Méry Laurent
| Méry Laurent | ||
 | ||
| Background information | ||
| Born as: | Anne Rose Suzanne Louviot | |
| Born | Apr 29, 1849 Nancy, France | |
| Died | Nov 26, 1900 - age 50 Paris, France | |
| Notable for: | Demimonde, artist's model, salonnière, muse | |
| Nationality: | French | |
Méry Laurent, born Anne Rose Suzanne Louviot (born ✦29 April 1849, Nancy- d. †26 November 1900), was a demi-mondaine (courtesan) and the muse of several Parisian artists. She used to run her own “salon” where she hosted many French (and even American) writers and painters of her time: Stéphane Mallarmé, Émile Zola, Marcel Proust, François Coppée, Henri Gervex, James Whistler, and Édouard Manet.
Biography
Anne Rose Suzanne Louviot was born in Nancy in 1849. She was the daughter of a woman who worked as a laundress in Marshal Francois Certain De Canrobert's household and of an unknown father. Her laundress mother sold her 15-year-old daughter's virginity to Canrobert so that her daughter would become Canorbert's mistress and receive an annuity for life of 500 francs per month. When she turned 16, this enabled her to go to Paris, where she started a brief career as an actress. She played light comedies at The Théâtre des Variétés; the role of her lifetime there was the Venus Anadyomene, posing naked on her shell; at the Théâtre du Châtelet, she also played Offenbach's féeries.
In 1874, after becoming a high-class prostitute, she met Thomas W. Evans, an extremely wealthy American dental surgeon who tended to many high-profile people and even royal families. He made her his mistress and helped her settle down at 52, rue de Rome, where she held her “salon”, hosting all of the Parisian artistic avant-garde. Through this occasion, she became the mistress of Francois Coppée, Stéphane Mallarmé, Antonin Proust, as well as Edouard Manet's mistress and model.
When she died, she bequeathed her wealth to Victor Margueritte, her last favorite and "protégé" except her allegoric portrait of Autumn (a painting by Manet, begun in 1882), which went to the Museum of Fine Arts of Nancy.
Laurent was buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery (56th section).
Her "Salon"
The "salon" she ran was a place of exchanges that boosted the creative steps of those who patronized it: one could find there Edouard Manet and Henri Gervex, but also poets and writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé, François Coppée, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Marcel Proust (the author painted Méry Laurent's portrait through Odette de Crécy's character in "Swann in Love,") or even Zola (who based his 1880 novel Nana on Méry Laurent). She also received sculptors, lyrical artists, and musicians like Hortense Schneider and Reynaldo Hahn. Hahn would go on to become her testamentary executor[Note 1].
Her portraits by Edouard Manet
Autumn, Portrait Of Méry Laurent in a Brown Fur Cape, 1881
Méry Laurent with a Fur Hat, 1882
Méry Laurent with a Pug, 1882
Méry Laurent with a black hat, 1882
Méry Laurent with a little hat, 1882
References
- "Four Paintings". www.artandarchitecture.org.uk.
- "Autumn (Study of Mery Laurent), 1882 - Edouard Manet". www.wikiart.org.
- In 1880, Thomas W. Evans offered to Méry Laurent a house at 9 boulevard Lannes in Talus. The Swann's family house in Marcel Proust's novel was inspired by Mery Laurent's house.
Further reading
Francoise Cachin, Manet, 1832–1883, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, New York 1983, (ISBN 2-07-074438-8)
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Méry_Laurent ]
Notes
- ↑ A testator is a person who has written and executed a last will and testament that is in effect at the time of their death. It is any "person who makes a will."
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