireplace hearth, but has been moved to the background of the painting.

Artists often used Japanese folding screens to guide the viewer’s eyes to certain areas

48 Klaus Berger Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, 68.

49 Louis Lawrence, Hirado: Prince of Porcelains, 85. Lawrence, a prominent collector of Japanese art, examines the context of Hirado porcelain in 19th century Europe. He notes that “only the wealthy could have afforded these expensive and extraordinary high quality pieces that are a tour-de-force of the ceramicist’s art”, indicating that Hirado ware was an elite consumer item, rather than a department store bibelot.

50 Many thanks to Jenny Zentner for providing information about another 19th century Hirado ware dragon fish, in the Zentner Collection.

of their paintings; in Tissot’s work, the painted screen keeps our focus in the foreground of the work.51 The birds crane their long necks in different directions, adding a sense of natural movement heightened by the enigmatic dragon-fish porcelain. Small screens were more typical of authentic Japanese homes that were described by artists who visited Japan in the mid nineteenth century.52 It is much smaller than those in Tissot’s other Japanese paintings53, and is largely obscured by the Marquise’s body. This juxtaposition emphasizes her dominant physical presence on the canvas in relation to the objects.

Tissot does not appear to follow the scornful attitude toward nouveau riche and female connoisseurship of Japanese items. In 1869, he painted three works titled

Jeunes Femmes regardent des objets japonais, all of which depict two elegantly dressed women analyzing authentic Japanese items displayed in Tissot’s own

Japanese studio (Figure 2-6, 2-7, 2-8). The ladies are not shown as mindless consumers, but as intelligent collectors carefully examining exotic items.54 It is important to note that in two of the works, one models wears the same style Watteau dress as the

Marquise. In each painting she guides her visiting friend as they survey the items, as if to show off her own carefully constructed collection of Japanese art. The third version of

Jeunes Femmes was exhibited at the 1869 Salon and unfavorably received by critics

51Klaus Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting from Whistler to Matisse, 222.

52 La Farge, An Artist’s Letters from Japan (1886). Reproduced in Charlotte Gere, Nineteenth- Century Decoration: The Art of the Interior, 280.

53 Japanese screens frame the compositions of his first and second versions of Jeunes Femmes regardent des Objets Japonais (1869).

54 This statement is part of the thesis from a seminar paper I wrote in Spring 2013, titled Changing Fashion, Changing Taste: An Alternative Reading of James Tissot’s Jeunes Femmes regardent des Objets Japonais.

(Figure 2-8). The progressive critic Jules Champfleury remarked that the “amorous little drama” between the models and objects of Tissot’s paintings was a mere selling point for the female bourgeoisie keen on cheap, mass-produced japonaiserie sold at the department stores.55 However, it does not seem plausible that Tissot would depict his own items as inauthentic. Despite the 20th century interpretation of these paintings as

“basically trivial, and deliberately so, making no serious demands on the viewer’s intellect”, the juxtaposition between the women of high fashion with objects of masculine elite taste complicate the socially accepted gendered spheres.56

Likewise, despite the fashionable Marquise, the juxtaposition between the

Rococo items and modern Japanese art, from the Hirado porcelain57 and folding screen down to the Japanese flowers, suggests that Thèrése also participated in traditionally masculine forms of consumption. The Marquise subtly resists the clearly defined attributes of femininity, leaving the viewer with a better understanding of her individual character that is further highlighted by the 1865 Portrait of the Miramon Family.

Between the Public and Private

In Tissot’s letter to Thèrése’s husband in 1866, he expressed his desire to begin the preliminary drawings for the Marquise’s pose and costume as soon as possible.58

55 Champfleury, ‘La Mode des Japonaiseries’, La Vie Parisienne, 21 November, 1868, p. 862- 63.

56 Wood, James Tissot, 38.

57 It might also be possible that the dragon fish porcelain was intended as an artist’s signature. This idea will be further examined in Chapter 2 of this thesis.

58 Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, August 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8). "J’ai beaucoup [médité] le portrait de Madame de Miramon et suis prêt à le commencer dès aujourd’hui si vous voulez. Je désirerai faire le premier dessin chez vous ce serait plus commode pour la pose et le costume."

Tissot’s primary emphasis on these aspects of the portrait is crucial to my reading of it, since a closer examination of the Marquise reveals more than what is depicted on the surface. The pose and gesture of the Marquise indicates that she is more than a passive sitter or sexualized object for the male gaze; instead, she is presented as an active and commanding individual. Whereas Tissot prominently depicts her public role as wife and mother in the Miramon family portrait, the 1866 work highlights her private individuality.

In 1865, Tissot visited the family on their estate to begin preparations for their portrait (Figure 2-9). Although he did not paint the portrait in plen air, the “arrested motion” of the figures indicates that Tissot used photography to capture their poses.59

The large-scale work depicts Thèrése with her husband, Réne Cassagnes de Beaufort, and their children Genevieve and Léon on the balcony of the Château de Paulhac.

Tissot portrays the Miramon family in the latest Parisian fashion. Though they are shown as a family unit, each sitter exhibits their own degree of informality. With the exception of Léon, each figure gazes out to the viewer in indication of their awareness of being watched, making the portrait a more active representation of the family.60

The work was exhibited at the Cercle de l’Union Artistique in April 1866. Léon

LaGrange complimented the work for its “natural” composition but criticized its

59 Wentworth, James Tissot, 61. Although it is not known how Tissot implemented photography in his paintings, Wentworth argues that he, like many other artists of the sixties, used this revolutionary technology to record specific details about their sitters.

60 McQuillan, Impressionist Portraits, 34. In her study of early Impressionist advances in portraiture, Melissa McQuillan notes this modern conception in use in Bazille’s 1867 Family Reunion, in which “each [figure represented] a variation on the common experience of viewing and being viewed.” Tissot’s family portrait, which predates Bazille’s, shows that he is also working with this idea.

monochromatic palette of gray tones, focused prominently in the sitters’ costume.61 The

Marquise wears a lengthy grey striped skirt that fits tightly around her petite waist. Her short black jacket constricts her upper body, which is much smaller than the wide skirt that spreads out around her. She holds her daughter Genevieve in her arms like a modern Madonna and Child; the large blue taffeta bows that sit on their waists aesthetically join the two figures. Thèrése’s costume is in accordance with the most recent changes in fashion: her black fitted jacket was part of the latest trend of women’s clothing inspired by men’s tailored suits. As Haussmannization steadily transformed

Paris into an urban center for circulating people and products, ladies’ clothing also underwent changes to introduce “more practical” styles than the massive, immobilizing dresses popular in the 1850s.62

In contrast to her stiff posture and tailored costume, Réne perches boyishly on the terrace wall. The folds of his gray woolen suit crumple as he crosses his legs in a pose similar to that of his son. The tension elicited by the sitters is emphasized by the small fruit still life between them. One half of a split pear stands vertically on the scalloped porcelain plate, echoing the stiff pose of the Marquise. The pear’s other half, closest to Réne, lies facing upward. The knife used to the cut the fruit also sits on the plate: its hilt faces the Marquise. At the right hand side of the portrait sits a ladies’

61 LaGrange, ‘Exposition de l’Union Artistique’, Gazette des Beaux Arts (April 1866), 400. “M. le marquis de Miramon, sa femme et ses deux enfants se groupent assez naturellement sur la terrasse...En général, la peinture manque de solidité. Elle se réduit presque à un camaïeu grisâtre qu’interrompent sans l’échauffer, quelques touches vives, insuffisantes pour créer des apports de tons soutenus.”

62 Byrde, Nineteenth Century Fashion, 54. In her study of the transformations of women’s fashion and its social and economic implications in nineteenth century Europe, Penelope Byrde asserts that the 1850s and 1860s were a significant period of change in which women’s dress dramatically reduced in size.

writing desk.63 Its small frame has been appropriated to a sewing table: the top drawer has been left open, out of which spills folds of colored fabric. On top of the desk sits a casual still life of colored threads and the same type of fabric as in the drawer.

Thèrése’s tall stature takes up more room than Réne’s, and the subtle allusions evoked by the still life between the sitters indicates that she holds more power than expected.

Given what we know of her family’s fortune, which saved her husband’s social standing, it is possible that the Marquise herself was the patron of these works. However, if this is the case, the allusions of her power are dramatically downplayed by the traditional conventions of femininity in this painting, through the Madonna and Child pose and nearby embroidery.

On the other hand, the 1866 portrait gives way to a more casual, intimate image of the Marquise. Her embroidery is present in the painting, but has been heaped on a stool and pushed to the background. She is also depicted with gloves and a handkerchief, two important feminine accessories that hint at distinct social codes influenced by the revival of eighteenth century court life.64 Although women typically used these items to send suggestive messages to their male viewers, the Marquise

63 Dena Goodman, “The Writing Desk: Furniture of the Modern Self”, from Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters (2009), 205. In her examination of women’s writing desk, Goodman describes the major elements of the furniture, “No matter what the style, all these pieces had three common features that defined them as writing desks: a writing surface, locking drawer and small size.” These characteristics also describe the desk in the Miramon portrait. The gendering of furniture in the Miramon family portrait helps to define the nature of the space and its relation to the true owner of the work.

64 Edward Maeder, “Decent Exposure: Status, Excess, the World of Haute Couture and Tissot”, from Seductive Surfaces, 89. In his chapter, Maeder examines the use of fashion and accessories in Tissot’s paintings of the late 1860s and early 1870s. He argues that in reading these details, the viewer can construct the nineteenth century social codes embedded in his works. He does not mention the Marquise, however, who owns but does not engage with these items.

purposely rejects any indication of flirtatiousness. She has removed one of her gloves and stuffed the handkerchief into her left pocket. The diminished importance of these feminine tools, coupled with the taut pose, gesture and gaze of the Marquise, provides the viewer with a more concise understanding of the sitter as a serious, thoughtful and modest woman.

Perhaps in response to LaGrange’s criticism of the family portrait, Tissot focuses the dress and setting of the Marquise in warm tones. The color of her dress simultaneously compliments and stands out from the deep red room in which she stands, and recalls the sensuality alluded by the pink costume at the center of other high society portraits of French women, such as Ingres’ 1848 Baronne de Rothschild

(Figure 2-10)65 Tissot studied Ingres’ portraits as a student, and was influenced by the

“atmosphere of indolent luxury” in his society portraiture.66 The latest advances in aniline clothing dyes, which created bright pink of Thèrése’s gown, gave women’s clothing a “bolder, rather aggressive appearance” compared to the frothy pale color associated with the luscious Rococo sensuality alluded to by the dress itself.67

The Marquise’s peignoir covers loose white folds of the light tea gown that peeps out from her elbow-length sleeves and the front of the gown. This loose dress was increasingly depicted in the nineteenth century, often appearing in novels and illustrations. Its light fabric and loose design associated the sensual garment with erotic

65 Tamar Garb, The Painted Face, 26. Garb examines Ingres’ Portrait of Betty von Rothschild, whose rosy silk dress adds life to his sitter’s equally pink cheeks.

66 Wentworth, James Tissot, 47. In his biography, Wentworth notes the significant influence of Ingres’ Mme de Senonnes on Tissot’s Mademoiselle L.L., but his influence on the composition and texture in the Marquise is also apparent.

67 Byrde, 54.

situations. The popular magazine La Vie Parisienne boasted numerous drawings and fashion critiques of feminine sartorial practice.68 A drawing from the publication highlights the erotic appeal of a non-corseted dress (Figure 2-11). Its elegant wearer leans back and dips her breakfast croissant in her tea while lifting her legs for the lady’s maid to dress her feet. As the sitter’s husband turns his back, the maid peeks adoringly up at the elegant woman, whose skirt has slipped tantalizingly up to her thigh. The loose garment’s ability to both conceal and reveal the woman’s body creates tension between the lady and her maid that is heightened by the presence of her unknowing husband.

