Daphnis et Chloé - just a boy and a girl in the woods

François Gérard, circa 1824.

(Freely edited and adapted from Wikipedia)

Daphnis and Chloe (Greek: Δάφνις καὶ Χλόη) is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist Longus. Nothing is known of the author's life, or even if that was his actual name. If it indeed was, he was possibly a freedman of some Roman family which bore the name as a cognomen. The novel was given a contemporary setting on the isle of Lesbos, when and where scholars assume the author to have lived.

Daphnis et Chloé demandant à un vieux chevrier ce que c'est que l'amour, by Lancelot-Théodore, comte de Turpin de Crissé, 1809.

It's the tale of a boy - Daphnis - and a girl - Chloe - each of whom is left abandoned - as a form of infanticide - out in the country. But a goatherd named Lamon discovers Daphnis, and a shepherd called Dryas finds Chloe. Each decides to raise the child he finds as his own. The two children grow up together, herding the flocks of their foster parents. They fall in love but, being completely naive, do not understand what to do with their feelings. Philetas, a wise old cowherd, explains to them what love is and tells them that the only cure is kissing. They do this.... Eventually, Lycaenion, a woman from the city, educates Daphnis in love-making. He decides not to test his newly acquired skill on Chloe, however, because Lycaenion tells him that Chloe "will scream and cry and lie bleeding heavily [as if murdered]." Throughout the book, Chloe is courted by suitors, two of whom - Dorcon and Lampis - attempt with varying degrees of success to abduct her. She is also carried off by raiders from a nearby city and only saved by the intervention of the god Pan. Meanwhile, Daphnis falls into a pit, gets beaten up, is abducted by pirates, and is very nearly raped. [!] In the end, the two lovers are recognized by their birth parents, get married, and live out the rest of their lives in bucolic contentment.

Konstantin Somov, 1930.

John-Étienne Chaponnière, 1828.

Paris Bordone, circa 1555-60.

Set design for the Diaghilev production of Daphnis et Chloé, by Léon Bakst, 1912.

Jehan-Georges Vibert, 1866.

Nicolas-Andre Monsiau, 1817.

Pedro Weingärtner, 1891.

Joseph-Marius Ramus, 1835.

François Boucher, 1743.

Harold Speed, 1924.

Pieter van der Werff, circa 1700.

Adriaen van der Werff, circa 1694.

Gerald Brockhurst, circa 1914.

Louis Hersent, 1842.

Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, 1874.

Dominique Papety, circa 1830s-40s.

Idylle, by Camille-Félix Bellanger, 1893 (?).

Pierre Cabanel, circa 1870.

Victor Borisov-Musatov, 1901.

L'Orage, by Pierre-Auguste Cot, 1880.

Jean-Pierre Cortot, 1825.

Printemps, by Jean-Francois Millet 1865.

Maurice Denis, 1918.

Daphnis et Chloé revenant de la montagne, by Charles Gleyre, circa 1850.

The Wooing of Daphne, by Arthur Lemon, 1881.

Idylle, by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1852.

Paysage avec Daphnis et Chloé, by François-Louis Français, circa 1897.

Le jeune Boris - portraits of Boris Snejkovsky by Konstantin Somov

"The Boxer", 1933. Somov's oil technique was never secure - and he much preferred to work in watercolor and gouache - but this painting is surely a masterpiece.

The versatile and prolific Russian artist Konstantin Somov, a prominent member of the Mir Iskusstva (World of Art) group before the Revolution, left Soviet Russia in 1923, emigrating first to the United States before settling soon after - and much more congenially - in Paris; Paris had a vibrant émigré community - the "White Russians" who had fled the Revolution - and the artist had spent time there before the war. In about 1930, Somov met a twenty-year old young man who would inspire several of Somov's best later works. He would sit for straightforward portrait drawings, beautiful, mildly suggestive oil paintings, and he may have been the model for more erotic watercolors. Somov was a homosexual, but the exact nature of his relationship with his model and friend is unknown. What is known is that the artist gifted a group of the drawings and paintings to the sitter, including a self -portrait that the young man had asked Somov to make for him. The images that seem certain to be portrayals of the artist's young muse were completed between 1930 and 1937.

Portrait of Boris Snejkovsky, 1930.

Boris Snejkovsky with a cigarette, 1932.

1933. With a dedication to the sitter: à B. S./Souvenir de Granvilliers./C. Somov./Sept. 1933

Boris Snejkovsky in a pink shirt, 1933.

Boris Snejkovsky in Profile, 1936.

Jeune homme allongé, 1936.

Jeune homme nu, 1937.

Self-portrait, 1933. Made at the request and as a gift to Boris Snejkovsky; Somov was sixty-four - he died six years later - and the model was twenty-three.

