Maybe Not "A Portrait of Mistinguett"

Early History & Provenance

The 1976 book “The Guggenheim Museum Collection” states that the painting was purchased from
M. Axel, Paris by Pierre Granville in 1952, Early History Unknown — subsequently purchased by
the Guggenheim Museum in 1966.

Is This “A Portrait of Mistinguett”?

Simone Collinet stated that she had exhibited the portrait at her Galerie Fürstenberg in 1956 and proposed at the time that it may have depicted Mistinguett. It is unclear how she arrived at this conclusion, though it appears Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia may have agreed with her, at least tentatively.

In 1962, Pierre Granville received letters from both Gabrièle Buffet-Picabia and Denise de Lima, who found the resemblance to Mistinguett plausible. But in the years following Picabia’s death in 1953, both women played key roles in shaping his posthumous reputation—a legacy deeply entangled with biography, mythology, and market reception.

In comparing the portrait to photographs of Mistinguett, the identification seems speculative at best. It’s possible that biography and visual resemblance were allowed to align a little too easily.

Of course, they could not have known that “Jeanne Marie Bourgeois” may not have referred to an actual person at all—but instead to an insider pun, staged in the language of Dada.

Inspired by Morée—1917

The 1976 Guggenheim book says that the signature and date were painted over some cracks in the original paint film, raising some questions over why the painting was signed and dated after the fact—and whether the sitter is even Mistinguett..

Morée may offer a resolution to this confusion.. We believe that “A Portrait of Misintguett”
may not be the correct title and that the that the correct date for the painting is likely 1917.

Up until now scholars have struggled with finding a date for this painting that makes sense.
The date reads as 1907 or 1917, but the painting looks more like works from 1908-1911.

Picabia likely added the Morée-like drips in 1917, since that visual language only emerges in Dada at that point. He painted them on a canvas from 1908-1911 and that explains why the signature and date were painted over pre-existing cracks.

Also the subject appears to have mascara running down her face. Mascara was not commercially available in 1908-1911 and only came into general use around 1913 or slightly later.

These suggestions would place “Jeanne Marie Bourgeois” squarely in Dada territory where
she has always belonged.

“Jeanne Marie Bourgeois”

This painting may not only be a visual citation of Morée—it may also contain a phonetic one.

The name Jeanne Marie Bourgeois has long been assumed to identify the French performer Mistinguett.
But this rests on a persistent misreading: Mistinguett’s real name was Jeanne Florentine Bourgeois.
“Jeanne Marie Bourgeois” was never an alias or known variation.

The resemblance between Morée and Marie is striking—phonetically, visually, and conceptually.
The substitution of Marie for Florentine may not be an error, but a deliberate maneuver—
a hidden reference, veiled in plain sight.

I propose that Jeanne Marie Bourgeois is not a faithful identification of the sitter, but a symbolic, and
very Dada rewording of Mistinguett’s real name—likewise, the figure likely isn’t Mistinguett herself,
but a stylized embodiment of the Mistinguett “type”: bourgeois femininity staged as persona,
the fashionable Parisian rendered as surface and sign.