Venus with a dog 1: By Jean-Honoré Fragonard

Young woman playing with dog (La Gimblette) (1765-1772)

We have had a few pictures featuring ladies with dogs before.  There is one in our post on Mario Tauzin and another in our post on Chéri Hérouard. Artists have quite often included dogs in erotic art, not necessarily because of any desire to depict women in intimate congress with them but more, we would suggest, to imply something of the smell of a woman; particularly their nether regions, as we will see in the future.

Here we have two definitely erotic, but also delicate, works by the French artist Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806).  Fragonard was born in the world capital of perfume, Grasse.  Originally destined to be a notary his artistic talent was spotted, as an eighteen year old, by François Boucher and his progress was so rapid that he won the Prix de Rome even before he enrolled in the Academy.  After studying in Rome he became a favourite of the court of Louis XIV, producing a number of erotic works for private consumption.  The French Revolution deprived him of his wealthy patrons and he himself felt it sensible to leave Paris for the country where he continued to paint, contributing to his total of over 550 completed paintings. However, by the time he returned to Paris, a few years before his death, he had been totally forgotten and remained so for many decades.  Now he has been rehabilitated as one of the great masters of French painting and a precursor of the Impressionists.

Girl with Dog (1768)

Fragonard's approach to this small but distinct genre includes these two paintings which rely for their erotic effect on conveying a strong tactile sense as well as similar poses revealing the backs of the subjects' thighs.

The one above, Girl with Dog,  is on display in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich.  The contact between the dog's fluffy tail and the girl's inner thighs are, no doubt, the cause of her sweet smile although it is painted in such a way to (just) allow for a more innocent explanation.

The same can be said of the top painting, Young Woman Playing with Dog.  The dog is in the shadow whereas the light in the painting is focussed on that shadowed area between her thighs.  Sometimes known as La Gimblette (a sort of pastry) Fragonard produced several versions, some now lost, where the girl is depicted as offering a pastry to the dog.  Considered very risque at the time, engravings of it were marked "not for display".

Claude Michele Clodion (1738-1814) produced a number of sculptures inspired by these pictures.

Vintage Venus as Wallpaper!

Not the sort that you put on your computer screen but real wallpaper!  Triple P was in a wine bar in the city and observed this diverting wall paper in the cellar.  

The lady we were with was most intrigued!  From their hairstyles we would guess that it is French from the twenties.  It's The Door in Cornhill, if you are ever in the neighbourhood.

Christmas Venus

A Happy Christmas (or whatever your equivalent may be) to all our readers.  We really appreciate those who come by and, especially, those who take the time to comment.  Your comments and, indeed, requests are always welcome!  When we started this blog a little over four years ago we never dreamed that it would approach the five million visits we are close to now!

Our Christmas girl is by French illustrator Aslan of whose work we will be presenting more in the New Year!

Bond Girl Venus 2: Bérénice Marlohe -Skyfall

Bérénice Marlohe in Skyfall

Triple P went to see Skyfall on Sunday which is a truly tremendous film if not, perhaps, a traditional James Bond film.  In feel it is closer to the literary Bond, oddly, perhaps, that of John Gardner rather than Ian Fleming, but does at last achieve the "grittiness" that the producers have continued to strive for (unsuccessfully) since the days of Roger Moore.  Above all it's a proper film by a proper director made with proper actors. It has more character development than all of Roger Moore's films put together.

Skyfall does, however, have more humour than Daniel Craig's previous efforts and is the first time we have actually liked him as Bond.  Fortunately, he has indicated that he is happy to keep playing Bond. We will not comment on the plot of the film other than to say it is going to be a deserved hit.  The cinema, however, was full of children under ten and it is certainly not suitable for them, not least because it is quite dialogue heavy.  I suspect it's down to parents who remember the Roger Moore Bonds which were more like children's films and haven't registered that they have evolved.

