The Unknown Masterpiece

Honoré de Balzac · 1831 CE · Short Story · French · Romantic

In a Paris studio in 1612 the young Nicolas Poussin and the painter Porbus are admitted to the company of old Frenhofer, who has spent ten years on a portrait nobody has been allowed to see and insists it is a living woman rather than a picture. He will uncover it only in exchange for a model of flawless beauty, and Poussin offers his mistress Gillette. Cézanne said flatly that he was Frenhofer, and Picasso took a studio in the street where the tale is set and illustrated it; modern painting has been arguing with the story ever since.

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