By Luciano Migliaccio
Mélanie de Bussière, born in 1836, daughter of a manufacturer from Alsace, became one of the most famous women at the court of emperor Napoleon III after her marriage to Parisian financier Edmond de Pourtalès. She was introduced to Renoir by banker Dollfus and commissioned him to make the first portrait, dated 1870, and currently at the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Renoir used to say: “I enjoy jewels, when they rest on a sumptuous bosom; but by instinct I am drawn to imitations, as the idea of the value of jewels reduces the pleasure they convey.” The idea of women as jewels among other jewels in an upper-class home is stressed by the details of the embroidery of the dress, by the red tapestry, bringing to mind Ingres’ portraits of aristocratic ladies – Portrait of the Countess of Portalès. Renoir, however, suggests something more about the personality and the social role played by the Countess of Pourtalès. Zorzi quotes Proust, who might be described as “the perfect evocation of an era” and calls Renoir “the Proust of painting”, but more authentic, more forthright, with a clearer and more direct sensuality, free from the implications of memory.

— Luciano Migliaccio, 1998