Anyway, decorating Skyfall as principal Bond Girl was French actress Bérénice Marlohe who has leaped from relative obscurity as a bit part actress on French TV to stardom in one impressive leap.

Bérénice went after the role personally, rather than through her agent, by finding the name of the casting director and e-mailing them direct.

Half French with a Cambodian/Chinese father she was finding it difficult to get roles in France as she "wasn't French enough".  Now she has appeared in a hit film she seems to have no intention of working in France again.  Quite right too.  Your loss, our little froggy chums!

Some people have observed that she looks a little like Monica Belucci.  Well, she does in some photographs.  Whatever, she is an extraordinarily beautiful woman and, interestingly, in some pictures she looks completely western and in some quite oriental.  A neat trick!

She is a comparatively elderly 33 and spent ten years of that at the Paris Conservatoire studying classical piano.

If we have any criticism of her in Skyfall it's that she is plastered in far too much make-up but her beauty and elegance shines through, fortunately.

As a previous Bond might have observed: "shplendid!"

4 million page views!

At some point in the last few days we passed 4 million page views which means that the last half a million took just two months and ten days or so to clock up.  

These milestones always give us an excuse to post a one-off picture which we have been sitting on.  This one is an image from, we suspect, the early thirties (or possibly the late twenties).  Unusually for these sorts of French photographs it contains the name of the photographer Hilde Meyer Kupfer (we have seen it written as Kupfer-Meyer in a book on German naturism).  It is not, as some sites will have it, the name of the lovely model and the photographer's name may well be a pseudonym so that she may or may not be a woman.  If she was a woman that would have been quite unusual in this period.  The AN on the bottom left of the picture stands for the Alfred Noyer studio in Paris which published many nude postcards as well as conventional subjects.

Here is another picture with the same inscription and it looks very much like the same girl.  

Erotic film Venuses 1: Eighties films part 1

A couple of weeks ago we wrote about our first encounter with a young lady, S, dressed only in a vest, shortly after seeing the film Betty Blue (1986).  At the time we couldn't remember the exact date of this enjoyable experience but since then we have discovered a little window back to the eighties that has enabled us to date it exactly.

Some of the booklets from Triple P's Filofax from the late eighties

Before the days of iPads, iPhones and what have you, the information organisation system for most people (particularly in the City where Triple P worked) was the Filofax: A small, ring-bound binder originally created by the Lefax company of Philadelphia and first imported into Britain in 1921.  For many years the only people who used them in the UK were vicars and army officers but in the early eighties they became de rigeur in the Square Mile and amongst creative types.  All sorts of accessories and booklets appeared for them.  Agent Triple P found his old Filiofax over the weekend and his contained such items as restaurant, sports and shopping guides to London; maps of London, Vancouver, Berlin, Rome, Paris and Milan; an Italian dictionary (we were spending a lot of time in Rome and Milan) addresses and diaries and other sections we had created ourselves.  There was even a supplement covering Wimbledon, where Triple P was living at the time.  Today you can get basic sheets for Filofax but nothing like the depth of content from the eighties.

The National Film Theatre tucked under Waterloo Bridge on the South Bank of the Thames

Anyway, one of the sections we had created was a list of films we had seen, covering the period 1986-1989.  It was interesting to see just how many times we went to the cinema in the late eighties compared with now.  These days we tend to wait until a film comes out on DVD and don't bother with putting up with all the other noisy, food munching people in a cinema.  Food really should be banned in cinemas and that is one of the reasons that we liked the National Film Theatre, which we were a member of at this time, as food was absolutely banned from their theatres.  The NFT was conveniently located close to Waterloo station from which it was easy to get back home.  