***

I haven't been able to gather much information* on Somov's model: Boris Mikhailovich Snejkovsky was born 23 July 1910, in Odessa. His father was a ship captain with the Russian Volunteer Fleet. At the time of the Revolution, seven-year-old Boris and his mother traveled the entire breadth of the country - from Odessa to Vladivostok - to rejoin his father and his ship. The family left Russia in May of 1919, arriving at Ellis Island a month later. We next find the family in Istanbul in 1920 then, two years later, traveling on to Gołdap in East Prussia (now Poland); his mother had a sister living there. The were not there long - less than year? - before moving to Berlin. But they only stayed in the German capital a few months before settling permanently in Paris. Boris would become a naturalized French citizen in 1937. He also married that year and began his military service; he was demobilized in 1940 after the Fall of France, and divorced in 1942. At some later date he remarried - to Christiane Karcher - had at least one child, and was listed as working as an accountant and a physical education teacher. He committed suicide 24 February 1978 at the age of sixty-seven, and was buried in the Russian cemetery at Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois where many émigrés - including Somov - are buried.

Boris and his mother, Odessa, circa 1912.

*The photograph and most of the biographical information I've shared here are from a French blog written by the wife of Boris' grandson.

Des diverses dames

Hortense Thayer née Bertrand, by Louis Janmot, circa 1840s.

Fashion illustration by Robert Dammy, 1912-13.

Estrella Boissevain in fashion shot, by Horst P. Horst, circa 1938.

Mannequin articulé, circa 1800.

Portrait of a lady as Diana, by Jacob Huysmans, circa 1674.

 Madeleine comtesse de Montgomery, madame Jean Bonnardel, by Federico Beltrán Masses 1934.

Unknown subject, unknown artist, circa 1850s. From the Serbian Royal collection.

Portrait of a Young Lady, by Louis Hersent, 1830.

Presumed portrait of Clara Wieck Schumann, by Charles-François Phelippes, 1839. (A year before her marriage.)

Ragazza con il libro rosso, by Arturo Noci, 1925.

Portrait of a Lady, by Konstantin Somov, 1936.

Hortense Mancini, by Pierre Mignard, 1671.

Lady of the Polignac family, unknown artist, circa 1780s. Though identified as Diane Louise Augustine de Polignac,
more likely this is her niece, Aglaé Louise Françoise Gabrielle de Polignac, duchesse de Gramont et Guiche.

Ulrike Sophie Herzogin zu Mecklenburg, by Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewski, 1780.

Viscountess Chaplin née the Hon. Gwladys Wilson, by Philip de László, 1915.

Unknown, circa 1910-20.

Fashion illustration by Armand Vallée, 1914.

Contessa Maria Benedetta di San Martino, by Pompeo Batoni, 1785.

Françoise Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan as Iris,
attributed to Louis Ferdinand Elle le jeune, circa 1670s.

Diane Gabrielle Damas de Thianges, duchesse de Nevers, unknown artist, circa 1670s. (Niece of the above.)

Augusta of Hesse-Kassel, Duchess of Cambridge, with her two elder children, George and Augusta,
by Melchior Gommar Tieleman, 1823.

María Edwards McClure, Madame Errázuriz, by Sir William Orpen, 1915.

Infanta Isabel of Spain, Countess Gurowski, by Carlos Luis de Ribera y Fieve, 1860.

A Classical Lady, by John William Godward, 1908.

Encarnación Ezcurra, wife of Argentine Dictator Juan Manuel de Rosas,
by Fernando García de Molino and Carlos Morel, circa 1835.

Retrato de señora, by Fernando García del Molino, circa 1840s-50s.

Mrs. John Winthrop, by John Singleton Copley, 1773.

Lady Almeria Carpenter, by Sir William Beechey, 1790.

Doña Lucia Carranza de Rodríguez Orey, by Charles Henri Pellegrini, 1831.

Portrait of Lady on a Divan with Dog, by Julio Vila y Prades, 1905.

Portrait of a Lady in a Blue Dress, by Christian Albrect Jensen, 1824.

Unknown subject, miniature by François Dumont, circa 1795.

"Bluebeard’s Wives", a staged photograph from a children’s play, circa 1900.

La Réponse à la lettre, by Jean Augustin Franquelin, 1827.

De Gracieuse magazine cover, 1936. (De Gracieuse was a Dutch fashion magazine published from 1862 to 1936.)

Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, by Giuseppe Bonito, circa 1748.

Madame de Saint-Maurice, by Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, 1776.

Self-portrait, by Sofia Adlersparre, 1840.

Doña Ana de Velasco y Téllez-Girón, duquesa de Braganza, by Juan Pantoja de la Cruz, 1603.

A Lady in Black, by George Spencer Watson, 1922.

"La Russe", by William McGregor Paxton, 1913.

Fashion illustration for Worth, by George Barbier, 1921.

Portrait of a Young Lady, attributed to Jan Miense Molenaer, 1635.

"Club Allegro Fortissimo, Paris" by William Klein, 1990.

Princess Ruspoli, duchesse de Gramont, by Philip de László, 1922.