my favorite portraitist, and my favorite scandalous lady...?

Well, you know how obsessed I am with you-know-which-painting (i.e., here and here).

This morning I spent a blissful hour reading Strapless, by Deborah Davis - it's a story behind John Singer Sargent and Madame X, Virginie Amelie Gatreau.  It's not like this, exactly, has never been written about before (I remember flipping through a Sargent book at my old art studio in middle school, wondering who this scandalous Madame X was), but this story provided a great overview of Paris itself, and the environment that surrounded the artist and the it-girl.

I haven't finished reading the book, but I certainly plan on doing so...

Speaking of Sargent, another book on my to-read list - Sargent's Daughters: The Biography of a Painting, by Erica E Hirshler.  About the daughters of Edward Darley Boit...