Looking at the list of films today it is amazing how many we don't remember ever seeing and, indeed, their titles spark no recollection whatsoever: Tenue de soirée, The Morning After, Broadcast News...  Some of the others we had completely forgotten about:  La Letrice, No Way Out, Something Wild...  The fact that there are a number of French titles is not a surprise as the NFT specialised in obscure foreign films.  These were particularly popular with our then girlfriend, S, because, as we mentioned in our piece about her, she liked films with lots of sex in.  We had a girlfriend at University, C, who only liked books if they had sex in them.  She made Triple P read out the more purple passages to her and used to get herself into a fine old self-caressing froth over them; always an enjoyable way to spend a rainy afternoon at college.  S, of course, couldn't diddle herself in the cinema (although she did have the habit of fondling Triple P's trousers to see if he was enjoying the sex scenes as much as her) but this had the extra benefit of her getting worked up into a nicely simmering level which could only be released later in the evening.

Anyway, we can now look at the "racy" (as S used to call them) films we went to see in this period as an excuse to show some pictures of actresses from the eighties.

Isabelle Adjani in Subway

Oddly, the first film we went to with S was Fantasia in July 1986.  The following month we saw Luc Besson's incredibly hip Subway (1985) at the NFT which did not have any sex scenes in it but did feature an impossibly beautiful Isabelle Adjani.

Valentina Vargas

 Christian Slater licks his lips in anticipation.  As well he might

Vargas and Slater in The Name of the Rose

At this stage Triple P's relationship with S was as a friend rather than anything physical.  Nonetheless S, who always chose the films we attended, started to select some increasingly racy ones.  Not really racy but containing one very good sex scene was The Name of the Rose (1986) which we saw in February 1987 with S, HMS and Agent DVD.  The girl getting it on with a very young Christain Slater was Chilean born but French-based actress Valentina Vargas.  Valentina happily disrobed in many of her films but nothing, perhaps, matched the passion she infused into her scene with Slater in The Name of the Rose.  Apparently director Jean-Jaques Annaud had briefed Vargas but didn't tell Slater what was going to happen resulting in a scene that genuinely conveyed sexual excitement; a rare thing in mainstream cinema.  S liked the fact that it was the girl initiating the encounter and the fact that, at least initially, she was on top. 

The next film we went to with S which had a sex scene in it was Jonathan Demme's rather odd Something Wild  (1986) featuring Melanie Griffith before she really hit it big in Working Girl (1988).  A be-stockinged Griffith, in a black wig, ties Jeff Daniels to the bed and does distracting things to him whilst he tries to make a phone call.  This was ten years after a teenage Griffith had appeared in Playboy with boyfriend Don Johnson.

Melanie in Playboy, October 1976

Again, S liked the fact that Griffith was the initiator and was on top.  This, we later found out, turned out to be by far her favourite position.  She also liked Griffith's hold-up stockings in this scene as black hold-ups  were her hosiery of choice.

Sigourney Weaver flashes in Half Moon Street

More stockings on view in our next cinematic outing with S which featured Sigourney Weaver as an unlikely prostitute in Half Moon Street (1986).  Weaver took her clothes of several times in this one but we both decided that, in fact, it would have been better if she hadn't.  A scene of a topless Weaver on an exercise bike just gave us the giggles.  Most unfortunate, as HMS would have said.

Emmanuelle appears to be playing that really annoying tune by Verdi which became even more annoying when inserted into French beer commercials

No sex in the double bill of Jean de Florette (1986) and Manon Des Sources (1986) but a brief scene of a naked 20 year old  Emmanuelle Béart which set S to musing on the desirabilty of renting a villa in Provence so that she could wander around naked, drinking pink wine (her favourite) and eating Salad  Niçoise.  Sadly, despite several attempts we never managed to organise this holiday.

Our final film of 1987 was the aformentioned Betty Blue (1986) whose sex scenes had a significant effect on pitching S and Triple P into a full blown relationship.  S was a very oral sort of girl and found these particular scenes between  Béatrice Dalle and Jean-Hugues Anglade especially exciting as she hadn't seen anything like them in any other film.

Next time we'll look at the racy films we saw with S in 1988.

