M. Bagnitsky

Who he was

Bagnitsky was a Russian journalist in Paris in 1883-84, a correspondent of the St Petersburg daily Novoe Vremya ("New Times", which Marie writes "Nouveau-Temps" and "Novoïc Vremia"; see Novoic Vremia). Marie gives only his surname. She says that he sends the paper, "among other things, studies on our painters in Paris" (100.0176). His first name, dates and biography have not been established from outside the diary, and no portrait is known.

Marie and Bagnitsky

The interview, June 1883. On 18 June 1883 Marie grants "an audience" at eleven in the morning to the Paris correspondent of Novoe Vremya, who had asked for it by letter: she hears that "you hold a notable place among them". While her aunt prepares her entrance by talking of her youth, he looks over every canvas and notes down when she began, where, at what age (100.0176-0177). Afterwards she is anxious: she has "posed for a journalist" and spoken too little (100.0181). He dines with the Engelhardts and Mme Bailleul on 24 June (100.0221).

The article. The piece appeared in early July: on 3 July Marie finds it very good but embarrassing, since it gives her age as nineteen (she was twenty-four), while expecting "very great" effect in Russia (100.0278). On 10 July it has been reprinted in a Russian paper called Le Sud (100.0300), and on 13 July "in all the Russian papers" (100.0328). Months later Bagnitsky also writes about the studio of Julian in the same paper; Marie invites Julian to dine with him on 2 October (101.0485), and on 3 October they take Bagnitsky to the Salon and to Julian's studio, but he "will not let himself be enrolled among Bastien's worshippers" (101.0492).

A regular guest. From July 1883 to September 1884 he is one of the Russian circle that comes to dine with the Bashkirtseffs, with the priest (le pope), Dr Tchoumakoff, the Engelhardts and Tchernitsky: 15 July 1883 (100.0357), 12 September, when Marie finds the Russians' talk all gossip and rents and servants (101.0331), 18 and 29 October (102.0026, 102.0082), 18 November, when she wants to convert him to the cult of Bastien-Lepage (102.0264), 24 December (102.0570), 10 January 1884, the day she finishes the head of the little Randouin (102.0668), 1 March (103.0448), 19 March (103.0554), 20 April (104.0022), 18 June (104.0601) and, last, 5 September 1884 (105.0750).

The spring of 1884. On 19 March 1884 Marie reports, in the same line as a dinner with Bagnitsky, that she has been unanimously elected at the Cercle des artistes russes (103.0554). On 18 May, after the Salon has opened, Bagnitsky repeats what an unnamed artist said at the painter Bogoluboff's: "There is a very good Bastien-Lepage, signed Bashkirtseff" (104.0222). Marie fears it will compromise Jules Bastien-Lepage and seem imitation; Bagnitsky and Émile Bastien-Lepage comfort her "like a child" and end by kissing her hands (104.0227). That night, after Mme Gaillard's tactless talk of Jules's illness, Dina keeps Émile and Bagnitsky late, hoping it will be too late for "explanations in the family"; it is not, and Marie has her say to the household between two and three in the morning (104.0237).

Related entries

Sources

The diary only. No outside source naming him has been found.