Grisette (French) - The Grisette in Art

The Grisette in Art

Grisettes appeared in many caricatures of bohemian Paris, most notably in those by Daumier and Gavarni, as well as in illustrations of novels about them, such as Gerald du Maurier's own engravings for Trilby. The artist and war correspondent, Constantin Guys, frequently portrayed them in his sketches of Parisian life during the Second French Empire. A grisette likewise became the subject of one of Edward Hopper's early watercolours, painted in Paris in 1906. Hopper's portrayal, like several of those by Guys, shows the grisette wearing a traditional seamstress apron. However, their slightly raised skirts (particularly in the Guys sketches) and provocative poses also allude to the association of grisettes with prostitution.

Whistler's arresting 1858 portrait of Fumette, his lover at the time, reflects not only his aversion to sentimentality in painting but also the character of Fumette herself, who was a rather unusual grisette. Although Whistler had dubbed her 'Fumette' in imitation of 'Musette', a character in Scènes de la vie de Bohème, her real name was Eloise. A milliner's assistant, artist's model and reciter of poetry, she was known throughout the Latin Quarter as "the tigress" (la tigresse) for her raging voice and dangerous temper. Their ménage on the Rue Saint Sulpice lasted for two years and was a stormy one. One day in a fit of anger, she tore up a number of Whistler's drawings.