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| Sarah Brown as Clemence Isaure |
Sarah Brown posed for Georges Rochegrosse' Fall of Babylon and Le Bal de Quat-z'arts, and for Jules Lefebvre's Clemence Isaure.
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| Fall of Babylon |
She was arrested for public nudity in 1893 with several other models who were attending the Bal de Quat-z-'arts and posed as Cleopatra wearing very little, dressed only in a mesh. The incident prompted a student riot in the Latin Quarter.
She posed as a model at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the Academie Julian.
Information from
Dictionary of Artist's Models by Jill Berk Jumenez, Joanna Barnham.
From
The Beautiful Models of Paris by Fr. Thiebault Sisson
Original also, but in a different sense, is that wild Sarah Brown, who has been seen in the studios of all the celebrated artists, exhibiting her marvelous auburn beauty, partly Jewish, partly Parisian. She made a tremendous sensation two years ago at the Bal des Quat'z'Arts, given by the students at the Ecole des Beaux-arts.
It has been said recently that redhaired models seemed to be more in demand than formerly. I believe, on the contrary, that they have always been appreciated for the reasons already mentioned in discussing Henner's models. But it is true that girls endowed by nature with this esthetic color of hair have learnt to make the most of it.
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| Georges Rochegrosse, Bal des Quat'zarts, |
PARIS AFTER THE RIOTS. From American Architect and Architecture, Vol 41, August 1893.
NOW that the riots of students versus policemen are over, says "S. D." in the New York Evening Post, it is worth while counting up the cost to Paris and the Republic at large. But first it is necessary to rectify certain telegraphic appreciations. It was natural that Germans, in presence of their Military Bill, should exaggerate the importance of the troubles in the French capital; but it is hard to understand why the English sources of information should have been so untrustworthy.
To go back to the beginning, the Bal des Quat'z-Arts, which was made an occasion for putting in force the Berenger law against public licentiousness, was in reality not a public ball. It was what it purported to be — the annual ball given by students, chiefly of the art schools, with the help of artists' models. It is certain that the ball was not open to loose women ; and it was next to impossible for any man who was not a student, a journalist, or a magistrate to get admission. That nearly 3,000 persons were present is not surprising in a student world of over 10,000 souls.
For the rest, the greatest attention was paid to decorative costuming, or lack of costume, as known in French art. The principal figure of the Grand March was Rochegrosse's model for his " Fall of Babylon," clad in the costume in which she had posed to the painter. Considerable pains was also taken with the character of the dances; and an American painter won great success by doing the " Hoola-Hoola " as a Sandwich Islander.
It is evident that sedate people, who have no acquaintance with student life, and who would be horrified at the life-classes of the most correct studio, would find all this Ninevitish to a degree. But this is no reason why an exclusively students' ball, dissolute as it may have been, should be judged in the same way as the great commercial speculations in licentiousness which abound in Paris. One of the policemen who were present to keep order testified in court that the Quat'z-Arts was modesty itself compared with the scenes enacted each year at the masquerade-balls of the Grand Opera. Yet these are never molested, perhaps because they are under protection from high quarters and are organized for the benefit of retired army officers. Now these Opera balls are really public, being open to any one who has money to buy an admission-ticket.
Every one who knows Paris cannot help sympathizing with the resentment of students thus unfairly made the scapegoat of public order. It is difficult to imagine where the foreign correspondents who take sides against them have been living.
The League of Order, however, after the ball was all but forgotten, persisted in bringing its organizers before the courts. Shakspeare's " Measure for Measure might have warned them of the limits of what is practicable in such a case. The judges evidently took the poet's view, and inflicted only light fines on a single artstudent, who had been the most prominent in the affair, and on three or four of the women (of whom two were not models, but had obtained entrance without the knowledge of the committee). Then they applied the law of first offences to all the accused parties.
See more.
Dictionary of Artists' Models
Exposed: The Victorian Nude
Empire of the Nude - The Victorian Nude
The Victorian Nude: Sexuality, Morality, and Art
L'entree des femmes a l'Ecole des beaux-arts: 1880-1923 (Beaux-arts histoire) (French Edition)
Another description of the Ball from
Across the layers: poems old and new By Albert Goldbarth
A description of Sarah Brown at the Ball from
Striptease: the untold history of the girlie show By Rachel Shteir.
A description of the aftermath of the riots from
The last years of the nineteenth century: a continuation of "France in the nineteenth century," By Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer
Across the Layers: Poems Old and New
Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show
The Last Years of the Nineteenth Century; A Continuation of 'France in the Nineteenth Century'...
More notes on the riots from
Scenes of Parisian modernity: culture and consumption in the nineteenth century By H. Hazel Hahn
More on Sarah Brown at
Mayfair and Montmartre By Ralph Nevill
Men and Memories: A History of the Arts 1872 to 1922 Being the Recollections ... By William Rothenstein
Men And Memories: A History Of The Arts 1872 To 1922 Being The Recollections Of William Rothenstein Part Two
Photograph of Sarah Brown dressed as she was at the Bal de Quat-z'arts from a page about the illustrations of Alfons Maria Mucha, who was one of the originators of the Ball.
Link to more about the Ball.
A new book about life drawing can be pre-ordered at Amazon.com
and goes on sale on December 14th. 
Expressive Figure Drawing
sent me a review copy of his book, published by Watson-Guptill Publications, which builds on the ideas he developed in his DVD - The Art of Drawing The Figure: Essential Exercises [Interactive DVD]
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. In the 1980s he worked in Paris and has exhibited his work since then in Denmark, Sweden, England and the United States. He is represented internationally by Gallerihuset of Copenhagen.
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