Author: KATRINA KELL
The French Australian Review 76 (Australian Winter 2024): 51-76.
https://doi.org/10.62586/HHBB3070
The painting Chloé (1875), by French academician and artist Jules Joseph Lefebvre, was the muse and inspiration for my eponymous historical novel Chloé (2024). Who was the ‘voiceless’ woman Lefebvre once painted so masterfully, an enigma whose lived experience remained locked in the ‘great dark book’ of history? Since the painting, Chloe , arrived in the Australian colonies in the late-nineteenth century, it has captivated the imagination of its viewers. Chloé won awards and incited scandals and, since 1909, has been a star attraction and curiosity at Young and Jackson’s Hotel in Melbourne. The academic nude painting’s unusual location in an Australian pub has elevated its notoriety, and the male gaze of hotel patrons may have contributed to the myths and presumed identities imposed on Chloé’s model. Analysis of a diverse range of textual artifacts offered valuable insights into the Parisian world of both Lefebvre and Chloé’s model, revealing intriguing echoes between the warfare associated with the painting’s history and Chloé’s manifestation as a ‘mythic war maiden’ to generations of Australian servicemen. Ultimately, this fusion of historical research and the intuitive remaking of Chloé narratives in a work of historical fiction offers fresh insights and interpretations of a celebrated Melbourne cultural icon.
Keywords: Chloé (1875), Jules Joseph Lefebvre, artists models, Franco-Australian art history, literature
Purchase single article PDF AUD $5.50 inc GST where applicable