The peignoir depicted as an erotic article of undress was quite radical by nineteenth century standards. The drawings not only served as a critique of the latest fashions and practices, but also represented “the beginning of the great era of erotic lingerie.”69

This bold movement in public imagery prevailed in painting during the 1860s.

Manet’s Young Lady in 1866 depicts a barefaced model wearing a loose, pink peignoir that has been partially unbuttoned (Figure 2-12). The work was exhibited in Manet’s private show in 1867 and received varying reviews. Théophile Gautier wrote about

Manet’s choice in costume. “The dress does not reveal the body it covers”, he writes.70

It is clear that Manet’s use of intimate clothing to conceal the model’s natural figure was not well-received by male viewers who saw women’s fashion as a method of drawing

68 Steele, Paris Fashion, 121.Valerie Steele describes the publication as the “Playboy of its day.”

69 Steele, 120.

70 Gautier, “Salon de 1868.” Le Moniteur Universel, May 11 1868. Reproduced by Gary Tinterow in “Manet’s Young Lady in 1866”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 29.

attention to the shape of their bodies beneath their clothing.71 Thèrése’s dress is much more formal than that of Manet’s painting, but is a drastically relaxed article of clothing in comparison to her attire in the Portrait of the Miramon Family. Its fabric hides the contours of the Marquise’s body. She does not exude the erotic pleasure indicated by

La Vie Parisienne or Manet’s Young Lady, but rather is portrayed as an elegant, yet active, woman of high society.

The loose shape and silk ruffled edging of her private housedress is painted with loose brush strokes that spill out to the azalea bonsai on the mantle. The visual rhyming between the Marquise and the azaleas evokes a correlation between women and nature but also highlights the textural materiality that comments on the nature of painting itself. Tissot uses brief brushstrokes to capture the living “essence” of the blooming flowers that responds to the ruffles of Thèrése’s dress, which flutter and fold with her movement.72 The gesture of grasping her skirt, the positioning of her left hand and the tension of her facial expression all suggest that she is engaged in listening to someone or something.73 The positioning of her left hand next to her ear emphasizes

Tissot’s careful rendering of the Marquise’s inward “attentiveness”.74 Her pose directs

71 Clayson, Painted Love, 89. In her study of prostitution and fashion in Impressionist painting, Clayson examines the use of fashion, particularly corsets, to both constrict and reveal “the sophisticated engineering that went on underneath” a woman’s dress.

72 Tamar Garb, The Painted Face, 158-163. Garb examines the interconnectivity between subject and object in Cezanne’s Madame Cezanne in a Red Dress. This idea does not imply that the sitter is objectified, but rather examines their essence “that [is] not over determined by culture, convention and preconceived knowledge...of the sitter in space.” (159).

73 Her position also relates to the “melancholia” pose, iconography which is often associated with deep thought.

74 Anne Leonard, “Picturing Listening in the Late Nineteenth Century”, The Art Bulletin, Vol. 89, No. 2 (June 2007), p. 266-286. Leonard’s article examines French painting of the Fin-de-Siécle that depicts sitters listening to music. Her assessment of the 1883 painting Listening to

our attention to her intellectual agency, instead of the superficial identity on which fashion, and fashionable portraiture, generally focus.

Tissot challenges the elements of public and private fashion by juxtaposing the

Marquise’s private dress with a pair of white gloves, a public accessory. Women’s gloves were often depicted as tools of erotic seduction. Charles Carolus-Duran’s 1869

Lady with a Glove depicts a fashionable Parisian woman in the process of removing her left pearl-grey ruffled accessory (Figure 2-13). In her analysis of the painting, Justine de

Young asserts that the flirtatious model, who steadily meets our gaze with hers, “artfully drops one of her gloves so that it can be gallantly retrieved by the onlooker.”75 Carolus-

Duran’s painting is erotically tantalizing in that it elicits a flirtatious exchange between the viewer and model, “represent[ing] split seconds caught in time.”76 Tissot, by contrast, depicts the Marquise after the moment of action. Thérése has already removed her glove and placed it on the mantle. Her action is definitive and independent, and does not focus on the tension elicited by a moment of undress.

Manet and Carolus-Duran’s paintings are read as erotically charged by the models’ direct gaze into the (presumably) male viewer’s eyes. The Marquise looks outward toward the viewer in her family portrait, but in the 1866 work she is depicted averting her gaze from the viewer’s. This protects her modesty from the exchange between male painter and female sitter, whose prolonged gaze “transforms her into the

Schumann depicts a woman “covering her face with her hand...to listen without looking at the music maker”. This is similar to what is as stake in the Marquise: though we are not able to hear what she is listening to, her pose indicates that she is completely engaged in this activity.

75 De Young, “Fashion and the Press”, Fashion Impressionism and Modernity p. 236.

76 De Young, 57.

object of his desire.”77 Considering the politics of the gaze at play in this portrait, the stone bust on the mantle seems to act as a protective chaperone to the Marquise.78 The vertical pose and “absorptive” expression of the Marquise resists our reading of her as wife, mother, fashion model, or sexual object.79 The composition opens to the right, leaving the Marquise’s off-center, and allowing the viewer’s eyes to travel around the composition instead of focusing immediately on the sitter. Marquise’s off-center position prevents her from being “exposed to the actual beholder’s gaze.”80 Tissot’s Portrait of

Marquise depicts its sitter as a society figure at the height of fashion, but who also has her own intellectual agency and sense of self. She is an individual with her own lineage and sense of self, highlighted by the art works on display in her room.81

77 Angela Rosenthal, “She’s got the look! Eighteenth-century female portrait painters and the psychology of a potentially ‘dangerous employment’”, Portraiture: Facing the Subject, 151. In her chapter, Rosenthal highlights the sexual politics associated with the gaze and the problems that arise when the male artist-female sitter roles are reserved. Her lengthy discussion on the erotic charge between male artist and female sitter is especially pertinent to my discussion.

78 Sheriff, “Art and Eroticism”, Fragonard,187. Mary Sheriff examines this theme in eighteenth century portraiture through her comparison of Fragonard’s New Model (1770) and Baudouin’s Modest Model (1769). In the latter work, the model’s chaperone covers the model’s body to protect her modesty from the artist’s eyes.

79 Fried, “Painting and Beholder”, Absorption and Theatricality, 108. In his groundbreaking book, Michael Fried examines the ways in which eighteenth century artists and critics viewed painting in relation to its spectators. He argues for the “paradoxical relationship between painting and beholder- specifically, that he finds a way to neutralize or negate the beholder’s presence, to establish the fiction that no one is standing before the canvas.” I believe Tissot also followed this tradition when painting the Marquise.

80 Fried, Absorption and Theatricality, 158. Fried examines this convention in David’s Bélisaire (1785), which he argues is arranged in order to prevent the frontal surface place from directly exposing its subject to the beholder.

81 That Tissot traveled to the Marquise’s house to made preliminary drawings for her portrait further emphasizes the idea that the items are hers and not borrowed items from Tissot’s collection. (Tissot, Letter to the Marquis, 1866.“Je désirerai faire le premier dessin chez vous ce serait plus commode pour la pose et le costume”)

Rethinking Fashionable Portraiture

It is clear that nineteenth century viewers did not see the Portrait of the Marquise as a distinctly feminine portrait. After its public display at the Universal Exposition,

Tissot was commissioned by male observers to create portraits using the same composition. In 1867, he painted Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, the Jockey Club president, leaning against a white marble and gold ormolu fireplace (Figure 2-14).

Whereas Tissot paints the portrait of the Marquise from a side view, Fontenay’s portrait is shallower in depth. A deep red carpet partially covers the black and white tile floor of the room, and a small green tapestry covers the fireplace on which Fontenay leans. He is dressed in the fashion of a Parisian dandy. His hair and moustache are neatly combed and he wears a black tailored suit. Like the Marquise, Fontenay wears a fitted glove on his left hand, which grasps his top hat. His bare right hand carries a jockey’s whip similar to the one Réne de Miramon holds in the 1865 family portrait, indicating their positions in the same social group. Whereas the Marquise stands in a powerful, almost masculine pose, Fontenay appears to be very relaxed as he leans cross-legged against the fireplace. He tilts his head to the right and directly meets the viewer’s gaze in similar fashion as Mademoiselle L.L.

Michael Wentworth and Christopher Wood noted the influence of the Marquise’s portrait on that of Fontenay’s, yet the significance of her work is repeatedly overlooked.

Tissot portrait “define[s] [the Marquise’s] character” as a bourgeois wife by placing her in a “familiar setting and typical gesture” of his feminine works. 82 The painting’s equally

82 Wentworth, James Tissot, 62.

elaborate setting was clearly “designed to be seen.”83 Whereas Thèrése’s portrait is simply evocative of her role as the “ornamental sex” 84, Fontenay’s “elegant and self- satisfied” pose is described as “effortlessly natural.”85 However, it is Fontenay’s portrait that glistens with the golden glamor of Second Empire furnishing. He poses in a public reception space, evident by the presence of his hat and jockey stick. The Marquise’s room, on the other hand, is constructed for her personal use: a private space for intellectual exchanges, not a show room for any and all visitors. The lack of consideration for Marquise compared to that of Fontenay must lay in the difference between their genders. However, that Tissot used the same composition for both male and female sitters indicates that he understood that painting was an important medium to ‘fashion’ acceptable images of both genders. This idea was promoted by the displays at the 1867 Universal Exposition, at which the portrait was publicly exhibited for the first time.

83 Tinterow, “Manet’s Young Lady in 1866,” from Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, p 29.

84 Steele, Fashion and Eroticism, 107. Wood, James Tissot, 36.

85 Christopher Wood, James Tissot, 36.

Figure 2-1. James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Figure 2-2. James Tissot, Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L., 1864, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Figure 2-3. James Tissot, Les Deux Sœurs, 1863, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Figure 2-4. Aimée Zoé Lizinka de Mirbel, Portrait of Xavier Feuillant, 1838. Private Collection.

Figure 2-5. Fashion plate from La Mode Illustrée, 1857.

Figure 2-6. James Tissot, Young Ladies looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. First version. Oil on canvas, location unknown

Figure 2-7. James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Second Version.Oil on canvas, 27 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches. Cincinnati Art Museum.

Figure 2-8. James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Third version, oil on canvas. Private collection.

Figure 2-9. James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquis and Marquise of Miramon and their children, 1865, Oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Figure 2-10. Ingres, Portrait of the Baronne de Rothschild, 1868, oil on canvas. Private collection.

Figure 2-11. “Morning Toilette”, Cartoon from La Vie Parisienne. c. 1860s

Figure 2-12. Manet, Young Lady in 1866, 1866, oil on canvas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Figure 2-13. Carolus-Duran, Young Lady with a Glove, 1869, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris.

Figure 2-14. James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html

CHAPTER 3 PUBLIC SPECTACLE AT THE UNIVERSAL EXPOSITION

It would be necessary to [show a painting] of a certain importance to make a good showing at this Salon, where only a few [paintings] will be selected. It is true that [the Portrait of the Marquise] will perhaps attract a little too much attention because of its originality… and you will be owed for the benefits that this Exposition may bring me. James Tissot, 18661

In 1866, Tissot write to the family to request that the Marquise be submitted to the 1867 Universal Exposition. The highly selective admissions jury chose two of his paintings, the Marquise and Les Rendez-Vous, to be shown among 550 French paintings, the smallest number of works accepted to an International show (Figure 3-1,

3-2).2 Tissot understood that it was “necessary to be of a certain importance” to appear at the Exposition salon, which he felt would be made clear by the subject and style of the portrait. In this chapter, I will discuss the Marquise in relation to Napoleon III’s vision for the Exposition as a showcase for modern industry and widespread consumption. I will also examine the 1867 Exposition’s impact on the fine arts, whose submissions had been greatly reduced from the 1855 Exposition to the dismay of artists hoping to gain publicity from the international show. I argue that Tissot chose to submit the Marquise as it advertised his own capabilities as a painter of modern life and fashion, which lead to a great deal of success in the years following.

