Misia Sert (born Marie Sophie Olga Zénaïde Godebska)

Russian-born pianist, socialite, and patron of the arts Misia Sert became a legendary figure in early twentieth-century Paris, inspiring the work of visual artists, composers, and theater producers, namely Serge Diaghilev and his Ballets Russes. She came to be at the center of a thriving artistic community, initiating significant ballet productions and sometimes providing financial support. Because of her flamboyant personality and glamorous lifestyle, Sert became a muse of artist friends in her circle. She was frequently portrayed in their work, which she actively supported with notable commissions.

Sert was born in St. Petersburg to a cosmopolitan, artistic family: her father, Cyprien Quentin Godebski, was a Polish sculptor; her mother, Eugénie Sophie Léopoldine Servais, was the daughter of a prominent Belgian cellist. Servais died giving birth to her daughter, and Sert spent most of her childhood with her maternal grandmother in Halle, near Brussels, and with her father in Russia, who later remarried. At an early age, she showed musical talent and pursued her desire to become a concert pianist. After her father relocated to Paris, Sert attended a convent school in the city from 1882 to 1890, taking piano lessons with noted composer Gabriel Fauré. She gave her first public concert at the Théâtre d’application in Paris in 1892.

After the death of her stepmother, Matylda Rosen-Natanson, in 1887, Sert was welcomed by the Natansons, a wealthy banking family, receiving economic support and gaining more independence from her father. In April 1893 Sert married Thadée Natanson, founder and director of La Revue Blanche, which became one of the main journals of Belle Epoque culture and a crucial platform for supporting the work of emerging artists and writers. Sert built strong relationships with the group around the journal, which included such artists and composers as Tristan Bernard, Pierre Bonnard, Romain Coolus, Claude Debussy, Octave Mirbeau, Maurice Ravel, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Félix Vallotton, and Edouard Vuillard. She quickly became a muse to many of these men, who portrayed her frequently in their paintings (for example, Félix Vallotton, Misia at Her Dressing Table, 1898, Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Pierre Bonnard, Misia and Thadée Natanson, 1902, Musée Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique; and Edouard Vuillard, Misia and Vallotton at Villeneuve, 1899, private collection), as well as in two well-known posters for La Revue Blanche designed by Bonnard and Toulouse-Lautrec. With her husband, she hosted gatherings for these same personalities in their country houses in France: first near Valvins, where they lived next to the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, and after 1897 at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. They also supported these artists through direct commissions, especially painted décorations for their home. This included Vuillard’s five panels known together as Album, 1895 (consisting of The Album, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Embroidery, Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stoneware Vase, private collection; Vanity Table, private collection; and Woman in a Striped Dress, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.), which Sert and Natanson commissioned for their apartment on rue St.-Florentin.

Around 1903 Sert’s relationship with Natanson started to fall apart, while economic problems forced La Revue Blanche to close. After divorcing Natanson, Sert subsequently married Alfred Edwards, a wealthy broker and newspaper mogul, in February 1905. In summer 1905, the couple hosted artist friends such as Bonnard and Ravel on their newly built yacht Aimée. Sert’s lavish lifestyle was portrayed in Bonnard’s painting Misia Godebska (1908, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid). In 1906 Sert commissioned Bonnard to paint a group of four decorative panels for the living room of her apartment on the quai Voltaire (After the Flood, Ikeda Museum of Twentieth-Century Art, Ito, Japan; Landscape Animated with Bathers, The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Pleasure, private collection, Paris; and Water Games, Musée d’Orsay, Paris). Though Sert and Edwards separated in 1907 and divorced in February 1909, the relationship left Sert relatively well off, with a monthly stipend. Because of her expensive lifestyle, however, and uncertain financial income, Sert privately sold many works from her collection in subsequent years, including the Bonnard panels in 1915.

In 1908, Misia entered into a relationship with Spanish painter José María Sert y Badía, the recipient of prestigious commissions for decorations, marrying him in September 1920. Through him, Misia met Serge Diaghilev at the premiere of his Ballets Russes production Boris Godunov in 1908. Until the impresario’s death in 1929, Sert sponsored and promoted his endeavors not only financially but also through her extensive social network, bringing artists she appreciated to Diaghilev’s attention. For example, when in 1917 Sert met Gabrielle (Coco) Chanel, building a friendship that would last through the interwar years, Sert introduced the fashion designer to the Ballets Russes; Chanel began, in turn, to promote and collaborate with the company. While Misia’s relationship with José-María deteriorated, ending with a divorce in December 1927, her involvement in ballet productions, her tireless social presence, and her cosmopolitan lifestyle continued unchanged. To preserve the memory of her many years as a protagonist of the Parisian cultural elite, her niece Mimi Blacque-Belair helped her draft her memoirs, eventually published in 1952. The many artworks in her collection that she had inspired and sometimes commissioned were slowly sold throughout her lifetime.