Updated Venus: Joelle Corio

Before we started our official Centrefold Venus of the Month spot in July 2009 we had featured some other centrefolds.  One of these was Joelle Corio from Penthouse's October/November 1966 issue.  Recently we found another pictorial of her, from Men Only's July 1967 issue, so we have added the pictures from this to that original post.  We have also improved the resolution of the original pictures too, so our entry on Mlle Corio is much more definitive.

Venus as mistress: Early Morning by Sir William Orpen

Early Morning (1922)

This is an affectionate portrait of Yvonne Aubicque, the mistress of its painter, Irish artist Sir William Orpen (1878-1931), who has several fascinating stories connected to her which we will examine in this post.  Called, Early Morning it is a wonderful evocation of the pleasures of a mistress, as she sits surrounded by domestic detrius that indicates no great desire to leave her bed anytime soon.

William Orpen

William Orpen was born in Dublin and attended the Metropolitan School of Art there to which he was admitted at the age of eleven, such was his natural skill. At the age of seventeen he moved to London to attend the  Slade School of Art.   Catching the attention of John Singer Sargent he rapidly became one of the country's top portrait painters.  Although he married and had three children he had a string of mistresses, many of whom modelled for him, despite constant worries about his unattractiveness (caused, it is said, by overhearing his parents asking themselves why he was so ugly and their other children so attractive!).  We will look at some of his other fine nudes another time but now we just want to concentrate on one of his model/mistresses, Yvonne Aubicque.

The Spy/The Refugee I (1918)

In 1916 Orpen was appointed as an official war artist and carried on in this role after the war where he was was the offical painter of the Versailles treaty signing.  While in France he fell head over heels for Yvonne Aubicque, the daughter of the Mayor of Lille.  He painted two portraits of her during the war but when he sent the paintings back to Britain he found himself in hot water, as official war artists were only supposed to paint pictures of military subjects. 

The Spy/The Refugee II (1917)

Even worse, he had called his pictures of her "The Spy" and claimed she was a German spy who had been executed by the French, no doubt in order to give it an acceptable "military" provenance.  However, the subject of female spies was sensitive at this period as English nurse Edith Cavell had been shot by the Germans for helping allied soldiers to escape and Mata Hari had also just been executed.  Orpen found himself facing a court martial and had to confess that the paintings were of his mistress. One of Orpen's friends was Lord Beaverbrook who was instrumental in preventing the court martial, although Orpen was severely reprimanded and only just hung on to his official war artist role.  Orpen changed the name of the pictures to The Refugee and, like his war paintings, they now belong to the Imperial War Museum in London.

The Beaverbrooke copy on the Antiques Roadshow

There is an interesting coda to this story.  Last year a man brought a picture along to the filming of the BBC show Antiques Roadshow, where members of the public bring along items and a panel of experts tell them about them.  It was a copy of Orpen's The Refugee I.  The owner had taken it to the Imperial War Musem who had said it was just a standard copy. He was not convinced, however, and was puzzled by the high quality of the picture and the fact it was signed Nepro Mailliw (William Orpen written backwards).  He discovered that in 1920 Orpen had gone back to France and painted another version of the painting for Lord Beaverbrook as a thank you for helping him escape a court martial.  The expert on the show confirmed that the picture was indeed a copy but was made by Orpen himself and was the long lost Beaverbrook version.  Much to the owner's shock, he valued it at £250,000.