Napoleon III’s second World Fair was a large-scale exhibition open from April to

November in 1867. His ultimate goal was to provide an international platform for

1 James Tissot, Letter to the Marquis, 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8). "… il en faudrait un d’une certaine importance pour figurer dignement à ce Salon où il y aura fort peu d’élus… Il est vrai qu’il attirera peut-être un peu trop les regards par son originalité… et vous serai redevable des avantages que cette exposition pourra me procurer.“ Many thanks to Dr. Weltman-Aron at the University of Florida for help with transcribing these letters. 2 “L’Exposition Universelle de 1867: Liste des Principaux Tableaux”, from La Chronique des Arts et de la Curiosite, 1863-1870. p. 93

promoting the industrial, political and cultural power of the modern Paris designed and executed by Baron Haussmann. Not only was the Exposition intended to enhance

Napoleon III’s political vision; it also unveiled the rail system and department stores that brought Paris into contact with other thriving modern cities in Europe.3 These transformations directly suited the rapidly growing bourgeois public, who had become the largest consuming class in the city. Tissot entered the Marquise to the Universal

Exposition because it portrayed an elite woman whose fashion, art collection and body politic had been transformed by these modern changes, which appealed on this level to the nouveau riche bourgeoisie hoping to emulate the aristocracy in every way.

In 1867, Tissot was also appointed master draftsman to Prince Akitake

Tokugawa, who led the Japanese Imperial Commission at the Exposition.4 Throughout the decade Tissot had gained recognition for his prominent status as a leading japoniste, whose large collection of Japanese items from the specialty shops that had risen throughout the city was well known by contemporaries. Tissot’s involvement at the

Universal Exposition as both artist and master draftsman advertised his transformation of his subject matter from a medieval style to modern life: the most popular subject among the masses.

3 Mainardi, Art and Politics of the Second Empire, 123. In her examination of Second Empire politics with regards to the Universal Exposition, Mainardi cites the general division most political historians attribute to Napoleon III’s attempt to “consolidate his regime” in the 1850s with his “liberal” rule after 1860. She attributes the former, more authoritarian regime as a response to the 1851 coup d’état that led him to power, whereas his more liberal “concessions to the growing pressure for liberty” in Paris were made in order for him to remain in power.

4 Wentworth, James Tissot, 68. Tissot’s portrait of the shōgun’s brother was discovered by Dr, Chūji Ikegami. A thorough examination of the work was first given by Dr. Ikegami at a Japonisme symposium in Tokyo in 1979.

Though it did not receive an award at the Exposition, the Marquise was influential for Tissot’s career, leading to subsequent portrait commissions. Although Tissot’s letter highlights the “originalité” of the portrait, its composition and painterly style suggests that Tissot carefully borrowed and expanded on the subject matter of other artists working in Paris at the time.5 Tissot’s subject matter and style is similar to that of other artists working in Paris at the time, especially Alfred Stevens, who showed thirteen paintings at the Exposition, and contemporary artists like Whistler and Manet, who had been rejected from the show. His conscious adherence to popular style and subject matter showed that Tissot understood the multitude of cultural changes that had an impact on the art world. I believe that Tissot’s involvement in the 1867 Exposition was a major factor in sparking the tension between him and fellow artists that would increase in the following years.

National Spectacle at the Exposition

The trend for grandiose displays of national pride first began in London with the

Crystal Palace Exhibition, which ran from May to October 1851 and displayed a wide range of products. The thousands of visitors who entered Joseph Paxton’s massive glass and steel building were able to view newly developed machinery invented to maximize the production of clothing and household items, which were also on display.

The Crystal Palace also showed man made and manufactured products from all over the world, demonstrating the international benefits of modernity. These items were intended in large part to benefit middle class consumers, as were the arts. French critic

Léon de Laborde, on visiting the Palace, accounted for the fusion of art and industry

5 Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8).

that was geared toward the English middle class, which financially benefitted its economy.6

The modern changes on display in England influenced Napoleon III, who came to power in France the following year. In 1855, only four years after the Crystal Palace, the first Exposition Universelle opened to “assert [France’s] leading role in the global economy.”7 It was separated into two major locations: the Palais de l’Industrie and the

Palais de Beaux Arts. The president to the Exposition, the Emperor’s cousin Prince

Napoléon, required an admittance fee that had not previously been customary for previous exhibitions in Paris and agitated its citizens.8 Prince Napoléon’s assertion that

“the principles of ordinary exhibitions no longer apply” to that of the international shows indicated that there was a major difference between exhibiting in Paris at the Salon and exhibiting for France at the Universal Exposition, and only a few were worthy of the latter.9 Exposition officials pursued artists worthy of representing France in the Palais des Beaux Arts, most notably Ingres, Delacroix, Decamps and Vernet, whose number of

6 Whitney Walton, France at the Crystal Palace, 171. Walton’s book examines the influence of the Crystal Palace on the rise of consumption among the French bourgeoisie. Her chapter “Art for Industry’s Sake” describes Laborde’s experience at the 1851 Crystal Palace. His experience in 1851 influenced his writing on the state of French art, and encouraged Paris’ “public institutions impose an elitist aesthetic on the masses” (178).

7 Walton, France at the Crytal Palace, 11.

8 Prince Napoléon, “Discours prononcé par...le Prince Napoléon...” 15 Mai 1855, Exposition Universelle de 1855: “I consider the establishment of an entrance fee as an equitable measure. Rather than forcing everyone to pay for something which benefits only a part of the nation, let it be [aid voluntarily by those who enjoy its advantages.” Translated in Patricia Mainardi’s Art and Politics of the Second Empire, p. 44.

9 Prince Napoléon, Discours... 15 Mai 1855. Translated in Patricia Mainardi’s Art and Politics of the Second Empire, p. 62.

paintings far exceeded those of other artists.10 This caused a fair amount of discontent among artists who were rejected by the jury on the grounds of too little space.11

Whereas the 1855 Exposition was mainly contained in two main pavilions, the

1867 exhibition space was Paris itself: its new roads, buildings and parks that transformed the city into an “abode of the world” geared toward the bourgeoisie.12 The

1867 Admissions jury for fine arts, put together by the comte de Nieuwerkerke, was even more selective in the subject matter they chose.13 They approved only 550 paintings at the center of the designated Exposition pavilion, a surprisingly small number compared to the 1,872 shown in 1855.14 Patricia Mainardi argues that the

French state was keen not only to support artists favored by former rulers, but also subject matter that would appeal to the new spending power of the bourgeois public.15

In 1867, this mainly consisted of “an enormous and relatively unsophisticated art- buying” social class eager to emulate the taste of the aristocracy.16 They were no longer interested in the large-scale history paintings of the past, preferring instead smaller

10 Patricia Mainardi, Art and Politics of the Second Empire, 49.

11 Despite the apparent lack of space at the Exposition, Napoleon III and his followers rejected many artists on political motivation. This is elaborated by Patricia Mainardi in “Second Empire Art Policy: The 1860s”, from Art and Politics of the Second Empire, 123-150.

12 Emile Zola, L’Argent. Paris: Flammarion, 2009. p. 288. Translated by Stephanie Kirkland in Paris Reborn, p. 235.

13 Mainardi, 126. Nieuwerkerke replaced Prince Napoléon and the duc de Morny as President to the Exposition’s fine arts admissions in 1867.

14 Mainardi, 131, 168.

15 Mainardi, 125.

16 Mainardi, 168.

paintings that reflected modern life and fashion. Tissot’s Marquise perfectly fits their vision.

As Chapter 1 of my thesis examined, consumption in the nineteenth century was associated with the feminine. Aggravated critics disparaged the portraits, genre scenes and history paintings chosen the Exposition. Ernest Chesneau argued that the public’s

“lack of cultivation” lead to a massive show of works that had “insignificant size, insignificant subjects and insignificant painting.”17 Armand Audiganne wrote, “To triumph before feminine taste is worth more to manufacturing than to succeed before the most thoughtful and least arbitrary decisions of [exhibition] juries.”18 The Marquise, however, is larger than a typical genre scene and portrays an elite aristocratic woman, which does not accord with Chesneau’s summary of the Exposition paintings. However, as I have already argued, the Marquise is not portrayed as a typical “feminine” woman and was influential to Tissot’s male portraits, which complicates Audiganne’s statement.

The question that remains, then, is why did the Exposition paintings seem so insignificant to critics? As my paper will consider, the answer likely stems from the major changes occurring in the art world at the time that influenced the interpretation of what was ‘good’ and ‘bad’ based on public and governmental acceptance of art and the artists themselves.

17 Ernest Chesneau, Les Nations rivales dans l’art. Paris, 1868, p. 242-244. Quoted in Patricia Mainardi, Art and Politics of the Second Empire, p. 168.

18 Audiganne, La Lutte industrielle des peuples (Paris: Capelle, 1868), p. 186. Translated by Whitney Walton in France at the Crystal Palace (Los Angeles: University of California Press), p. 49.

Artistic Motives

With his submission of the Marquise and Les Rendez-Vous, Tissot was able to exhibit two different subjects and styles in order to advertise his artistic virtuosity to the

Exposition’s international audience. Tissot had steadily gained favor with major figures of the French state and the public over the past decade. The comte de Nieuwerkerke,

President of Admissions, had been integral to the Luxembourg’s acquisition of Tissot’s

Meeting of Faust and Marguerite in 1861 (Figure 3-3).19 Les Rendez-Vous is painted in a similar historicized style, perhaps to appeal to Nieuwerkerke’s passion for the

“curiosités de l’archisme” in his early works.20

Les Rendez-Vous portrays a male and female figure dressed in troubadour clothing standing underneath a stone arcade (Figure 3-2). The woman is about the same age as the Marquise. She grasps her white handkerchief with her right hand and dramatically turns her head away from her male companion, though her left hand clutches at his mauve silk jacket. The figures’ body language and the strewn objects that surround them highlight the tension of the painting, which creates a vague narrative emphasized by its elusive title. It is up to the viewer to determine the content of “the meeting”. The figures in the foreground arcade juxtaposed against the ‘old Paris’ architecture and browned trees in the background create a setting that appears to be simultaneously interior and exterior, very similar to a theatrical set. Compared to Les

Rendez-Vous, the Portrait of the Marquise appeared like a fresh update in Tissot’s style.

19 Wentworth, James Tissot, 31. Today, the painting hangs in the Musée d’Orsay.

20 P. Mantz, “Salon of 1865”, Gazette des Beaux Arts, 5-42.

Costume historian Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz argues that Tissot’s oeuvre can be

“roughly divided” based on his use of historic or modern dress.21 In Les Rendez-Vous, his models’ clothing and the still life of crumpled fabrics on the adjacent chair are similar to the “combination” of items Tissot used in other medieval paintings.22 Aside from dress, there are other important comparisons to be made between the Marquise and the woman in Les Rendez-Vous. Whereas the former dramatically grasps at her handkerchief, the Marquise stuffs hers away. However, the body language of both women is controlled and vertical and their faces are calm and confident.

In the lead up to the Exposition, Tissot had carefully constructed his public persona as an artist and dandy by exhibiting modern paintings: full-length compositions of elegant female sitters wearing the latest fashion, often including items from his own collection of art works and dresses. This was a significant change in subject compared to the detailed clothing on display in paintings like Les Rendez-Vous. For example, in

1864, he presented two modern subjects, the Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L. and Les

Deux Sœurs, at the Paris Salon (Figure 3-4, 3-5). They were not actual portraits.

