Robert de Montesquiou


Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac was a French aesthete, Symbolist poet, painter, art collector, art interpreter, and dandy. He is reputed to have been the inspiration both for Jean des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysmans' À rebours and, most famously, for the Baron de Charlus in Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu. In his play Chantecler, Edmond Rostand is said to have caricatured Montesquiou as the Peacock, 'Prince of the unexpected adjective.'" Some believe that he may have been an inspiration for the character Lord Henry in the 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

Family

Robert de Montesquiou was a scion of the French Montesquiou-Fézensac family. His paternal grandfather was Count Anatole de Montesquiou-Fézensac, aide-de-camp to Napoleon and grand officer of the Légion d'honneur; his father was Anatole's third son, Thierry, who married Pauline Duroux, an orphan, in 1841. With his wife's dowry, Thierry bought a country house at Charnizay, built a mansion in Paris, and was elected vice-president of the Jockey Club. He was a successful stockbroker who left a substantial fortune. Robert was the last of his parents' children, after brothers Gontran and Aymery, and sister Élise. His cousin, Élisabeth, Countess Greffulhe, was one of Marcel Proust's models for the Duchess of Guermantes in À la recherche du temps perdu.

Depictions

Montesquiou had the ambition to be the most photographed person in the world.
Montesquiou had a strong influence on Émile Gallé, a glass artist with whom he collaborated, and from whom he commissioned major works, and from whom he received hundreds of adulatory letters. He also wrote the verses found in the optional choral parts of Gabriel Fauré's Pavane.
The portrait Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac was painted in 1891–92 by Montesquiou's close friend, and model for many of his eccentric mannerisms, James Whistler. The portrait is in the Frick Collection in Manhattan. The French artist Antonio de La Gandara produced several portraits of Montesquiou.

Persona and sexuality

One author provides the following written portrait of Montesquiou:

Sexuality

Montesquiou was a "notorious homosexual" and "the most famous dandy" in Paris, who was famed for his lifestyle during the Belle Époque. His flamboyant homosexuality was certainly public knowledge by 1908, when he published a collection of poems and intimate letters dedicated to his deceased partner,, or 1909, when a book on the lives of the homosexual aesthetes of the fin de siècle was published, though he may have been able to hide his sexuality behind the guise of only following the associated aesthetics. Montesquiou was possibly a partial model for the protagonist of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray, and was a major source for the character Baron de Charlus in good friend Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time – particularly its 1921 fourth part, Sodom and Gomorrah – at which point he was effectively outed to the world.
In 1885, he began a close long-term relationship with Gabriel Yturri, a South American immigrant from Tucumán, Argentina, who became his secretary, companion, and lover. After Yturri died of diabetes, Henri Pinard replaced him as secretary in 1908 and eventually inherited Montesquiou's much reduced fortune. Montesquiou and Yturri are buried alongside each other at Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles, Île-de-France, France.

Society appearances and gatherings

Montesquiou had social relationships and collaborations with many celebrities of the fin de siècle period, including Alphonse Daudet, Edmond de Goncourt, Eleonora Duse, Sarah Bernhardt, Gabriele d'Annunzio, Anna de Noailles, Marthe Bibesco, Luisa Casati, Maurice Barrès, Franca Florio, and Samuel Jean Pozzi.

''An Adventure''

In his biography, Philippe Jullian proposes that the Moberly–Jourdain incident in 1901, in which Charlotte Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain claimed to experience time travel in the grounds of the Petit Trianon, is explained by their stumbling into a rehearsal of one of Montesquiou's Tableaux Vivants, with his friends dressed in period costume. Joan Evans, who owned the copyright to An Adventure, Moberly and Jourdain's account of their experiences, accepted this solution and forbade any further editions.

Olympics

In June 1900, Montesquiou finished third in the hacks and hunter combined event during the International Horse Show in Paris. The event was part of the Exposition Universelle, and later classified as part of the 1900 Summer Olympics.

Works

Montesquiou's poetry has been called untranslatable, and it was poorly received by critics at the time. "n tune with the majority of Montesquiou's critics was the opinion of Paul Morand, who wrote:"
As for his paintings, he showed them "only to a few individuals, but after his death over a hundred of them were exhibited in 1923 at the Galeries Georges Petit...." "Montesquiou's work has been offered at auction multiple times, with realized prices ranging from 325 USD to 2,520 USD...."
As for his art interpretation, he excelled "perhaps far beyond his accomplishments as a poet.... This art interpreter published books, catalogues, articles, and extensive passages in his memoirs devoted to painters, sculptors, and craftsmen...."

Poetry

  • Les Chauves-Souris, Clairs obscurs.
  • Le Chef des odeurs suaves, Floréal extrait
  • Le Parcours du rêve au souvenir
  • Les Hortensias bleus
  • Les Perles rouges : 93 sonnets historiques
  • Les Paons
  • Prières de tous : Huit dizaines d'un chapelet rythmique
  • Calendrier Robert de Montesquiou pour 1903
  • Calendrier Robert de Montesquiou 1904
  • Passiflora
  • Les Paroles diaprées, cent dédicaces
  • Les Paroles diaprées, nouvelle série de dédicaces
  • Les Offrandes blessées : élégies guerrières
  • Nouvelles Offrandes blessées
  • Offrande coloniale
  • Sabliers et lacrymatoires : élégies guerrières et humaines
  • Un moment du pleur éternel : offrandes innommées
  • Les Quarante bergères : Portraits satiriques..., with a frontispiece by Aubrey Beardsley

Essays

  • Félicité : étude sur la poësie de Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, suivie d'un essai de classification de ses motifs d'inspiration
  • Roseaux pensants
  • Apollon aux lanternes
  • Autels privilégiés
  • Alice et Aline, une peinture de Chassériau
  • Musée rétrospectif de la classe 90
  • Alfred Stevens
  • Pays des aromates
  • L'Inextricable graveur : Rodolphe Bresdin
  • Professionnelles beautés
  • Altesses sérénissimes
  • Assemblée de notables
  • Saints d'Israël
  • Brelan de dames : essai d'après trois femmes auteurs
  • Têtes d'expression
  • Paul Helleu, peintre et graveur
  • Têtes Couronnées
  • Majeurs et mineurs
  • Diptyque de Flandre, Triptyque de France
  • Les Délices de Capharnaüm
  • Élus et Appelés
  • ''Le Mort remontant''

Novels

  • La Petite mademoiselle
  • ''La Trépidation''

Biographies

  • Le Chancelier de fleurs : douze stations d'amitié
  • La Divine Comtesse : Étude d'après Madame de Castiglione
  • L'Agonie de Paul Verlaine, 1890–1896

Theatre

  • Mikhaïl, Mystère en quatre scènes, in verse

Memoirs

  • Les Pas effacés: mémoires, ''3 vol.''