Chloé (artwork)

Chloé on display at the National Gallery of Victoria, 1883

Chloé at the Young and Jackson Hotel

Chloé made its debut at the Paris Salon 1875, where it drew critical praise. It was subsequently displayed in Australia at the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition and the Melbourne International Exhibition.[1]

Chloé was then purchased by Dr Thomas Fitzgerald of Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, for 850 guineas.[3] Fitzgerald loaned the painting to the National Gallery of Victoria. In 1883, controversy arose when the painting was to be exhibited on Sundays, so Fitzgerald withdrew Chloé from the gallery.[4] In response artist Alexander Colquhoun, in satirical verse at The Buonarotti Club that year, urged the Victorian National Gallery to rehang the painting.[5] Upon Fitzgerald's death in 1908, the painting was purchased at auction by Henry Figsby Young, owner of the Young and Jackson Hotel.[3] In 1908, Young installed the painting in the hotel's saloon bar.[3]

The model who posed for the painting has been the subject of much speculation and mythologising, with many accounts depicting her as having had a love affair with Lefebvre, and committing suicide after he declined to marry her. Such stories are believed to be the result of many decades of bar-room gossip at the Young and Jackson Hotel.[1]

An ardent admirer of Chloé since its debut at the 1875 Paris Salon, American journalist Lucy Hamilton Hooper travelled to Lefebvre's studio to ask him about the painting. She quoted him as saying that, after completing the painting, he traveled abroad for a few months, and on his return learned that the model had died:[1]

She was a girl of more refinement and elevation of sentiment than is usually to be found among persons of her position, and, being in the hands of a gang of low confederates, they had attempted to force her into a way of life from which her soul revolted. Thus driven to despair, the poor child poisoned herself by washing phosphorus from friction matches, and then swallowing the decoction.

The only other first-hand account of the model, and her possible identity, is Irish writer George Moore's in his 1886 memoir Confessions of a Young Man. According to Moore, the model's name was Marie, and he met her through the Symbolist painter Louis Welden Hawkins. According to Moore, "no one knew why" the model committed suicide, but said there were rumors it was due to unrequited love.[1]

Mention was made in the Argus on 5 March 1887 of another painting of Chloé at the second annual exhibition of the Australian Artists' Association at Buxton's art gallery in Swanston Street;

Mr. J. C. Waite sends in a [ ... ] half-length figure entitled "Chloe," which is stated to be a portrait of the young lady who sat to M. Lefebvre as a model for the picture of the same name. It is a charming head and face, with the roundness, freshness, and bloom of youth in the countenance, and a look of innocence and simplicity, which is not always associated with the female models of Parisian artists.[6]

On the basis of that report researcher Katrina Kell surmises that if the painting, like others in the Association's exhibition, had "been done during the last six months" as stated at the opening, then Chloé may have lived, and been painted by Waite, in Melbourne.[7]

In 1908 the same artist, who was James Clarke Waite who had studied for a year in Paris,[8] showed (likely the same) "charming portrait of the model who sat for the much discussed picture Chloé," of which the Herald newsaper assures readers "who have objection to studies in the nude, will be pleased to learn that in this work Chloe appears fully clothed in modern dress."[9] A 1914 Herald report of exhibitions by Waite notes the success of his show at the Athenaeum with purchases made "by Mr [Henry Figsby] Young, who, years ago, bought Lefevre's [sic] Chloe, the property of the late Sir Thomas Fitzgerald, and has now purchased Mr Waite's portrait of the same beautiful French girl."[10] The painting is not known to have survived in Young's possession as many of Waite's paintings were reportedly destroyed[11] five years after his death in a fire at the Melbourne Town Hall in 1925.[12]

• Paris Salon Exhibition, 1875
• Sydney International Exhibition, 1879
• Melbourne International Exhibition (1880)
• Adelaide Gallery Exhibition, 1883 - 1886
• Blamey House Women's Auxiliary
• Fundraiser, 1940
• National Gallery of Victoria 1883, 1995, 2000

• 1879 – Won highest award at the Sydney International Exhibition
• 1880 – Won highest award at the Melbourne International Exhibition

On Friday, 24 September 2004, at 8:30 pm, a hotel patron fell against the painting and caused long vertical cracks in its 5-millimetre (0.2 in)-thick protective glass.[13] Art experts said the damage was minor and would not affect the overall value of the painting.[13] It was repaired at the Ian Potter Conservation Centre in the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, where it waited for protective German glass to be imported, and was restored to the hotel bar on 13 October 2004.[14]

Chloé is to remain part of the hotel forever, as decided by the National Trust and Heritage of Victoria in 1988.