Fatal beauties in portraitsBeautiful women and girls are often the object of attention of artists seeking to capture their beauty in their canvases. Meanwhile, around such portraits many eerie mystical legends often go.
Bride's whim
Maria Ivanovna Lopukhina was the eldest daughter of Count Ivan Andreyevich Tolstoy. Subsequently, she married the jägermeister and actual chamberlain at the court of Emperor Paul I, Count Stepan Avraamovich Lopukhin. Even before marriage, he decided to order a portrait of his bride. At the time, in 1797, she was only 18 years old.
Maria insisted that her familiar painter Vladimir Borovikovsky should certainly write her, while her parents were categorically against it: at one time Borovikovsky refused to be admitted to the Academy of Arts, which, in their opinion, indicated his mediocrity. But the capricious girl did not give up …
Five years later, Maria died of tuberculosis, or, as they said at the time, of consumption. The portrait painted by Borovikovsky was in the Tolstoy family for a long time, until at the end of the 80s. Pavel Tretyakov did not see the 19th century. He bought the canvas from Praskovya, the wife of the Moscow governor Perfiliev, also nee Tolstoy.
Meanwhile, various rumors began to circulate around the portrait. They said that it was he who took Maria's life - they say, if the artist had not painted it, she would have been alive … It was also argued that if a young girl stares at Lopukhina's portrait for a long time, she will soon die.
After the canvas was exhibited at the Tretyakov Gallery, one story happened. Tretyakov hung "Lopukhina" next to another work by Borovikovsky - a portrait of Prince Kurakin. The next morning, the second portrait lay on the floor with a broken frame. And later it turned out that during her life Maria Lopukhina could not stand the old man Kurakin, who had a reputation for red tape …
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The rider's fate
The famous painting by Karl Bryullov entitled “The Horsewoman” (1832) depicts young Giovannina Paccini, niece of the Italian composer N. Paccini, prancing on horseback.
The story of her life is as follows. At first, the girl was brought up in her uncle's family, but after the death of a relative, the Russian Countess Julia Samoilova took her in. However, instead of a brilliant future and a profitable marriage, a completely different fate awaited the girl: during a walk she fell from a horse and that trampled her. Maybe it was just in the Bryullov painting …
Scandalous "Olympia"
French impressionist Edouard Manet has always had a reputation as a scandalous artist. But when his painting "Sleeping Venus" (1863) was presented to the public in February 1865 at the Paris Salon in the Palace of Industry, the audience was simply shocked!
The canvas depicted a naked young woman. In exquisite jewelry and delicate pantalet shoes, she reclines on the bed, propped up on pillows. By the bed is a dark-skinned maid holding a bouquet of flowers, apparently sent by one of the girl's admirers. A black kitten sits at the foot of the bed, he has exactly the same expression in his eyes as the mistress …
It is believed that Manet copied the composition from Titian's Venus of Urbino (1538). The model for him was the model Quiz Meuran, whose services he often used, but there is also a version that the artist used the image of the famous courtesan Marguerite Bellange, who was in love with Napoleon Bonaparte himself.
Venus on the canvas was called "a shameless courtesan after a night of love." And she was also dubbed "Olympia", the scene too described by Manet resembled a line from the poems of the then fashionable poet Zachary Astruc "As soon as Olympia has time to wake up from sleep."
But the accusation of licentiousness - these were also, as they say, flowers … Manet was accused … of demonism. There were rumors that in his youth the artist visited South America (by the way, this is true) and after that he began to practice voodoo or some other local cults. Hence the black maid and the black cat at the feet of Venus (or Olympia).
Manet explained that he lived in Rio de Janeiro and did not participate in any voodoo rituals. And he made the maid black to shade the whiteness of the skin of his heroine.
It did not help. Visitors near the picture fainted, and then assured that the gaze of the beauty on the canvas was pursuing them, pumping out their vitality. And that Manet portrayed not a goddess, but a witch … And it turned out that not all visitors saw a black cat on the canvas - sometimes it just disappeared … The artist made excuses that the cat was just in a dark corner and not everyone was looking … Nevertheless, there were those who believed - from time to time the animal jumps out of the picture and goes about its business, and then comes back again. And undoubtedly, the cat is associated with the devil himself!
They say that once Manet himself appeared to look at his canvas and … did not find a cat! Discouraged, he blinked several times - and the cat reappeared in its place. The painter decided - just imagined …
After the salon for almost a quarter of a century, "Olympia" (this has already become the official name of the work) has not been exhibited anywhere. In 1889, for the first time in many years, she appeared at an exhibition on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Great French Revolution. By that time, Manet himself was no longer alive. In the end, "Olympia" was bought by friends of the artist from his widow for 20,000 francs and donated to the state. However, the authorities were reluctant to accept such a gift, and as a result, the canvas ended up in the storerooms of the Luxembourg Palace.
When the painting got to the Louvre in 1907, the local ministers began to assure that from time to time the devil's cat on it begins to meow disgustingly … By the way, this cat is not visible on the reproductions of Olympia.
Since 1947, the Olympia can be viewed at the Orsay Museum of Impressionism.