Mme Cartwright

Mme Cartwright

An American lady in Paris, "très belle, très riche", who receives many artists in a mixed society and protects Louise Breslau; she knows Bastien-Lepage and Marie hopes to use her to reach him.

Who she was

Marie never gives a first name. What she says is all that is known: an American ("Mme Cartwright est une Américaine très belle, très riche", 094.0152), with a daughter, a mother and a nephew (101.0171), who "reçoit beaucoup d'artistes" in a "société mêlée", where Marie's friend Louise Breslau "a fait toutes ses amitiés artistiques chez elle" (094.0152). Her blue eyes, black pupils, black lashes and black hair, and the "yeux de bacchante" that make one ashamed to look at them, are described when Marie thinks of painting her (099.0540). She is the close friend of Mme Mackay, Bastien-Lepage's mistress in Marie's telling (103.0509, 106.0042). Her circle was fashionable but not respectable: in February 1883 the architect Émile Bastien-Lepage, questioned about her, says that had he known the Bashkirtseffs then as he does now he would have taken Marie "par les épaules" and put her out of that salon ("mise dehors") (098.0414), and in September 1884 the sick Jules Bastien-Lepage says that a novel by Maupassant took her salon for its model, a place where "ce qui était intéressant à étudier... c'étaient les égarées" (106.0010).

Identification: not made. I could not find her in published sources. She is not the English art critic Julia Cartwright (1851–1924, from 1880 Mrs Henry Ady), to whom a footnote in carnet 102 attaches her (102.0381): that writer was English, not American, and not the hostess of a Paris salon. The Bailleul, Breslau and Mackay connections are all the diary offers; nothing outside it has been found.

Marie and Mme Cartwright

1881–1882: the door to Bastien-Lepage. On 18 April 1881, at a fair or charity event where Marie is with her father, Dina, Alexis and Bojidar, "Mme Cartwright que j'ai connue par Sarah un jour qu'elle est venue à l'atelier me salue et m'invite à venir la voir"; her father finds her "très belle" (091.0491). On 11 January 1882 Bailleul, who knows Bastien-Lepage through her, offers to have him invited to the Bashkirtseffs' ball and mentions it to her; Mme Cartwright, who has also been invited and "dit partout qu'elle m'adore", writes four pages of compliments, puts herself at Marie's disposal "pour tous les Bastien-Lepage que je voudrai" and asks the family to dine with Munkácsy; she adds that her daughter is going to a ball for the first time, glad that it is in so sympathetic a house (094.0152). On the 13th Marie plans to visit "le vrai" Bastien (Jules, not his brother) with her and with Georges Bertrand (094.0164); on 21 January she comes to fetch the family to go to his studio (094.0193). On 24 January they leave Julian's to visit her, and she sends her servant to ask whether they are coming (094.0204).

Spring 1882: doubts. On 5 May Marie was to lunch at her house with Bastien but only walks with her, feeling embarrassed: "c'est une Américaine, elle connaît tous les artistes célèbres et leur parle de moi", and she meets Jules Breton (095.0020). On 20 May, after Soutzo's slanders, she concludes that Mme Cartwright is "vraiment une dame qu'on ne peut pas fréquenter... maman le peut, mais une jeune fille déjà assez attaquée comme moi se compromet" (095.0066). She goes once to an evening there, on 24 May, "pour ne pas désobliger cette femme si aimable pour moi" (095.0091), calls on 29 May (095.0114), and on 3 June "la sympathique Cartwright" gives twenty francs to Marie's collection at a charity event (095.0132). In August her wish is to "purifier le salon de Mme Cartwright" (096.0005), but on the 19th Émile Bastien tells her she should not go to the soirées and that she could see Mme Cartwright only rarely and never in company (096.0102).

Autumn 1882 to 1883: Breslau and the Mackay affair. On 21 November 1882 she calls with her daughter; Marie had decided to drop her, but she kisses her, praises her, and offers, if Marie were to paint for money, to commission her daughter's portrait: Marie sees the manoeuvre to set her against Breslau (097.0122). On 16 December Mlle Feurgard relays Breslau's account that Soutzo, asked by Cartwright whether his marriage with Marie would take place, said "des choses si infâmes" of her (097.0245); the Soutzo story is treated in #Feurgard. On 19 December it is Cartwright who presents Marie to Edelfelt at the exhibition, which annoys her (097.0268). In January 1883 Marie recalls that she had invited Cartwright, the Comtesse de Bari and Bargigli to her own soirée of the previous year, meaning to cancel Cartwright diplomatically so as not to make an enemy (098.0103–0104), and Mme Mackay is said to be jealous and furious over the attention Bastien pays to Marie. In May 1883 she thinks of painting her portrait (099.0540).

August 1883: a visit and a calculation. On 15 August Marie receives flowers and a letter in which Mme Cartwright says she will not come because a note from Marie's mother has hurt her, "mais qu'elle ne m'en rend pas responsable" (101.0120). On the 16th Marie writes her "une lettre très affectueuse (avec l'espoir qu'elle me sera utile pour être bien placée)" for the Salon (101.0149). On the 18th she comes with her daughter, her mother and her nephew, proud to show a family, and talks of Mme Mackay and of how Bastien fell in love with her for the prices his pictures fetch (101.0171); Marie adds: "Cette Cartwright me plait" (101.0175). Saint-Amand tells Marie's aunt on the 20th that Mme Cartwright "est folle de moi, à des passions pour des femmes", which Marie takes for a joke at her naivety (101.0213).

1883–1884: a figure on the edge. On 28 November 1883 Cartwright has told Breslau about Marie's picture, "elles sont de nouveau amies" (102.0381); on 2 December Marie confesses to a lover's logic: "j'aime Cartwright parce qu'elle le connaît" (102.0409). On 14 January 1884 Bojidar tells of an evening at her house where he found Gervex disparaging Bastien (103.0020). On 29 February Marie wants to see her but finds it a nuisance that she is "si peu comme il faut" (103.0431). Julian, on 15 June, is reproached with having first thought of her "des choses dans le genre du monde qu'il fréquente, des demi-castors, des Cartwright" (104.0585); on 29 June she says of a girl: "Elle a été chez la Cartwright mais elle n'y va plus. Moi aussi j'ai été chez la Cartwright" (104.0723). On 30 August she is ready to return to "même le salon Cartwright, n'importe quoi, mais s'amuser" (105.0715). Her last mentions are in carnet 106, on 13 and 14 September 1884, where Mme Cartwright is "vexée parce que Mme Mac-Kay fait sa tête" (106.0042).

Related entries

Sources