Sleeping Bather by Théodore Chassériau

 (1850)

Today's wallpaper is  by Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856) and is a remarkably frank nude portrait for the time. It was a body that the artist knew well, however, as she was his lover, Alice Ozy (1820-1893), born Julie Justine Pilloy, the daughter of a Parisian jeweller. Julie worked as an embroideress in Paris and then Lyon.  Returning to Paris, the sixteen year old Julie caught the eye of an actor at a dance hall in Montparnasse. He suggested she become an actress (he suggested several other things to her as well) and got her some small roles. She got her first real role in vaudeville at the age of seventeen and took the stage name Alice Ozy (based on her mother's maiden name). For the next five years her roles and acclaim increased until by 1845, she was one of the best regarded young actresses in Paris.With this fame came wealthy male admirers.  Like many actresses of the time she became a courtesan, being paid by wealthy men for ' companionship'. One of her lovers left her a large legacy when she was still young, which she invested wisely.  In 1843 she started a relationship with the novelist and poet Theophile Gautier and in short order also 'entertained' the writer Nestor Roqueplan, the Emperor Napoleon's son, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (the future Napoleon III of France) as well as Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, the son of the then King of France, Louis-Philippe. She was never short of suitors and later had an affair with Charles Hugo, the son of the novelist Victor Hugo.  Charles, fed up with Alice's other lovers asked his father what he should do about the situation, whereupon Victor bombarded her with erotic poems and took her as his (additional) mistress instead, much to his son's annoyance. All this ended in 1848, when she fled the revolution in Paris for London.

Portrait of Alice Ozy (1848) by Chassériau

When she returned to Paris, later in 1848, she started a two year, tempestuous relationship with the painter of this picture Théodore Chassériau.  Their relationship ended when she asked him for one of his paintings which he intended for his family. He refused but she insisted and eventually, in order to end the arguments, he agreed to give it to her (so to speak). It just happened that he was enjoying breakfast with Alice at her apartment when the painting arrived by carriage from his studio. In a fit of remorse at giving the painting to Alice, he slashed it to ribbons in front of her and walked out on her for good.  She retired from the stage in 1855 and reverted to her birth name of Julie Pilloy. using her friends in the banking world to increase her fortune. She bought a house outside Paris and kept a lavish apartment on the Boulevard Haussmann.

Time Slaying Love

Another lover of Ozy's was the artist Gustave Doré, who designed a special clock for Ozy's apartment in Paris, where it was displayed in the entrance hall. Called Time Slaying Love it shows Time slaying cherubs with his spear. The message from Ozy was that any relationship with her was going to be fleeting, as time is the enemy of love (how very true). Julie Justine Pilloy remained unmarried (although far from without male companionship) and died, a wealthy woman, in her apartment on March 3rd 1892, at the age of 72.  Chassériau died many years before this, at the age of 37 after years of ill health