X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Portrait of Madame X


Fenimore Art Museum

This exhibit features about 25 paintings of American women, including two preparatory sketches for Sargent's infamous Portrait of Madame X.

Picture and Text

James particularly admires Sargent's portraits of women, such as Miss Burckhardt (not identified by name but illustrated in the magazine text of the article) and Madame X (called Madame G in the essay).

Saponification

In John Singer Sargent’s famous Portrait of Madame X, for example, the lumps only appear on the blackest areas, which may be because of the artist’s use of more medium in those areas to compensate for the tendency of black pigments to soak it up.



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