There are few portraits by American painters as famous and recognizable as Madame X—perhaps American Gothic or Whistler’s Mother, or even Gilbert Stuart’s George Washington. But to most art aficionados, Madame X is considered one of the best portraits ever painted; and John Singer Sargent is considered by many connesseurs as one of the world’s greatest portrait painters. I just finished a novel about Virginie Gautreau—she WAS John Singer Sargent’s Madame X. Sargent pursued the wealthy and beautiful Creole socialite as a sitter for the portrait as a way to display his talents to Parisian society, hoping to build a …continue reading