LaFarge, the artist, seems to be supported alike by professional etiquette and public opinion in his determination to preserve the secrets of the identity of the ladies who have posed for him as more, or less, nude models. It strikes me that he would be less than a man, certainly a good deal less than a gentleman, if he took a different course. And that reminds me how, thirty years ago or so, a great row was made up here in New York and an art school broken up by an art student violatin’ faith with a model. It was the days when “the Bryan gallery” was the chief “art centre” of New York, and when the National Academy of Design was in its infancy.
Nast was just then commencin’ his art studies, so were Fredericks, Hennessey, Benson, Whitaker, Jameson and Philip, and were among the pupils of this Academy of Design.
It didn’t amount to much as an academy, and It lacked the very first essential trait of education–that is “a life school,” a school in which one could study from a livin’ model. There were a few male models then to be found around New York, only a very few, and there were no female models at all. Page, as is well known, was obliged to use as a model for his Venus his own wife, and the artists who had no pretty wives were in a fix. Meanwhile the papers were howlin’ in their art criticisms for a female life subjects, but were not suggesting how these were to be got.
While matters were in this unsatisfactory state, Vice-President Cummings, of the Academy of Design, received one day a neatly written and curious letter, in a woman’s handwriting.
The writer started out by sayin’ she was a lady by birth, education and social position (a claim which her letter seemed to justify), but she had lately experienced reverses. Her husband had died, his pecuniary affairs were all entangled, his debts far exceeded his assets, and she and her little daughter were almost penniless. The writer then went on to say that she had read in the papers that the Academy of Design people wanted female life models the worst way, and couldn’t get any. If this was true she was prepared to obviate this difficulty and fulfill this desire at once.
For her little daughter’s sake the widowed writer was willin’ to pose twice a week for an hour, and even two hours at a time, nude–if well paid–cash down each time, and if protected by bein’ allowed to wear a close mask over her face, by never bein’ addressed by anybody but the professor in charge of the life-class, and especially by bein’ allowed to leave the academy buildin’ fifteen minutes before any of the students left it, so that her place of residence would not be known to any.
These terms were at once unanimously agreed to by the teachers and students connected with the Academy of Design, and Vice-President Cummings forthwith wrote a letter to that effect.
Wednesdays and Fridays were chosen as the days for her posin’, two hours each time, and there was always a big attendance of the life-class at those occasions.
The lady had a really perfect figure (whatever might be her face), tall, yet full, superbly proportioned, a refined, sensitive woman, too (spite the fact that she posed entirely nude), for natural modesty was illustrated strikingly In all her gestures. One old artist, who was a very young artist then, says that in all Europe he never saw a finer model for the female form divine, and the amount of Dianas, Venuses, nymphs, etc., that got copied was just simply immense.
But nature was at work among the students as well as art, and one of the life-class, a raw-boned, angular, ugly chap from Wisconsin, fell in love with the form of the woman whose face he had never seen. One day the model came not. It was Friday and the life-class was full in attendance, but although it waited an hour, no model put in an appearance.
But just as the life-class was about to disperse disappointed and disgusted, a boy rushed in bearin’ a note, and then rushed out even more quickly than he entered. The note was addressed to Vice-President Cummings and was opened by him in the presence of the students, who crowded around him.
The note was short, brief and to the point. It was from the model and said that she would come no more. The condition of her comin’ to, or rather her goin’ away from, the academy had been grossly violated. One of the life-class had on the previous Wednesday, in violation of the fifteen-minute law, met her at the door as she was leavin’ and had dared to address her and to ask permission to accompany her home. The contract with her bein’ thus broken, her arrangement with the academy was ended.
Neither Cummings nor any of the students could do anythin’ further. None of ‘em knew their beautiful model’s name or residence–to their honor be it said. They were all in ignorance on these point–ignorant like gentlemen.
But they soon found out the raw-boned chap to whom they owed their then irreparable misfortune, and they went for him. He was by a unanimous vote expelled, and all the students and professors agreed never to speak to, recognize or associate with him, and they kept their word. The too lovin’ youth had to return in disgrace to his wild West.
But the life-school broke up. The matter got into the papers, and there was even more fuss about this case than there has been about the LaFarge case now.
[Editor’s notes: The source of this anecdote is unknown, and may be apocryphal, though it is plausible. There were ads in New York newspapers in the 1840s and 1850s for male models for the Academy of Design life-school. However, no advertisements for female models can be found in digitized New York newspapers of that period; and there is no mention of newspaper art critics clamoring for live female models.
In the 1860s, New York humorist Frederic Swartwout Cozzens penned a widely circulated short story, “The New Godiva,” that had a similar theme. In this short story, an English servant whose fiancé left for England desires to reunite with him, but is penniless. A painter of the Academy of Design suggests she pose for the life-school in order to earn her passage home.
In June, 1885, artist John Lafarge was sued by a decorative print company that he had helped found, but subsequently retired from. When he left, Lafarge took with him photographs of the female models he had used. The company said that the photos were theirs, created on their behalf. Lafarge and the community of artists argued that photos were taken of models only after they were assured they would never leave possession of the artist. Public sentiment was overwhelmingly on the side of Lafarge.]