Rather, they were intended to advertise his virtuosity to potentially wealthy Salon visitors.23 At the Salon of 1866, the jury awarded Tissot’s modern works with an hors concours medal. His “quasi-divine” social status as a japoniste was also helpful to his

21 Matyjazkiewicz, “Costume in James Tissot’s Pictures”, from James Tissot. p 64.

22 Matyjazkiewicz, p 65.

23 Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 47. In examining Tissot’s painting, Wentworth found that the model in Mademoiselle LL was depicted in numerous paintings in the early 1860s, concluding that she was more than likely a model paid by the artist himself. His decision to exhibit these works was clearly successful, since the following year he was commissioned by the Miramon family for their portraits.

career; he not only painted fashionable works, he was himself a fashionable Parisian.24

The formal composition of both paintings suggests have been clearly influenced by

Japanese prints. The viewer of Les Rendez-Vous is situated at a distance from the models, standing by a paved reflecting pool that is awkwardly cut off in the foreground.

Tissot’s signature can be seen in the stone tiles. Likewise, the large space in which the

Marquise’s portrait is set has also been tightly cropped to focus on the sitter. The red curtain and Japanese screen in the background are unfolded to keep the viewer’s eyes on the foreground.

Considering that Exposition visitors would understand the coding of the

Thèrése’s peignoir as one of relaxed intimacy, the portrait was advantageous in constructing Tissot’s public image. Its public display at the Universal Exposition demonstrated Tissot’s close friendship with an important aristocratic family known in

Paris high society.25 Réne de Cassagnes de Beaufort, the Marquis de Miramon, was a member of the Jockey Club and the Circle of Rue Royale. These two very prominent social clubs that were popular among the wealthy elite of old aristocratic families as well as nouveau riche railway and finance tycoons, who were among those that commissioned Tissot for their own portraits after 1867.26

24 Wentworth, James Tissot, 68.

25 It is important to note that Tissot’s high paid success in the later 1860s came directly as a result of his relationship with the Miramon family.

26 Cogeval and Guegan, “James Tissot and the Cercle of the Rue Royale”, from Impressionism Fashion and Modernity. Cogeval and Guegan examine Tissot’s relationship to this group in their 2012 study.

Consumerism and Taste at the Exposition

The 1867 Exposition was geared toward establishing an elite style to be copied by bourgeois consumers. The “stylish, well appointed”27 interior of the Miramon château reflects the Second Empire taste in interior design, a theme given special attention at the Exposition. Individual spaces for furniture and other home goods were set up by their makers, who displayed the items in mock home settings for visitors to examine and purchase for their homes.28 A variety of items were shown to satisfy all classes of

Parisian society, from walnut pieces for artists and working class families, to “wealthy households’ sculpted furniture” and “elaborate” items for a château or palace.29

The elaborate items in the Marquise’s portrait, from the ornate Louis XIV stool to the Japanese screen and mantle decor would all have likely been on display in other furniture exhibitions. Their display in her domestic sphere would have indicated, even advertised, a certain level of luxury that Exposition viewers could emulate. In viewing the Marquise as an elite consumer, visitors were offered a rare glimpse into the private life of the fashionable elite that was far more ‘real’ than the constructed showrooms at the Exposition.

Although elaborate interior design had been used for centuries to display one’s status and wealth, the rise of manufactured products made this opportunity available to the bourgeoisie eager to fashion themselves after the aristocratic consumers. The bright pink color of Thèrése’s peignoir was made from aniline dyes, a new invention which

27 Tinterow, ‘Young Lady in 1866’, from Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, p. 24.

28 Auslander, Taste and Power, 205.

29 Luchet, L’Art industriel à l’exposition universelle de 1867,134. Translated by Leora Auslander, Taste and Power, p.218.

allowed for a wide range of colored attire to be purchased by the fashionable.30 The

Marquise is exhibited as an individual consumer, pointing to new opportunities for female consumers in ‘modern’ Paris.

The Marquise’s stylish refinement is alluded by her Japanese porcelain, azalea bonsai flowers and screen, all of which would have been recognizable to Exposition visitors in 1867. Although Japanese art had been available to elite collectors through small specialty shops through the 1860s, the Exposition was the first major show of

Japanese art and objects to the public.31 Visitors from all classes were introduced to the numerous Japanese books, prints, ceramics and other objects displayed in the large

Japanese pavilion at the Exposition. The middle class’ exposure to these elite exotic wares ignited their own desire for ownership. Following the Exposition, consumers were able to buy similar items from department stores that sold mass-produced “export goods made in Japan and readily adapted to fit the new European taste.”32

Subject matter in paintings at the Exposition also played a large part in promoting these exotic wares. Throughout the 1860s, Japanese items frequently entered works of artists such as James Whistler, Alfred Stevens and of course, James Tissot. His early modern works Japanese Girl Bathing (1864) and Young Lady Holding Japanese

Objects (1865) as well as the 1869 Young Ladies paintings focus entirely on Japanese objects from his own collection (Figure 3-6, 3-7, 3-8). In visiting Mme Desoye’s specialty

30 Gary Tinterow, “Manet’s Young Lady in 1866”, from Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, p. 29.

31 Toshio Watanabe, “The Western Image of Japanese Art in the Late Edo Period”, Modern Asian Studies, Vol 18 (1984), p. 667-684. Watanabe argues that the 1867 Exposition first “attractive extensive critical attention and for most people put Japan on the artistic map.”

32 Berger, Japonisme in Western Painting, 67-8. Berger writes that these items were advertised primarily through widespread fashion prints.

Japanese shop early in the decade, Pre-Raphaelite founder Gabriel Rossetti “found all the costumes were being snapped up by [Tissot], who it seems is doing three Japanese pictures.”33 It is important to note that the dragon fish porcelain on display in the

Marquise is also depicted in his 1869 painting The Fireplace (Figure 3-9). Tissot was known to use his own items and costume in many paintings, which Wentworth describes as “clearly contrived to display his collections.”34

If Wentworth’s argument is true, then it is possible that the dragon fish porcelain could be read as a type of artist’s signature. The porcelain and the Marquise’s adjacent glove could allude to the likely collaboration between artist and sitter. However, while elite members of the art world who knew Tissot’s collection may have understood this, it would not have been clear to the average Exposition visitor. In a public context, the items in the Marquise would be read as hers alone, highlighting her prominence as a fashionable aristocratic consumer.

The Marquise was not the only fashionable painting that featured Japanese art at the Exposition. One of Alfred Stevens’ accepted submissions, Woman in Pink, depicts a full-length model wearing a pink dress and examining a small seated figuring wearing a red kimono (Figure 3-10). Next to her is a lacquer cabinet on which is painted a small landscape scene. Exotic porcelain vases and figurines sit on top of the cabinet. The background of the work has been painted black and her face is mostly hidden by the shadows in the dark room. There are significant similarities between Stevens’ Woman

33 Wentworth, 69. Wentworth’s translation: “I went to this Japanese shop, but found all the costumes were being snapped up by a French artist, Tissot, who it seems it doing three Japanese pictures”. Original document: D.G. Rossetti, Letters, Vol II, p. 524. Ed. Oswald Doughty and John Robert Wahl. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.

34 Wentworth, 72.

and Tissot’s Marquise. The women wear pink dresses that are evocative of the latest colorful fashion, and the exotic collectibles in each painting make significant claims for the change in women’s taste at the time. Klaus Berger’s interpretation focused on the change in fashionable painting wherein “the eccentric had become [the] socially acceptable.”35 Therefore, we may consider the possibility that Tissot’s painting was accepted to the Exposition to aid in disseminating the popularity of once-elite items to the masses.

There are also important differences between the works. The face of Stevens’

“mannequin-like” figure is almost completely obscured by shadow, prompting the viewer to focus more closely on the fashion and items on display in the painting.36 By leaving his background black, Stevens does not give any indication of setting, one of the most important factors in determining class. On the other hand, the Marquise is unmistakably aristocratic, alluded to by the sumptuous decor of her château as well as the generational lineage asserted by her eighteenth century art works. Her portrait is not solely about Japanese objects, but instead highlights the broader implications about what it meant to be a member of the fashionable elite in 1860s Paris. A stylish modern woman asserted her refinement through interior decor, fashion as well as through her pose and gesture, which highlights her own intellectual capacity. Whereas the

Exposition visitor may have been able to place themselves in Stevens’ painting, Tissot’s

35 Berger, 69.

36 Gloria Gloom, “The Social Network of Fashion”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 38. Groom also notes this feature, using it to argue that Stevens’ painting was primarily “outfitted...for optimal commercial appeal”.

highlights the necessary appearance of upper class importance alluded to in his letter.37

The Marquise evokes the fashionable lifestyle promoted by the Exposition’s shows, which further encouraged bourgeoisie emulation.

The scale of Tissot’s painting also emphasizes this concept by inviting the viewer to adopt the role of an educated buyer. At 50 9/16 x 29 15/16 inches, the Marquise is much larger than Stevens’ Woman. The size establishes its importance as a society portrait over a genre scene, though it is much smaller than the significant scale of

Manet’s Young Lady in 1866, which also portrayed a model wearing a lavish pink peignoir and was exhibited in a private show adjacent to the Exposition (Figure 3-11).

Viewers of Tissot’s work would directly engage with the painting by leaning forward in order to examine the items on display in the Marquise’s room, not to mention the sitter herself as well as the brushstrokes in the painting. As the viewer took inventory of her possessions, their prolonged gaze would emulate the position of an art collector who scrutinized paintings to determine their worth. This type of looking elevated them to a position more refined than the common department store consumer, who pushed through crowded showrooms to find the latest wares.

Gendered Realms

Tissot’s paintings did not receive particular acclaim at the Exposition, but he is mentioned in passing by the Rapport du jury international among fifteen other artists whose paintings “offered invaluable information for the type, look and manner of dress”

37 James Tissot, Letter to the Marquis de Miramon, 1866. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (2008.M.8). "… il en faudrait un d’une certaine importance pour figurer dignement à ce Salon où il y aura fort peu d’élus…”

for the common visitor to emulate.38 This conception of art was adversative to Tissot’s avant-garde contemporaries. However, the public exhibition of the Marquise proved to be extremely beneficial to Tissot’s career.

Shortly after the opening of the Exposition, he was commissioned to paint the

Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay and the Portrait of an Unidentified Gentleman

(Figure 3-12, 3-13).39 Both portraits are set in the sitter’s homes. Eugene Coppens de

Fontenay leans casually against his ornate fireplace, propping his left elbow on the mantle and crossing his legs. Whereas the Marquise stands vertically, Fontenay’s body leans to his left, obscuring from view a woman’s portrait that hangs just above his head.

Like Thèrése, he is wearing only one glove, and is depicted holding a top hat and jockey stick. The Unidentified Gentleman stands in a more powerful position, posing with legs slightly apart at the center of his parlor. He drapes his coat over his right arm and eyes the viewer while removing his second glove, an action considered “erotic” in feminine portraiture.40 The white bobbled curtain that frames the right hand side of the painting is

38 “Specimens de Costumes Populaires”, Exposition Universelle, Rapports du Jury International (Paris: M. Michel Chevalier, 1867), 871. “La France compte 45 exposants. Seize ont des études peintes ou dessinées qui sont de précieux renseignements pour le type, la tournure et la manière de s’habiller de nos bons paysans. Je n’analysersai pas cette première partie, destinée à combler la lacune que laisse le mannequin, quelque bien fait qu’il soit. Il me suffira de donner les noms des artistes qui les ont envoyés, pour faire comprendre l’intérêt qui s’y attache. Ce sont MM. Antigna, Armand-Dumaresq, Gustave Boulanger, Brion, Brown, Edouard Frère, Gérôme, de la Foulhouze, Armand LeLeux, Lormier, Tissot, Valton et Worms.”

39 This portrait is unlocated, but a black and white reproduction of the work exists in Tissot’s photographic documentation of his work. See Misfeldt, The Albums of James Tissot, p. 26.

