The curious case of Cecil Beaton and Madame X

Remind you of anyone?’ I asked Leslie Caron one afternoon last summer. We were in her London sitting room, looking through the catalogue of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition on John Singer Sargent and Paris, in New York (now at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France), and I had pointed out the artist’s most famous painting, Madame X. Caron eyed the portrait of a woman in a plunging black evening gown with all the curiosity of the young courtesan she played in the 1958 film Gigi. I watched her closely, waiting for her to notice the uncanny resemblance.

It had struck me a few weeks earlier in New York, when I was standing before Madame X at the Met’s exhibition. Sargent had created the painting in 1884 as a stylised likeness of Virginie Gautreau, the New Orleans-born wife of a man in the guano business who was determined to conquer Paris. Fittingly, Sargent posed her like Michelangelo’s David in a dress, with a twisted wrist poised on a little round table and a gaze defying her foes in profile. He also placed a crescent moon-shaped pin in her hairstyle, a symbol of the Roman goddess Diana the Huntress. However, Madame X wasn’t only Diana, David or Virginie. To me, she was also someone else.

‘It’s you!’ I announced to Caron, who looked back at me surprised, until I took out a black-and-white photograph that Cecil Beaton had taken during the filming of Gigi (one of his images features in ‘Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World’ at the National Portrait Gallery). Beaton had not only designed the film’s costumes and scenery, but also used the story of a young courtesan on the fringe of High Society — not unlike that of Gautreau — as his own paean to Belle Epoque Paris. During breaks in the filming, he would take Miss Caron away to create his own images — in this case, a shot of her at the legendary café Maxim’s in a sweeping white evening gown, one hand poised on a pedestal and head raised in profile. Even a crescent-moon pin was just visible in her coiffure. None of this was by chance. Beaton had already shown interest in Madame X when he sketched the painting for a chapter heading in his 1954 book The Glass of Fashion. He even titled it ‘Sargent’s Madame X’, as if he were planning to create his own version one day.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘Beaton’s photo is practically Madame X, except that your dress is white and there are feathers on the shoulders instead of straps.’

‘They’re birds, actually,’ she replied, ‘and that is entirely me. Cecil came with a design of the dress and I exclaimed “Oh, what a great idea, those birds” and he said: “Birds? You saw birds? Well, we can have birds, if you’d like.” ’ Caron paused for a moment, then said: ‘We were very close in taste. I adored everything he did and he liked my behaviour. He liked the way je me comportais,’ she added wistfully in French.

As we talked, it became clear that few words had been needed between her and Beaton during their photo shoots: the two simply understood each other. Beaton never acknowledged that the Gigi series was inspired by Sargent. Still, Caron is convinced of the resemblance. ‘There are many things about this dress that remind one of Madame X, there is no doubt.’

‘Well, then, may I call you Madame X?’ I asked.

‘Perhaps,’ she answered, with a little smile.

'Cecil Beaton’s Fashionable World’ is at the National Portrait Gallery, until January 11, 2026. ‘Sargent: Dazzling Paris’ is at the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, France, until January 11, 2026.

This article first appeared in the October 15 issue of Country Life. For more information on how to subscribe, click here.