Her sisters had been as unthinkingly generous with their advice to her as they had been with their luscious bodies and pretty faces to a succession of pantingly priapic Provençal peasants. Two, with their three screaming infants shared the room adjoining hers, having failed to get rings on their fingers; those that were wed were further worn, since siestas were regarded by their husbands as a second daily opportunity to lose themselves in what, with eyes closed, they could still pretend was firm golden flesh, (lying down, the doughy dimples were less evident). Madeleine, certain that she was their equal as far as looks were concerned, was equally sure that she possessed more in the way of brains and ambition: faced with the unavoidable evidence that time and over-use would inevitably cause her beauty to fade, she planned to have her present beauty immortalised.
She had heard (who had not?) of the scandalous paintings of a man called Edouard Manet and as soon as she reached Paris – for that was her goal - she went to see them for herself, whereupon she gained in confidence since she knew she was far lovelier than the hefty-thighed woman sat picnicking so brazenly on the grass. It didn’t take her long to find her way to the artistic quarter, to come to the notice of the lively group of painters and musicians, to feel confident about offering herself as a model, and she thought her ambition was fully realised when a highly esteemed pair of artists, recently returned from painting in the countryside, invited her to their studios – Pablo Picasso offering his friend Georges Braque first turn, and a mandolin as prop.
The resulting portrait can be found at
http://reisserbilder.at/bildergross/Braq_S9735_g.jpg
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