40 This statement is in reference to Carolus-Duran’s 1869 Lady with a Glove, discussed in Chapter 1.

reminiscent of that in the 1864 Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L., the first modern “portrait” that Tissot publicly exhibited to garner interest from wealthy patrons.41

The social doctrines of separately gendered spheres are complicated in interesting ways by Tissot’s paintings. It would have been more socially appropriate to place the male dandies in a more ‘masculine’ realm, like the exterior meeting space in the 1868 Circle of the Rue Royale. They have been closely cropped to focus on the sitters who stand in lavishly decorated interior rooms, which carry as much information about their fashionable status as their clothing. That the sitters wear only one glove seems to suggest that both men and women participate in elaborate self-fashioning through attire and interior design, despite common social codes. It also alludes to a more lucrative understanding of public and private spheres: although these three sitters are shown in domestic spaces, they are dressed and poised as if in anticipation of public scrutiny. The juxtaposition between Fontenay’s inconspicuous black suit and glittering Rococo items on the ornamented fireplace, and the unidentified man with the nearby sumptuous bobble curtain, indicate that both men are also conspicuous consumers. The Exposition celebrated this message, and despite the frustrations of

Chesneau and Audiganne outlined at the beginning of this chapter, it appears that the social and economic benefits of purchasing items to fashion one’s identity were important to both men and women.

Tissot’s personal life and career reflects this idea. At the time of the Exposition, the artist was busy building his own house and studio on the Rue de l’Imperatrice, which

41 Matyjaszkiewics, James Tissot, p. 100. Tissot presented Mademoiselle L.L. and Les Doux Sœurs at the 1864 Salon as “portraits” as a ploy to “attract more lucrative portrait commissions”. These works ultimately influenced the Miramon family to comission Tissot for their family portraits the following year.

upon completion was opened for select visitors to view. In 1869, his famous “Japanese studio” was the setting for L’Escalier and the three Jeunes Femmes Regardent des

Objets Japonais (Figure 3-14, 3-8).42 It would seem that by the end of the 1860s, Tissot was not only skilled in making portraits for fashionably wealthy individuals; he had become part of this elite society himself.

Edgar Degas’ 1868 Portrait of James Tissot highlights his position as modern artist and “cosmopolitan...boulevardier”43 (Figure 3-15). He holds a mal stick in his hand and is surrounded by a variety of paintings that depict Japanese women, fashionable

French ladies, as well as Lucas Cranach the Elder’s portrait of Frederick the Wise prominently centered above his head. Degas paints him wearing a trim black and gray suit, the inconspicuously fashionable, yet inarguably masculine style. His black coat and hat, important “accessories of distinguished virility”, are painted on a nearby chair.44

Tissot’s portrait highlights his self-satisfied success aided in large part by the publicity he garnered at the Exposition. However, his fellow artists were not as successful, which caused a significant degree of tension between him and others toward the end of the decade.

Artistic Frustrations in 1867

Tissot’s acceptance at the Universal Exposition highlights his skilled effort to produce paintings that were original but were also visually appealing to ensure his own

42 Jules Champleury, “La Mode des Japonaiseries”, from La Vie Parisienne (21 November 1869), repr. in Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 28. “La dernière [originalité] qui doit être signalée est l’ouverture de l’atelier japonais d’un jeune peintre assez richement doté par la fortune pour s’offrir un petit hôtel dans les Champs-Elysées”

43 Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 59.

44 Cogeval and Guégan, “James Tissot: The Circle of the Rue Royale”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 151.

financial success. Though 1867 was a prosperous year for him, many of his fellow artists were not as fortunate. Since the jury only selected paintings that best represented the French nation and the new consumer class, artists understood that publicity garnered at the Exposition would be financially beneficial to their careers.

In March 1867, the painter Bazille described Renoir’s plan to exhibit at the

Exposition: “My friend Renoir executed an excellent painting [Diane chasseresse] that amazed everyone. I hope it will be successful at the Exposition, because he really needs it.”45 Showing at the Exposition meant that an artist’s work would be seen by a massive number of visitors, likely leading to an increase in patrons and financial success. However, Renoir, Manet and many other artists of the new avant-garde style were rejected. The majority of the art world was shocked at the jury’s choice of only 550 paintings, to which the committee responded by holding a smaller Salon to which the acceptance rate was equally small.46 “Never in the memory of a painter has a jury been so severe”, wrote Jules-Antoinne Castagnary.47

In reaction to this, artists like Edouard Manet opened private exhibitions adjacent to the Exposition. Manet’s space, which he built himself, showed fifty paintings, one of which was Young Lady in 1866 (Figure 3-11). His model wears a silk peignoir the same color as the Marquise’s dress. However, Thèrése’s portrait depicts her private room, highlighting her agency as a consumer. Its modern setting satisfied the state’s desire for

45 Bazille, Frédéric. Correspondance. (Montpellier: Les Presses du Languedoc, 1992), p. 136. Translated by Gary Tinterow in Origins of Impressionism, p. 317.

46 Mainardi, 134.

47 Castagnary, Salons (1857-1870), Paris: Charpentier-Fasquelle, 1892. Reproduced in Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, 317.

“dream images” that emphasized the advantages of elite consumption.48 This is alluded to in the Young Lady’s peignoir, which stands out against the dark background, a

“hallmark of [Manet’s] austerity” that prevents the viewer from analyzing any narrative or setting.49 In his comparison between the works, Gary Tinterow notes that whereas

Manet’s painting is privately intimate, Tissot’s is “designed to be seen.”50 This seems ironic when one considers that the Portrait of the Marquise was intended to be a private work viewed only by the family and (presumably) visitors to their chateau, whereas

Manet displayed the Young Lady in his studio, at his 1867 show and at the 1868 Salon.

Despite the similarities in subject matter, it is clear that Tissot submitted the Marquise to gain recognition from a different audience at the Exposition than Manet’s Young Lady, which made an especially evocative statement about the importance of fashion.51

Avant-garde members of the art world believed that the number of fashionable genre paintings and portraits at the Exposition “lacked the moral and didactic import” of true art.52 Tissot chose to exhibit the Portrait of the Marquise at the Universal Exposition as it consciously reflected the major trends for depicting the fashionable elite during the

Second Empire. The painting, entered alongside Les Rendez-Vous, exhibited Tissot’s maturation as a painter capable of depicting different genres and styles. This appealed to the large audience at the Exposition and led to financial success and recognition from

48 Blake and Frascina, Modernity and Modernism, 104.

49 Emile Zola, “Une Nouvelle Manière en peinture, Édouard Manet” La Revue du XIXe siècle, January 1 1867, p. 59. Repr. in Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, p. 409.

50 Tinterow, ‘Young Lady in 1866’, from Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 29.

51 I will further examine this idea in Chapter 3 of this thesis.

52 Blake and Frascina, Modernity and Modernism, 158.

numerous wealthy patrons, which many of his rejected contemporaries did not experience. This tension increased steadily throughout the rest of the decade and into the 1870s, when Tissot left Paris to continue his financial success in London following the Franco-Prussian War.

Figure 3-1. James Tissot, Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon, 1866, oil on canvas. Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

Figure 3-2. Tissot, Les Rendez-Vous, 1867. Oil on canvas, location unknown.

Figure 3-3. Tissot, Meeting of Faust and Marguerite, 1860. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay.

Figure 3-4. James Tissot, Portrait of Mademoiselle L.L., 1864.

Figure 3-5. Tissot, Les Deux Sœurs, 1863. Oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay

Figure 3-6. James Tissot, Japanese Girl Bathing, 1864. Oil on canvas, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon.

Figure 3-7. James Tissot, Young Lady Holding Japanese Objects, 1865. Oil on panel.

Figure 3-8. James Tissot, Young Ladies Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869. Third version.

Figure 3-9. James Tissot, The Fireplace, 1869, Oil on canvas. Location unknown.

Figure 3-10. Alfred Stevens, La Dame en Rose, 1867. Private collection.

Figure 3-11. Manet, Young Lady in 1866, 1866.

Figure 3-12. James Tissot, Portrait of Eugene Coppens de Fontenay, 1868, oil on canvas. Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/104504.html

Figure 3-13. Tissot, Portrait of an Unidentified Man, c. 1867-68. Reproduced in Willard Misfeldt’s Albums of James Tissot (1982: Bowling Green University Popular Press).

Figure 3-14. Tissot, l’Escalier, 1869. Private collection.

Figure 3-15. Edgar Degas, Portrait of James Tissot, 1868. Oil on canvas, Metropolitan Museum of Art.

CHAPTER 4 CET ÊTRE COMPLEXE

Our industrial and artistic creations may perish, our manners and costumes may fall into oblivion, [but] a painting by M. Tissot would be enough for future archaeologists to reconstruct our epoch. Élie Roy, “Salon of 1869”1

Élie Roy’s review of Jeunes Femmes at the 1869 Salon makes a forceful statement about the documentary nature of Tissot’s art. His modern subjects captured the superficial facets of costume, hairstyle, and interior fashion that were important to one’s social standing- but his paintings and portraits highlight the morals, manners and social habits of his sitters. Tissot’s ability to portray these ideas put his work alongside those of other Realist artists influenced by the growing avant-garde movement.2 In

1874, Degas urged Tissot to “be of his country” and exhibit at the first Impressionist show, stating that “[Realist art] must show itself as something distinct.”3 Not all members of the art world shared Degas’ consideration of Tissot and his work. That same year,

Edmond de Goncourt denigrated him as a “plagiarist” and “ingenious exploiter of [his

1 Élie Roy, “Salon de 1869”, l’Artiste: Revue de l’art contemporain, Vol 14 (1869), p. 82. “Nos créations industrielles et artistiques peuvent périr, nos mœurs et nos costumes peuvent tomber dans l'oubli, un tableau de M. Tissot suffit aux archéologues de l'avenir pour reconstituer notre époque.” 2 In 1868, Jules Castignary examined paintings by artists, including Tissot, who were influenced by Courbet’s Realist doctrine. He asserts “the object of painting is to express, according to the nature of the means at its disposal, the society which produces it.” “Salon de 1868”, Salons I, 289-292. Quoted in Linda Nochlin, Realism and Tradition in Art, 63-68. Nochlin describes Castagnary as “one of the prophets of nascent Impressionism.”

3 Degas, Letter to Tissot (1874). Translated by Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, p. 122. “The realist movement no longer needs to fight with the others, it already is, it exists, it must show itself as something distinct, there must be a salon of realists… So forget the money side for a moment. Exhibit. Be of your country and with your friends.” By this time, Tissot had moved to England and continued to earn the steady fortune he had built since the mid-sixties through painting fashionable portraits and scenes of modern London life.

audience’s] idiocy”, whose lifestyle was as superficial as his art.4 He was not the first to express distain for Tissot’s artistic plagiarism: in 1867, Henri Fantin-Latour wrote to

James Whistler about his latest painting, Symphony in White No. 3, and predicted that

Tissot would soon imitate it.5 According to Roy and Degas’ accounts, Tissot was an important realist painter in his own right, whose works would carry the essence of modernity into the future. Goncourt and Fantin-Latour, on the other hand, argue that his art blatantly copied others to cater to the consumer market and, most importantly, that he was unoriginal.

The final chapter of my thesis will address the contradictory attitudes toward

Tissot’s work in the 1860s and early 1870s, and how they have influenced significant biases toward the interpretation of his paintings, especially the Marquise. As I argued in

Chapter 1, her portrait reflects the distinct nineteenth century social, moral and political codes of the fashionable elite woman, but also subtly highlight the significant contradictions of reality that lay beneath its surface. Tissot’s ability to toe the line between the popular and the avant-garde kept him in favor with those who controlled

“official” art as well as the larger public. However, the fame and publicity Tissot and the

Marquise received at the Exposition sparked tension among his fellow artists that increased in the following decade. Although he painted the same subjects as such

4 Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la Vie Littéraire Vol II: 1866-1886. P. 596 Translated by Michael Wentworth, “Cet être complexe”, in James Tissot (ed. Krystyna Matyjaszkiewicz), p. 14. “Today, Duplessis told me that Tissot, that plagiarist painter, has had the greatest success in England. Was it not his idea, this ingenious exploiter of English idiocy, to have a studio with a waiting room where, at all times, there is iced champagne at the disposal of visitors, and around the studio a garden where, all day long, one can see a footman in silk stockings brushing and shining the shrubbery leaves?”