Yvonne Aubicque in 1918

What happened to the lovely Yvonne?  She remained as Orpen's mistress for more than ten years; although he usually ran more than one simultaneously.  When in France, after the war, he had bought a black Rolls-Royce and hired a sixteen year old called William Grover as his chauffeur.  Grover was the son of an English father and a French mother but had been born in France. He immediately took a fancy to Yvonne and she him.  You might expect all sorts of problems to follow but when Yvonne stopped being Orpen's mistress he gave her his Rolls-Royce and a large house in Paris.  Grover and Yvonne married in 1929.  Grover had always been keen on cars and motorcycles and started to race motorcycles at the age of fifteen.  Worried about what his father might think he used the pseudonym W Williams when he started to race. By 1926 he had graduated to car racing.  In 1928 he won the French Grand Prix and in 1929, in a British Racing Green Bugatti, he won the inaugural Monaco Grand Prix.  Now known as Grover-Williams he retired from racing to concentrate on business, including working for Bugatti and running a kennel where Yvonne bred Highland Terriers which she successfully showed at Crufts dog show, eventually becoming a judge there. They were a wealthy couple and, apparently, good dancers, winning several competitions.

Grover Williams leading the 1929 Monaco Grand Prix

With the German invasion of France Grover-Williams fled to Britain where, because of his fluency in both French and English, he was recruited into the Special Operations Executive where he was trained at their wartime base, the home of Lord Montague, Beaulieu in Hampshire, now, ironically, the site of the National Motor Museum.  Grover-Williams was dropped into France, with no contacts or support on the ground, and was instructed to set up a new resistance network in Paris, as the previous one had been compromised. Yvonne moved back to Paris as well although she lived in their house in Rue Weber while he lived in a seperate apartment.  He recruited two former fellow racing drivers and they began sabotage work, principally at the Citroen factory.  In August 1943 Grover-Williams was captured by the Germans as their network had been compromised and it was believed that he was interrogated by the Gestapo and shot almost immediately.

However, in the 1990's a different story emerged.  It looked as if Grover-Williams survived and was taken to a prison camp in Poland.  It then appears that he joined MI6 after the war.  Even more strangely, in 1948 a man called George Tambal turned up at Yvonne's house in Evreux and moved in with her. She introduced him as her cousin but the locals thought they acted more like lovers.  He claimed to have arrived from America via Uganda, bringing animals for the depleted zoos of Europe. Grover-Williams, it should be noted, had family in America and a sister in Uganda. Also, amazingly, Tambal's date of birth was exactly the same as Grover-Willams. Tambal was very knowlegeable about motor cars and bore the scars of a beating around the head. 

No-one has ever proved it conclusively but it looks like Grover-Williams survived the war, joined MI6 (MI6 have admitted they know what happened to Grover-Willams but they won't say what) and then rejoined his wife in Evreux.  She died in 1973 and Tambal/Grover-Williams was killed in 1983, at the age of eighty, having been knocked off his bicycle by a car driven by a German tourist.

Elements of this remarkable story were used by Robert Ryan in his novel Early One Morning in which a fictionalised version of Yvonne Aubique appears as Eve Aubique.

Sir William Orpen died in Kensington 1931, possibly from complications arising from syphillis, and at the time was probably the most famous artist in Britain.

Venus by Request: Béatrice Chatelier

Béatrice from Cavalier December 1971

We have had a request for more pictures of the current Centrefold of the Week.  This picture is from her appearance in Cavalier magazine from exactly forty years ago.

The person making the request assumed her name was a pseudonym but, in fact, Béatrice Chatelier is her real name. She was born in the Gironde, in France, in 1951, the daughter of a vineyard proprieter, and was an actress from the late sixties until the early eighties, appearing in nine films as well as on stage.

Here is Béatrice in Les Charlots Fonts l'Espagne (1972) a film about a pop group visiting Spain where her character was called, appropriately, Sublime.

As a teenager she went to Paris and met French record producer Eddie Barclay, famous for his work with Charles Aznovour, and they got married although he was fifty and she was nineteen. 

Not surprisingly the marriage didn't last very long.  Barclay went on to be married nine times.  She went on to marry French actor Guy Marchand who was only fourteen years older than her.

In April 1972 she appeared in a brief but effective pictorial in the French Lui magazine.

You can say what you like about France and the French (and we are not the best of friends this week) but the country does have this ability to produce gorgeous starlet after gorgeous starlet and for that we should be grateful.