Read Online Harmony In Flesh and Black by Nicholas Kilmer - Free Book Online
Authors: Nicholas Kilmer
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painting in Giverny at around the same time Monet was doing his haystacks.
Conchita Hill had been born on a ship off the coast of Brazil in 1865, the daughter of an American sea captain whose wife lived on board, as was not uncommon in those days. Hillâs name appeared on the roster of the Art Students League in New York in the early 1880s. By the time she arrived in Paris, she was traveling with her mother, like three quarters of the Americans then studying art in that city.
Conchita seemed, from the brief references available in the writings of her colleagues, not to have distinguished herself for demureness. Fred was convinced that this was the very girl he discovered dancing at the Moulin de la Galette, in randy dishabille, in an 1893 lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec entitled La Belle Conchita.
Whether or not this was she, they believed that the subject of their search had had extensive acquaintance among artists who were of interest to them. Practically every painter of consequence, American or European, had been in Paris at some point during the 1880s, and the papers of several referred to Miss Hill or to Conchita. Often the references suggested that she was having a very good time. There couldnât have been many Conchitas.
Clayton was determined to discover what had become of her paintings; nothing by her had ever surfaced on the market. To find her paintings, they first had to discover what had become of her. There was no record of a permanent alliance: no marriage; no later exhibition of paintings by a Conchita anything, née Hill; no siblings; no city, even, that either parent might have come from and she might have returned to. She sailed from Le Havre on a ship bound for Baltimore that docked in October of 1895, and there she disappeared.
Fred had worked hard on her story and recalled it easily while looking out at Cambridge. Heâd seen her now; that was flesh to attach to her story, and to another, Smykalâs.
The city was moving slowly as the rain lifted. Buses geared up and droned. Dogs walked their masters and mistresses. Children dressed for soccer converged on the parks. At this moment Sam was playing baseball in Arlington, and Fred was missing the game.
Who was the author of the picture Clay had bought? Fredâs lucky hit of the morning made him itch to establish the painterâs identity. And thinking about it would distract him from the loud noise he was waiting for on Turbridge Street.
Fred found a meter open in front of a place on the other side of the square from Turbridge Street, and he went in and drank coffee, running through his mind the names of artists who could have been close enough to Conchita to record her in her skin.
Such things were not the same in 1890 as they are now, not even in gay Paree. There was as much of a social gulf between artists and models as there was between artists and peasants or, for that matter, between peasants and professional models. The peasants would not take off their clothes except for two or three occasions in their lifetimes: birth, marriage, death. In Paris, models who undressed, either for students or for artists, were inclined to be not French but Italian immigrants. Some French city girls who had no expectations were also willing to work hard and preferred modeling to the more dangerous other option available.
Students and friends did not then, as they do now, model for each other, unless clothed. For all that the human nude was exhibited as frankly and commonly as cows and chickens, only the rare American young lady would have had the presence and aplomb to serve as the original for the painting Clayton had purchased. But from the little theyâd been able to learn about her, it seemed Conchita had been a jolly, open-minded girl, quite willing to test social frontiers.
Seven or eight names roved in Fredâs mind as he finished the coffee and tossed the crumpled cup in the basket next to the door as he walked out. He
Conchita Hill had been born on a ship off the coast of Brazil in 1865, the daughter of an American sea captain whose wife lived on board, as was not uncommon in those days. Hillâs name appeared on the roster of the Art Students League in New York in the early 1880s. By the time she arrived in Paris, she was traveling with her mother, like three quarters of the Americans then studying art in that city.
Conchita seemed, from the brief references available in the writings of her colleagues, not to have distinguished herself for demureness. Fred was convinced that this was the very girl he discovered dancing at the Moulin de la Galette, in randy dishabille, in an 1893 lithograph by Toulouse-Lautrec entitled La Belle Conchita.
Whether or not this was she, they believed that the subject of their search had had extensive acquaintance among artists who were of interest to them. Practically every painter of consequence, American or European, had been in Paris at some point during the 1880s, and the papers of several referred to Miss Hill or to Conchita. Often the references suggested that she was having a very good time. There couldnât have been many Conchitas.
Clayton was determined to discover what had become of her paintings; nothing by her had ever surfaced on the market. To find her paintings, they first had to discover what had become of her. There was no record of a permanent alliance: no marriage; no later exhibition of paintings by a Conchita anything, née Hill; no siblings; no city, even, that either parent might have come from and she might have returned to. She sailed from Le Havre on a ship bound for Baltimore that docked in October of 1895, and there she disappeared.
Fred had worked hard on her story and recalled it easily while looking out at Cambridge. Heâd seen her now; that was flesh to attach to her story, and to another, Smykalâs.
The city was moving slowly as the rain lifted. Buses geared up and droned. Dogs walked their masters and mistresses. Children dressed for soccer converged on the parks. At this moment Sam was playing baseball in Arlington, and Fred was missing the game.
Who was the author of the picture Clay had bought? Fredâs lucky hit of the morning made him itch to establish the painterâs identity. And thinking about it would distract him from the loud noise he was waiting for on Turbridge Street.
Fred found a meter open in front of a place on the other side of the square from Turbridge Street, and he went in and drank coffee, running through his mind the names of artists who could have been close enough to Conchita to record her in her skin.
Such things were not the same in 1890 as they are now, not even in gay Paree. There was as much of a social gulf between artists and models as there was between artists and peasants or, for that matter, between peasants and professional models. The peasants would not take off their clothes except for two or three occasions in their lifetimes: birth, marriage, death. In Paris, models who undressed, either for students or for artists, were inclined to be not French but Italian immigrants. Some French city girls who had no expectations were also willing to work hard and preferred modeling to the more dangerous other option available.
Students and friends did not then, as they do now, model for each other, unless clothed. For all that the human nude was exhibited as frankly and commonly as cows and chickens, only the rare American young lady would have had the presence and aplomb to serve as the original for the painting Clayton had purchased. But from the little theyâd been able to learn about her, it seemed Conchita had been a jolly, open-minded girl, quite willing to test social frontiers.
Seven or eight names roved in Fredâs mind as he finished the coffee and tossed the crumpled cup in the basket next to the door as he walked out. He
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