5 Henri Fantin-Latour, “Letter to James Whistler” 12th February 1867. Quoted in Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, 15. Original source: Pennell, The Life of James McNeill Whistler (1911), 185.

avant-garde contemporaries as Manet, Degas and Whistler, Tissot was constantly deemed a plagiarist by friends and critics alike. This has influenced the way in which his art has been represented by the broader Art Historical canon. However, I argue that

Tissot’s paintings are significant in that they provide a unique example of how lucrative the art market was in the nineteenth century, which allowed Tissot to navigate a variety of styles. While he closely associated with the avant-garde, Tissot’s career has been negatively judged due to his popularity among the consumer market. The juste millieu of

Tissot’s style, career and political affiliation provides us with an interesting account of how he was able to maintain public favor while moving through the upper echelons of fashionable society and the artistic avant-garde, two groups entirely at odds with each other.

Artificial Realism

Realist subject matter and formal style developed in response to that of traditional art, which, since the Renaissance, had placed a heavy emphasis on illusionism created by line and contour through draftsmanship. The most important of these works were history paintings. These massive compositions depicted carefully constructed scenes usually dictated by patrons, royal and otherwise. Realism broke with this tradition, representing every day sitters, objects, and occurrences as they happened. Thoré claimed that the realist artist “is content merely to represent what he sees and express what he feels”, and that the work had no meaning beyond the

representation of reality. 6 The candid elements of this style are “ideologically based”, focusing more on their subjects than painting style itself.7

Tissot’s artistic career began along the traditional path, but he was soon influenced by avant-garde art and the modern changes happening in Paris at his arrival.

In 1868 Theophile Thoré described Tissot’s working style in that he “does what he wants, as he wants”, indicating that he had little regard for the traditional divide between high art and mass culture, instead drawing inspiration from a wide range of sources and styles.8 This is evident in the Portrait of the Marquise de Miramon.

Scenes of modern life, which portrayed fashionable attire and home design, came into vogue among the public during Tissot’s early career. Alfred Stevens was the forerunner of this genre. His scenes of well-dressed women examining fashionable items in their homes rose to vogue among larger Paris audiences in the mid-1860s, earning him recognition at the Universal Exposition. As I established in the second chapter of my thesis, Stevens’ Young Lady and Tissot’s Marquise are similar in their representation of high fashion and Japanese items. The implied narrative in Stevens’ paintings influenced Tissot’s compositions, which made them “exciting and palatable to a large public” in a way that his modern contemporaries were not able to manage.9

6 Theophile Thoré, “The Decadence of Classical Painting”, reproduced in Linda Nochlin, Realism and Tradition in Art: 1848-1900, Sources and Documents, 13.

7 Katharine Lochman, “The Medium and the Message: Popular Prints and the Work of James Tissot”, Seductive Surfaces: The Art of James Tissot, 3. In her discussion of Tissot’s association with the “Realist agenda”, Lochman posits that “there was no one way to paint a Realist picture: Realism was more ideologically based that stylistically based.” Tissot’s art is an important aspect of the movement in that it dealt with issues of reality in the nineteenth century.

8 Thoré, “Salon de 1868”, from Les Salons de 1864-1868, p. 487.

9 Wentworth, James Tissot, 3.

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Charles Baudelaire encouraged modern artists to depict the “ephemeral, the fugitive, the contingent” aesthetics of the time through scenes of contemporary life and fashion.10 Edouard Manet, inspired by Baudelaire’s ideas, reflected them in his large scale Young Lady of 1866, which depicts young woman wearing a pink peignoir.

Whereas Stevens’ and Tissot’s paintings were officially endorsed and displayed in

1867, Manet was rejected for the show and chose instead to create his own private exhibition adjacent to the Exposition.11 The Young Lady, a model named Victorine, did not own the lavish silk peignoir she wears, and yet in his painting her “ambiguous character” is established by fashion itself: she is no longer a model but a sensuous woman who invites the viewer’s gaze.12 The scale of the work establishes a correlation between the ephemerality of fashion with the powerful grandeur of history painting, and serves as an “elaborate allegory” of the viewer’s senses.13

The immediacy of the Marquise’s pose and gesture as well as her dress suggests that Tissot also interprets modern fashion and gesture in a similar way.

However, whereas Manet’s “austere”14 background removes the anchor of a specific time and place, the items on display in Tissot’s portrait grounds the Marquise in her

10 Charles Baudelaire, The Painter of Modern Life and other Essays, 13.

11 Gary Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, 316. In January 1867, Manet wrote to Emile Zola: “I have decided to organize my own private exhibition. I have at least forty paintings to show. I have already been offered very good locations near the Champs-de-Mars. I am going to risk it, and with the support of men like you, I can count on success.”

12 Groom, “The Social Network of Fashion”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 38.

13 Gary Tinterow, “Young Lady in 1866”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 26. “Taste (the orange); sight (the man’s monocle she holds); smell (the nosegay of violets); touch (the smooth satin peignoir), and hearing (Victorine’s ear cocked to listen to the parrot’s sqwak)”

14 Emile Zola, “Une Nouvelle Manière en peinture, Édouard Manet” La Revue du XIXe siècle, January 1 1867, p. 59. Repr. in Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, p. 409.

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family’s history as well as a particularly elite circle of fashion. Thèrése Feuillant is not an ambiguous character defined by fashion. The picturesque display of items in the painting as well as the control she applies to her gloves, handkerchief, and dress highlights the ways in which she herself embodies the idea of being fashionable.

Tissot’s unique interpretation of traditional and modern painting is also demonstrated by the formal style and composition of the Marquise. As a copyist at the

Louvre in the 1850s, Tissot carefully studied Ingres’ use of color to enhance the perspective of his compositions. The deep red pallete of Mme de Sennones and the distinct blues in Portrait of the Comtesse d’Haussonville indicate that Ingres meticulously chose his colors to create depth in the shallow settings (Figure 4-1, 4-2).

Likewise, the Marquise’s pink dress is that same shade as that of the nearby azaleas, focusing the viewer’s eyes in the foreground. The white curtain in the background correlates to her tea gown and the light colored stone of the fireplace. The work places as much emphasis on line as it does in color. Despite its tight cropping and shallow space, Tissot focuses on increasing verticality in the elongated form of the Marquise as well as the flanking material of the curtains and fireplace cover, not to mention its repetitious fringe also noted in the curtain tie and stool cushion.

The Portrait of the Marquise is painterly beyond what has been expected of

Tissot’s work, which is often highly finished with smooth brushstrokes and defined contours. On the one hand, the items on display in the Marquise’s portrait, as well as parts of herself are painted with “shiny, clean and industriously polished” brushstrokes.15 The seductive smoothness of these details are distinctly different from

15 Charles Baudelaire, “Paysages”, from Salon de 1845, V. Quoted in Zerner, Romanticism and Realism, 223.

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the flat planes of color and painterly strokes in avant-garde paintings like Young Lady in

1866, which deliberately called attention to the artifice of the medium itself. However, the sumptuous ruffles of Thèrése’s gown are made with short painterly strokes of a variety of pink tones that give texture to the dress. The expressive brushstrokes of the fur rug and marble floor are much looser than is typical of Tissot’s paintings, and are absent from similar compositions painted in the following years.16 They seem almost haphazardly painted next to the smooth, modeled skin of her face, or the individual scales of the porcelain fish on the mantle. Though the painting draws from traditional academicians like Ingres, Tissot’s portrait shows that he also understands the modern changes in avant-garde painting. The irony of this lay in the fact that the Marquise’s portrait was not casually painted, but carefully and meticulously planned right down to the loosely painted floor.

The roughly painted fur rug is strikingly similar to that in James Whistler’s

Symphony in White No. 1, which depicts a model wearing a long white gown standing on a thick fur rug that has been painted with thick, heavy brushstrokes (Figure 4-3). It is highly probable that he saw and admired the work, which had been rejected from the

Paris Salon in 1863. 17 Tissot’s unique ability to interpret avant-garde concepts to larger demands to his paintings allowed him to be officially recognized at the Exposition, as well as enjoy a huge fortune and public fame. However, this aggravated his Realist contemporaries who felt that he was selling out true art for mass consumption. By the

16 The women in the 1869 Jeunes Femmes paintings stand on a mosaic floor that have been laboriously painted.

17 Three of Tissot’s paintings were accepted: Départ du Fiancé, Retour de l’enfant prodigue, Départ de l’enfant prodigue à Venise.

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mid-1860s, there was a clear frustration among Tissot’s friends with the artist’s working method. In 1867, Fantin-Latour wrote to Whistler about his latest painting, Symphony in

White, No. 3, which Tissot went “mad over.”18 Given the similarities I have highlighted between the Marquise and Symphony in White No. 1, it is significant that Fantin-Latour would warn the artist to expect copies from Tissot.

Despite the increasingly negative reaction of his fellow artists, it is clear that

Tissot did not see his paintings as plagiarized imitations. He borrowed aspects of others’ works but was careful maintain that his compositions were original. A letter from

Tissot to Degas in 1868 offers suggestions for the latter’s painting Intérieur, which gives significant insight into his working method and how he borrowed from existing works to create a new composition (Figure 4-4).19 Tissot offers that Degas “think of the...background of Millais’ [Eve of St. Agnes] without letting it overwhelm [his] own ideas.”20 In the letter, Tissot is very specific about individual elements of the work: the

“overly bright [room] at the back with not enough mystery” and the “not sufficiently vivid sewing box” offer insight into his interpretation of paintings, in which individual items are

18 Henri Fantin-Latour, “Letter to James Whistler”, 12th February 1867. Quoted in Wentworth, James Tissot, 15.

19 Theodore Reff, “Degas’ ‘Tableau de Genre’”, Art Bulletin, Vol. 54, 1972. p. 21-42. Reproduced in Painting from 1850 to the Present, Vol 12 (1976: Garland Publishing). Though he does not sign his name on the latter, Theodore Reff argues that, due to the handwriting and descriptive language, the letter was written by Tissot. He includes a photographic reproduction of the letter, which bears the same handwriting as his letters to the Marquis.

20 Tissot, Letter to Degas, 1867. Translated in Gary Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, p. 376. “Je ne vous ferai des compliments du tableau que de vive voix- prendre garde à la descente de lit choquant, la chambre trop clair dans les fonds, pas assez de mystère- la boîte à ouvrage trop voyante ou alors pas assez vivante, la cheminée pas assez dans l’ombre (pensez à l’indécisions du fond de la femme verte de Millas sans vous commander) trop roux le parquet- pass assez propriétaire les jambes de l’homme- seulement dépêchez-vous, il n’est que temps serai ce soir chez Stevens, pour la glace très clair en mettant la chambre dans l’ombre...”

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important to the whole composition.21 Degas was clearly influenced by Tissot: not only did he follow many of his suggestions for Intérieur, but in 1869 he also used the composition of the Tissot’s Marquise to portray his sister, Mme de Morbilli (Figure 4-5).

As his letter to Degas suggests, he was careful to make sure that the borrowed imagery didn’t “overwhelm” the originality of his composition.

Considering that all artists borrowed elements of each other’s paintings, Tissot’s working style does not seem to be that controversial. However, following the 1867

Exposition, Tissot’s work seems to be the unacceptable exception to this idea. As my second chapter argued, this was in large part due to the divide between high art and mass culture. Tissot targeted his paintings toward a broad consumer market, which was not the goal of avant-garde painters. His assimilation of avant-garde trends while maintaining a certain level of respect toward the traditional French painters made Tissot an internationally renowned popular artist. However, his reputation among members of the high art world decreased as his career took off. This can also be attributed to

Tissot’s equally vague political stance, which further polarized perceptions of his art following the Siege of Paris and 1871 Commune.

