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Madame X (Madame Gautreau)
Artist / Origin: John Singer Sargent (American, 1856–1925)
Region: Europe
Date: 1883–84
Period: 1800 CE – 1900 CE
Material: Oil on canvas
Medium: Painting
Dimensions: H: 82 1/8 in. (208.6 cm.), W: 43 ¼ in. (109 cm.)
Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit: Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Arthur Hoppock Hearn Fund/Photo by Max Yawney
Fragment of a wall relief showing the sister of Djehutyhotep
Artist / Origin: Unknown artist, Deir el-Bersha, Egypt
Region: Africa
Date: Middle Kingdom, 12th Dynasty, ca. 1850 BCE
Period: 3000 BCE – 500 BCE
Material: Painted limestone relief
Medium: Sculpture
Dimensions: H: 28 ¼ in. (71.5 cm.), W: 12 ¼ (33.5 cm.)
Location: The British Museum, London, UK
Credit: © British Museum/Art Resource, NY
For thousands of years, the female body has been a primary subject in art. How this body has been represented can give us insight into a given culture’s sex and gender ideologies, its ideals of beauty, and its attitudes toward the body. Painted thousands of years apart, Sargent’s Madame X and Djehutyhotep’s sister strike a similar pose. Viewed within their original contexts, however, they communicated very different ideas.