Charcoal portrait with body in light gray, by William Eaton

The Black Model, Portraits, Naming and Renaming

Comments and translation regarding the renaming of Marie-Guillemine Benoist’s “Portrait d’une négresse”, a.k.a. “Portrait de Madeleine.” This as regards the show “Le modèle noir de Géricault à Matisse” (Musée d’Orsay), earlier known as “Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today.” The comments also touch on Degas’s “Petite Danseuse” and work by Thomas Eakins, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, and the piece includes charcoal drawings by William Eaton.