A Question of Nationalism

While Tissot was successfully building his career, not to mention his massive new home on the Rue de l’Imperatrice, tensions were mounting among nearby

European countries. Otto von Bismarck, the Prime Minister of Prussia, declared victory over Austria during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. In the following months, he set his sights on conquering Paris, the capital of modernity. Following a series of battles in the

21 Tissot, Letter to Degas, 1867. Reproduced in Tinterow, Origins of Impressionism, 376.

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Franco-Prussian War of 1870, Bismarck claimed victory over the surrendering Napoleon

III. The Siege of Paris ensued following the war, until the unification of the German

Empire in January 1871. Tissot and numerous other artists fought to preserve the landmarks and priceless art works in Paris during the Siege. He also served as a sharpshooter in battle at Malmaison-La Jonchére, which was documented by Manet in a surviving letter.22 Tissot captured this tumultuous period in small pencil and watercolor drawings that depicted men in military regalia standing at attention. It is interesting that

Tissot’s drawings focus directly on the soldiers’ body position and costume, rather than the violence of the fighting itself. In his work French Soldiers, the men no longer have the relaxed comfort they enjoyed in his Second Empire male portraits; rather, the stress of war is clearly shown on their alert faces (Figure 4-6).

His controversial drawing, The First Killed I Saw, depicts the dead body of the sculptor Joseph Cuvelier (Figure 4-7). Despite Michael Wentworth’s claim that Tissot’s drawing “remains anecdotal and without the powerful comment” of other artists’ representations of the Siege, the work had a significant impact on other artists, who were insulted that Tissot had chosen to capture this scene. Degas suggested that, instead of drawing Cuvelier, he should have brought back the actual body instead.23

The First Killed I Saw, made far away from the comfort of Tissot’s studio, demonstrates his ability to capture a scene in the midst of the Siege. Despite this, the image carefully skirts the horrific details associated with grueling battles. The realism of his etching is

22 Manet, Letter to Eva Gonzalès, 19th November 1870: “Tissot s’est couvert de gloire à l’affaire de la Jonchére. Jacquemart en était. Leroux, blessé très grièvement, est prisonnier à Versailles. Le pauvre Cuvelier a été tué.” Reproduced in Michael Wentworth, James Tissot, p. 79.

23 Wentworth, Catalogue Raisonné of James Tissot’s Prints, p. 94.

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suggested by the crumpled position of the sculptor’s body, whose heavy pack pulls him farther down the snowy slope. However, there is not a drop of blood in the image. Like his artistic career and style, Tissot’s scenes of war also appear to play it safe with regards to imagery, in comparison to the more poignantly brutal image of war portrayed by the drastically foreshortened deceased bodies in Manet’s Guerre Civile (Figure 4-

8).24

When turned upside down, Cuvelier’s lifeless, broken body becomes alive. He bends over the rock as if sketching out ideas for his next commission. The bundle of weapons attached to his soldier’s pack turn into artist’s tools, and fallen branches and bits of rubble become loose drawings and fragments of carved rock. The First Killed I

Saw can be seen not as a narrative of war, but as a tribute to the fallen Cuvelier, who was firstly an artist before he was a soldier. This subtle message demonstrates Tissot’s ability to apply an important message to a seemingly simple work.

Tissot’s position as a fighter in the Siege is undisputed, but his actions after this event remain in question. The Paris Commune was established between March and

May 1871 following the German victory. Working class citizens of Paris, including many artists, took over its center to call for social reform, establishing universal education and resolving economic problems that had affected their social structure.25 Wealthy and aristocratic members of society fled to save themselves and their fortunes from destruction. Tissot left Paris for London at this time, and did not return until 1882.

24 Wentworth, Catalogue Raisonné, 94. Wentworth notes that Tissot’s drawings are much more anecdotal compared to Manet’s.

25 Roger Gould, “Multiple Networks and Mobilization in the Paris Commune, 1871”, American Sociological Review, Vol. 56, No. 6 (Dec 1991), 718.

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Jacques-Emile Blanche, an artist who stayed in Paris, argued that Tissot selfishly pretended to participate in the Commune to make sure that his lavish home and belongings would remain safe.26 Tissot’s biographer Georges Bastard, however, asserted that he did not participate in the Commune. Shaken by the “double disaster of a foreign invasion and civil war” that had ravaged his city, Tissot left for England in the hope of finding better artistic prospects than were available in Paris.27 Bastard argues against Blanche’s accusations, instead suggesting that he confused the artist with

Antoine Tissot, a federal captain of the War Council.28

Although there is not enough evidence to absolve or accuse Tissot of his motives or participation in the Commune, it is clear that by the early 1870s, the rumors about

Tissot’s national pride were beginning to circulate in Paris and London. Degas alluded to this in 1874 when he encouraged Tissot to “be of [his] country and with [his] friends” by exhibiting in the first Impressionist show.29 By urging him to “forget the money side for a moment”, Degas asserts the divide between nationalism over financial success, the latter of which clearly benefitted Tissot. Although he never gave up his French citizenship, Tissot’s flight from Paris in its state of disarray to continue a successful career in England insulted many of his contemporaries.30 Edmond de Goncourt’s

26 J-E Blanche, Portraits of a Lifetime, 25. “ ‘May God forgive [Tissot] his cowardice!’, said my father, the kindest of men.” Quoted in Wentworth, James Tissot, 81.

27 Georges Bastard, “James Tissot”, from Revue de Bretagne de Vendée et d’Anjou (1906), p. 261-62. “Et, ces tristes journées passées, Tissot reprit le chemin de son domicile. Mais, pensant que l'Angleterre, notre grande voisine qui n'avait pas été agitée par ce double cataclysme de l'invasion étrangère et de la guerre civile, ouvrirait un débouché plus sûr à ses œuvres, il quitta Paris où il n'avait plus rien à espérer au point de vue artistique.” 28 Bastard, 263.

29 Degas, Letter to James Tissot, 1874.

30 Wentworth, James Tissot, 82.

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description of him as a “genius exploiter of English idiocy” reflects his annoyance with

Tissot’s actions. Tissot’s critics were also biased by the artist’s political position, which is clear in their reviews of his work. An 1876 review of his painting The Thames argued that the “supercilious air” of the subjects “seem[ed] to smack of French satire.”31 The tendency of his critics to deem his art as “French” or “English” reflected their biases against his ambiguous style and national affiliations. Tissot seemed to have turned to his art to refute these claims.

In 1877, he assembled and published a selection of prints in a portfolio titled Ten

Etchings. Of the ten reproductions, six are etched copies of his paintings and two are based on drawings he made during the Siege, including The First Killed I Saw. The final two etchings are original compositions that depict fashionable ladies.32 The First Killed I

Saw and Bastien Pradel emphasized Tissot’s active duty during his fight against the

Germans; perhaps in response to those who had questioned his courage due to his flight from Paris (Figure 4-7, 4-9). His decision to include the work in Ten Etchings may have been to point to his position as a French soldier and artist. The intended audience for Ten Etchings is presumed to be the London public, but it is also possible that the works reminded his critics and friends that he had fought alongside French artists and was still one himself. An additional fifty copies of The First Killed I Saw were printed, about half as many as his reproductive engravings, indicating that it was intended for a select audience.

31 ‘Royal Academy Exhibition’, Illustrated London News (13 May 1876), 475. Reproduced in Wentworth, James Tissot, 88.

32 Reproductions of the Ten Etchings prints in their original order can be found in Michael Wentworth’s Catalogue Raisonné of James Tissot’s Prints (No. 29, 18, 8, 20, 15, 9, 23, 19, 22, 25). A full list can be found on page 347.

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The other original compositions in the portfolio, Rubens Hat and By the Window, reference the great painter Rubens through the large feathered hat worn by the models

(Figure 4-10, 4-11). 33 Like Tissot, Rubens’ paintings also portrayed fashionable women of his time, indicating the artist’s attempt to create his own visual tradition rooted in history. Tissot’s careful rendering of texture in their hats, hair and faces juxtapose the loose and sketchy finish of their dresses. His treatment of the images is highly atypical in that they have an unfinished appearance, unlike the other reproductive prints in Ten

Etchings, such as the Gallery of the HMS Calcutta that has been neatly constructed to perfectly emulate the original painting (Figure 4-12). On one level, Ten Etchings can be read as an advertisement of Tissot’s style in order to attract patrons, but he also seems to make distinctly personal and political statements about his importance as an artist. If he had meant this to be obvious to a large audience, however, it has been overlooked.

Less than twenty-five finished copies of Ten Etchings ended up for sale, and none of them exist today.34

The Complex Being

Tissot, this complex being, a blend of mysticism and phoneyness, laboriously intelligent, in spite of an unintelligent skull and the eyes of a dead fish, passionate, finding every two or three years a new passion with which he contracts a little new lease on his life. Edmond de Goncourt, 1890. 35

33 This statement comes from the thesis of a seminar paper I wrote in Spring 2013, titled “Self- Representation and Validation: Artistic Lineage in James Tissot’s By the Window”. 34 Wentworth, Catalogue Raisonne of Tissot’s Prints, 24. Though he had planned to sell only twenty-five copies of the portfolio, only a few were actually printed and sold.

35 Edmond de Goncourt, Journal: Mémoires de la vie Littéraire. Paris, France: Flammarion, 1959. p. 112. “Tissot, cet etre complexe, mating de mysticisme et de roublardise, cet intelligent laborieux en depit de son crane inintelligent et de ses yeux de merlin cuit, appassionne, trouvant tous les deux ou trois ans un nouveau bail de sa vie.”

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Tissot’s continuous pursuit of “brief but potent” passions appears to be less appealing than those of “true” artists, whose imagery and style gradually matures and develops over time.36 Tissot quickly rose to fame as a result of his keen eye and artistic flexibility that pleased a variety of patrons. Goncourt saw the numerous changes in his subject matter as a plot formed by his “unintelligent skull” to remain in the favor of the public.37 However, Tissot’s working method and personal marketing was cleverly thought-out. Acknowledging the ways in which Tissot’s style changed to suit market demands is integral to understanding how he was able to move across social realms throughout the 1860s, rocketing from a new (and relatively poor) student to a wealthy society painter with his own mansion by 1867. Whereas Goncourt saw this change in style as unintelligent, his continual reinterpretation in style shows that Tissot was very conscious of remaining likeable in the public’s eyes.

As I have argued with the Marquise, Tissot’s art made important claims for his position as a fashionable artist and member of the social elite in the 1860s. In the following decade, his carefully selected Ten Etchings continued to stress his importance in the face of rumors questioning his character, national pride and artistic value. It is indisputable that he took himself seriously as an artist. Tissot was one of the first artists to use modern photography to document his oeuvre, which were chronologically arranged in three albums.38 William Misfeldt, who first examined these albums, argued that Tissot not only wanted to keep a book of studies for his own reference and to

36 Wentworth, “Cet être Complexe”, from James Tissot, p. 17.

37 Goncourt, 112.

38 Misfeldt, The Albums of James Tissot. Album I: 1859-1870, Album II: 1870-1876, Album III: 1876-1882.

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prevent others from forging his works, but that he also had an “eye to future generations” of artists and scholars.39 However, with the rapid transformation of

Modern, abstract art toward the fin-de-siécle, Tissot’s fashionable paintings were forgotten.

It is interesting to consider how Tissot might have been treated in Art History had he chosen to exhibit with the avant-garde in 1874. Since the western Art History canon reflects the “victory of the future over the past”, the defiance of Tissot’s contemporaries in 1874 immortalized their avant-garde work.40 Tissot’s careful, middle of the road paintings may have made him financially successful in his time but were not appealing for contemporaries like Goncourt, who thought Tissot was as “phoney” as his paintings.

His ability to appeal to all by maintaining a subtle position eventually deteriorated many of his long-term friendships, most significantly that between himself and Whistler, which ended when Tissot declined to testify in favor of his art in the 1878 Whistler-Ruskin trial.41 His relationship with Degas ended in 1895 after Tissot sold a painting that had been a gift from his long-term friend.42 Tissot’s indefinable style and political ambiguity ultimately pushed him away from the canon, which continued to celebrate the avant- garde works of Degas, Whistler and Manet that had not received the financially success

Tissot had in their day.

