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French aristocrat and writer (1855–1921) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac (7 March 1855, Paris – 11 December 1921, Menton) was a French aesthete, Symbolist poet, painter, art collector, art interpreter, and dandy. He is reputed to have been the inspiration both for Jean des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours (1884) and, most famously, for the Baron de Charlus in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu (1913–1927).[1] Some believe that he may even have been used by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray.[2]
Robert de Montesquiou | |
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Comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac | |
![]() Photographed by Paul Nadar in 1895 | |
Born | Marie Joseph Robert Anatole de Montesquiou-Fézensac 7 March 1855 |
Died | 11 December 1921 66) | (aged
Noble family | Montesquiou |
Father | Thierry, Comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac |
Mother | Pauline Duroux |
Occupation |
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Robert de Montesquiou was a scion of the French Montesquiou-Fézensac family. His paternal grandfather was Count Anatole de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1788–1878), aide-de-camp to Napoleon and grand officer of the Légion d'honneur; his father was Anatole's third son, Thierry, who married Pauline Duroux, an orphan, in 1841. With his wife's dowry, Thierry bought a Charnizay manor, built a mansion in Paris, and was elected vice-president of the Jockey Club. He was a successful stockbroker who left a substantial fortune. Robert was the last of his parents' children, after brothers Gontran and Aymery, and sister Élise.[1] His cousin, Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe (1860–1952), was one of Marcel Proust's models for the Duchess of Guermantes in À la recherche du temps perdu.[3]
Montesquiou had the ambition to be the most photographed person in the world.
Montesquiou had a strong influence on Émile Gallé (1846–1904), a glass artist with whom he collaborated, and from whom he commissioned major works, and from whom he received hundreds of adulatory letters. He also wrote the verses found in the optional choral parts of Gabriel Fauré's Pavane.
The portrait Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac was painted in 1891–92 by Montesquiou's close friend, and model for many of his eccentric mannerisms, James Whistler. The portrait is in the Frick Collection in Manhattan. The French artist Antonio de La Gandara (1861–1917) produced several portraits of Montesquiou.
One author provides the following written portrait of Montesquiou:[4]
Tall, black-haired, Kaiser-moustached, he cackled and screamed in weird attitudes, giggling in high soprano, hiding his black teeth behind an exquisitely gloved hand—the poseur absolute. Montesquiou's homosexual tendencies were patently obvious, but he may in fact have lived a chaste life. He had no affairs with women, although in 1876 he reportedly once slept with the great actress Sarah Bernhardt, after which he vomited for twenty-four hours. (She remained a great friend.)
Montesquiou was a "notorious homosexual"[5] and "the most famous dandy" in Paris,[6] who was famed for his lifestyle during the Belle Époque.[7] His flamboyant homosexuality was certainly public knowledge by 1908, when he published a collection of poems and intimate letters dedicated to his deceased partner, Gabriel Yturri ,[8] or 1909, when a book on the lives of the homosexual aesthetes of the fin de siècle was published,[9] though he may have been able to hide his sexuality behind the guise of only following the associated aesthetics.[10] Montesquiou likely contributed to Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and was a main basis of the homosexual character Baron de Charlus in good friend Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time – particularly its 1921 fourth part, Sodom and Gomorrah[7] – at which point he was effectively outed to the world.[11]
In 1885, he began a close long-term relationship with Gabriel Yturri (March 12, 1860 – July 6, 1905), a South American immigrant from Tucumán, Argentina, who became his secretary, companion and lover. After Yturri died of diabetes, Henri Pinard replaced him as secretary in 1908 and eventually inherited Montesquiou's much reduced fortune. Montesquiou and Yturri are buried alongside each other at Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles, Île-de-France, France.
Montesquiou had social relationships and collaborations with many celebrities of the fin de siècle period, including Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897), Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), Sarah Bernhardt (1844–1923), Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863–1938), Anna de Noailles (1876–1933), Marthe Bibesco (1886–1973), Luisa Casati (1881–1957), Maurice Barrès (1862–1923), Franca Florio (1873-1950), and Samuel Jean Pozzi (1846-1918).[1][12]
In his biography, Philippe Jullian proposes that the Moberly–Jourdain incident in 1901, in which Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain claimed to experience time travel in the grounds of the Petit Trianon, is explained by their stumbling into a rehearsal of one of Montesquiou's Tableaux Vivants, with his friends (one possibly transvestite) dressed in period costume. Joan Evans, who owned the copyright to An Adventure (1911), Moberly and Jourdain's account of their experiences, accepted this solution and forbade any further editions.
In June 1900, Montesquiou finished third in the hacks and hunter combined event during the International Horse Show in Paris. The event was part of the Exposition Universelle, and later classified as part of the 1900 Summer Olympics.[13]
Montesquiou's poetry has been called untranslatable,[14] and it was poorly received by critics at the time.[1] "[I]n tune with the majority of Montesquiou's critics was the opinion of Paul Morand, who wrote:"
Montesquiou has polished a thousand sonnets with a hand jewelled with black pearls and will leave behind nothing but a few modern-style curiosities and some imitations of Mallarmé written in red ink and sprinkled with gold dust. A personality of the most curious, because entirely phony, from a period of dazzling falsifiers and of pious and impious lies. He will survive thanks only to the des Esseintes of Huysmans and the Baron de Charlus of Proust. Montesquiou was right to frequent men of letters.[15]
As for his paintings, he showed them "only to a few individuals, but after his death over a hundred of them were exhibited in 1923 at the Galeries Georges Petit...."[16] "Montesquiou's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 325 USD to 2,520 USD...."[17]
As for his art interpretation (he distinguished art interpreters from art critics), he excelled "perhaps far beyond his accomplishments as a poet.... This art interpreter published books, catalogues, articles, and extensive passages in his memoirs devoted to [numerous] painters, sculptors, and craftsmen...."[18]
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