She looks off to the right, staring out into the middle distance, her mouth shut tight, her dainty nose directed ever so slightly downward. Her right hand rests upon a bare wooden table, while her left hand, decorated with a wedding ring, clutches a folded fan. Her hair is twisted up, away from her shoulders – which are bare save for two straps, somewhat unconvincingly holding up her cinched, classical black gown. On her head is a little diamond tiara, but other than that and the ring she wears no jewelry. Between her long neck and the plunging, heart-shaped neckline of her dress lie acres of flesh, as cold and pale as ice milk.

John Singer Sargent’s portrait of the so-called ‘Madame X’, painted in 1884 and now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, has attracted and repelled generations of gallery-goers.