39 Misfeldt, Albums, 2.

40 Rosen and Zerner, “Realism and the Avant-Garde”, from Romanticism and Realism, p. 134- 138.

41 Marshall and Warner, James Tissot: Victorian Life/Modern Love, 61.

42 Wentworth, Catalogue Raisonné of James Tissot’s Prints, 48. Wentworth also notes that Degas was repulsed by the “humorless and self-important piety that marked Tissot’s return to the church” in the late 19th century.

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As the importance of figurative art decreased in the fin-de-siècle, abstraction became the most robust statement of modernity. Next to abstraction’s defiant resistance, Tissot’s paintings of the Second Empire’s decadent glory became irrelevant, and his formal style seemed as artificial as the pretty dresses worn by his figures. This concept still seems to linger with his paintings of women, which is particularly noticeable in the comparison between the Marquise and the later portrait of Fontenay. Whereas the former portrait is deliberately adorned, evocative of her “ornamental sex” 43, the latter’s “elegant and self-satisfied” portrait is “effortlessly natural.”44 Tissot’s fascination with dress and its centrality to his paintings have contributed to the general interpretation of his paintings as slick, superficial and, above all, feminized representations of Paris life.45

Tissot’s paintings are integral to the study of the nineteenth century. His imagery and formal style resists being classified into any one part of canonical art history but provides fascinating insight into the lucrative position artists held in the nineteenth century. He was able to safely and successfully construct his career by attributing both traditional and modern style to his works to a huge market. Many forms of modern reproductive art, including Japanese prints and photography, influenced Tissot’s compositions. He used it to capitalize his own fame by distributing etched copies of his popular paintings in Paris and London, and by opening his studio for public viewings.

43 Steele, Fashion and Eroticism, 107. Wood, James Tissot, 36.

44 Christopher Wood, James Tissot, 36.

45 This is further emphasized by Goncourt’s journal entry. In the original French text, his use of the word “appassionne” to discuss Tissot’s changing styles derives from the French word “appas”, which describes feminine charms. Goncourt seems to equate Tissot’s change in taste with a woman’s change in fashion.

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However, as my thesis has demonstrated, his paintings are not simple, surface impressions of pretty society ladies in the latest fashion. Tissot’s depiction of the

Marquise, her fashion and pose as well as each item in the painting remains central to understanding the subtle messages the work delivers. Portrait of the Marquise highlights the respectfully intimate relationship between artist and patron and also demonstrates a portrait of feminine individuality that is not directly linked to the typical roles for women as wives, mothers and sexual objects.46

As Goncourt suggests, every new “passion” Tissot tried came with a “new lease on life.” His constant change in imagery highlights a modern approach to art and fashion, his painting changed according to widespread demands. Michael Wentworth argues that this repeated change style is evocative of his neurotic character.47 However, it is also important to consider the impact of modernity on nineteenth century society.

Advances in industry and mechanized production of goods and products influenced all aspects of society, from traveling and consumption to social communication and psychological shock.48 Tissot experiments with different imagery and styles, and was clearly influenced by ever changing fashions. His paintings reflect the ever-changing trends of the time, and as Élie Roy posited in 1869, are helpful in ‘reconstructing’

46 Tamar Garb, Bodies of Modernity: Figure and Flesh in Fin-de-Siècle France, p. 88. In her study of the Parisienne in Tissot’s 1885 paintings, Tamar Garb argues that, beneath the veneer of femininity and fashion, many of his “sophisticated, refined and charming” women exhibit their social and political strength. I argue that Tissot also experimented with this idea in the 1860s and 1870s.

47 Wentworth, James Tissot, 12. “His neurotic character and confused emotional life are compellingly contemporary; they suit our idea of the artist rather nicely, and like the highly personal narrative tons of his pictures, invite conjecture.”

48 Wolfgang Schivelbusch, The Railway Journey: Industrialization of Space and Time. Schivelbusch’s groundbreaking book assesses the impact of modern industrial changes, especially the railroad, to all levels of society in Paris during the nineteenth century.

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aspects of contemporary life that defied social convention or were ignored by other artists. This is made evident by the present number of scholarly books that reference

Tissot and his works: nineteenth century fashion, French and British impressionism,

Japonisme, Second Empire painting, studies of modern consumption, Biblical art, and many more.

That Tissot was able to constantly refashion his paintings to suit a large consumer market shows the degree to which he understood the function of art in his society. However, this did not correlate with the avant-garde understanding of art’s value. His traditional education was influenced by modernity, yet he continuously chose financial stability above overt political statements. Tissot’s distinctly indefinable paintings provide an interesting narrative of how he operated in the art world: by assimilating traditional art with modern ideologies and popular narratives that kept him in public favor for most of his career.

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Figure 4-1. James Tissot, Portrait of Madame de Sennones, 1857. Copied after Ingres, 1814.

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Figure 4-2. Ingres, Portrait of the Comtesse d’Haussonville, 1845. The Frick Collection.

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Figure 4-3. Whistler, Symphony in White No. 1, 1862. National Gallery of Art

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Figure 4-4. Edgar Degas, Interior, 1868-1869. Oil on canvas, Philadelphia Museum of Art. http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/82556.html

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Figure 4-5. Edgar Degas, Portrait de Madame Morbilli, 1869. Location unknown.

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Figure 4-6. Tissot, French Soldiers, 1870, watercolor and pencil (black and white reproduction).

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Figure 4-7. Tissot, The First Killed I Saw, 1870. Etching of original drawing, reproduced in Ten Etchings, 1875.

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Figure 4-8. Manet, Guerre Civile, 1871. Institut national d’histoire de l’art.

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Figure 4-9. Tissot, Bastien Pradel, 1870. From Ten Etchings, 1875.

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Figure 4-10. James Tissot, The Rubens Hat, from Ten Etchings, 1875.

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Figure 4-11. Tissot, By the Window, from Ten Etchings, 1875.

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Figure 4-12. Tissot, Gallery of the HMS Calcutta, from Ten Etchings, 1875.

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CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION

My thesis has argued that Tissot’s Portrait of the Marquise is a lot more interesting than has been previously argued. Whereas Thèrése Feuillant is portrayed as a wife and mother of an elite aristocratic family in her family portrait, Tissot’s 1866 work defines her individual character and agency as an intellectual woman and collector.

Tissot’s relationship with the Miramon family was the first high class patronage of his career, and was instrumental in rocketing him to fame among the Parisian elite. Tissot’s publicity grew exponentially as a result of the Marquise, which he borrowed from the patrons in 1867 to exhibit at the Universal Exposition. The Exposition was extremely selective in its acceptances, but the Marquise effectively highlighted the prominence of aristocratic taste in fashion and Japanese art. These themes encouraged members of the bourgeoisie class to emulate elite styles through consumptions, one of Napoleon

III’s important goals for the Exposition. The Marquise was well received by its viewers, and thereafter Tissot was commissioned for high society portraits of two men that closely emulated the 1866 portrait’s composition and style.

Although aspects of the portrait demonstrate the impact of the Realist movement on Tissot’s art, traditional French painting also influenced the work. His body of work presents an interesting mixture of modern and traditional style and subject matter deliberately chosen to appeal to a wide market of consumers. While this allowed the artist to retain popularity and financial success throughout most of his career, but eventually caused a distinct amount of tension between his avant-garde colleagues.

This became increasingly negative following his flight from the Paris during the 1871

Commune and declination to exhibit with the first Impressionist show in 1874. While

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Tissot’s deliberate ambiguity made him rich and famous in his own time, his actions ultimately impacted his importance to the Art Historical canon, which ignored his work to celebrate the boldness of his contemporaries. However, Tissot’s ability to move between different social groups allowed him to create compositions that demonstrated his originality but also that appealed to a wide market. Tissot’s art and career represent a unique example of the ways in which an artist functioned during this tumultuous period of political and artistic reform.

Future Research

There were some limitations in my research that would need to be further addressed to support my argument. Firstly, very little public record of the Marquise de

Miramon exists aside from Louis Pierre d’Hozier’s Armorial général de la France, which only briefly mentions her in relation to her husband’s social position.1 In order to support my argument about the Marquise’s position as an important collector of Japanese art, it would be necessary for me to do some private archival research in order to find any surviving letters, diaries or other information in order to construct a more distinct profile of the Marquise herself. This would help strengthen the argument that the items on display in her portrait are, in fact, hers and not her husband’s or Tissot’s.

I would also like to get a better understanding of the relationship between the

Marquise and Eugene Coppens de Fontenay. That a masculine dandy would want to base his own portrait on that of a woman, and at the height of such separately gendered spheres in society, strikes me as a fascinating choice and provokes many questions that need to be supported by specific historical information. It can be presumed that the

1 Louis Pierre d’Hozier, Armorial général de la France, Vol. 7, Issue 1 (Collombat: 1869), 446.

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Marquise and Fontenay knew each other through her husband, since both men were members of the Jockey Club and Circle of the Rue Royale.2 Was the Marquise herself also involved in one of these elite social clubs? Did Fontenay come to know her portrait from their private château, by its public showing at the Exposition or perhaps through

Tissot himself? It would be necessary to do thorough archival research to find any private correspondence between these subjects in order to answer any of these questions.

Lastly, more research would be needed to provide a more succinct reading of how the average Exposition viewer interpreted the Marquise in 1867. In my research, I was not able to find an exact account of where her portrait was exhibited, and whether or not it was shown alongside or nearby Les Rendez-Vous, Stevens’ Lady in Pink, or other high society portraits. This knowledge would be necessary to determine how the public engaged with the painting in relation to other art works, the Japanese pavilion, or the exhibition of interior decoration.

Post Script

When I began this project, I was eager to redefine Tissot’s importance and relevance to canonical Art History. I wanted to examine his work alongside the avant- garde to show how and why he should be named as one of them. However, as I read further about his life, career and paintings, my initial interpretation was quickly proved wrong. Tissot never aimed to break the rules in the way that Manet, Whistler and the

Impressionists did. In fact, he kept safely within acceptable boundaries of painting and social behavior at all times. Despite his affinity for the rules, Tissot’s paintings

2 Covegal and Guégan, “James Tissot: The Circle of the Rue Royale”, Impressionism, Fashion and Modernity, 151.

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demonstrate more than pretty pictures and costume. His closely cropped and meticulous canvases invite viewers of any period to examine his sitters and, in turn, notice aspects of their own engagement with the public and private identities reflected by the subjects.

I believe that Van Gogh’s assessment, which I quoted in the opening of my thesis, gets to the heart of how I understand the Marquise.3 Tissot’s paintings, especially those of the 1860s, are about people trying to navigate their positions in a rapidly changing modern city. They highlight our central human desire to construct our own identities that are distinct, yet still “fit in” with broader society. The Marquise, for instance, demonstrates her individual personality in the setting of her home and with art that celebrates her own agency and heritage. Yet, it does not work to separate her entirely from the viewer’s understanding of her position in society. Tissot’s art works in a similar way: they reflect modern advances in painting while remaining popular with the broader public. His paintings are not so much about documenting fashion or interior design as they are about reflecting how their owners used and interacted with them.

Rather than making profound, avant-garde statements about the nature of art, Tissot’s works make important claims about our human nature. Seen in this light, Tissot’s art will continue to remain “great, immense and infinite.”4

3 “A discerning critic once rightly said of James Tissot, “He is a troubled soul.” However this may be, there is something of the human soul in his work and that is why he is great, immense, infinite.” V. Van Gogh, Letter to Theo van Gogh, 24th September 1880.

4 Ibid.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Maura Gleeson was raised in Bedford, England and Cocoa Beach, Florida. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree with honors at the University of North Florida, where she majored in art history with a minor in history. Ms. Gleeson pursued her interest in 19th century art at the University of Florida, and completed her Master of Arts degree in May 2014.

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