Displayed at · 1977
Orangerie des Tuileries
In the Walter-Guillaume rooms since its 1977 physical entry; the museum's record places it in room 10, level −2. Holdings rotate.
Painting
Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel
Laurencin's 1923 portrait of Coco Chanel, commissioned by the couturière and refused by her; the painter kept the canvas, and it hangs today in the Orangerie's Walter-Guillaume rooms.
- 1923
- Oil on canvas
About Marie Laurencin
What the painting shows
Chanel sits facing the viewer in a languid pose, head resting against her right arm, a white poodle on her knees. A second dog leaps at the lower right, and a turtle dove descends toward her from above — the museum's own notice wonders whether it should be read like the dove of the Holy Spirit, 'perhaps a symbol of freedom?' The palette is the painter's usual harmony of green, blue, and pink, tightened by what the museum calls the long black line of the scarf draped around the model's neck.
It is a Laurencin before it is a likeness. The sitter is folded into the pale, dark-eyed type the painter had made her signature, and that, by the museum's account, was the problem.
Two designers, one autumn
In the autumn of 1923 Marie Laurencin was designing the sets and costumes for Les Biches for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes while Coco Chanel — born, like the painter, in 1883 — was making the costumes for Le Train Bleu. The commission came out of that shared Ballets Russes moment.
The refusal
Chanel did not appreciate the portrait and refused to buy it. Laurencin, the Orangerie records, was furious, declined to paint a second version, and kept the original. The provenance the museum prints carries two question marks — 'Paul Rosenberg (?); Paul Guillaume (?)' — before the certainty of Domenica Walter, from whom the state purchased it in 1963 with the help of the Société des Amis du Louvre.
The result is a small irony of the collection: the portrait of Chanel that Chanel never owned now represents her in a national museum.
In the Walter-Guillaume rooms
The painting hangs in the collection's lower rooms (the museum's record places it in room 10, level −2), one of the works that made Laurencin's reputation as the portraitist of fashionable 1920s Paris. Its EU copyright runs to the start of 2027, which is why the reproduction here is small and shown for commentary.
Timeline
1923
Commissioned by Chanel in the autumn; painted, refused, and kept by Laurencin.
1963
Purchased by the French state from Domenica Walter with the Société des Amis du Louvre.
1977
Physically enters the Musée de l'Orangerie.
Frequently asked questions
Why did Coco Chanel reject Laurencin's portrait?
The Musée de l'Orangerie, which owns the painting, records that Chanel did not appreciate it and refused to buy it. Laurencin refused to paint a second version and kept the canvas.
What is shown in the Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel?
Chanel seated in a languid pose, head resting on her right arm, with a white poodle on her knees, a second dog leaping at the right, and a turtle dove descending toward her — all in Laurencin's green, blue, and pink harmony, cut by the black line of a scarf.
Where is the Portrait de Mademoiselle Chanel?
In the Walter-Guillaume collection at the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris. The state bought it in 1963 from Domenica Walter with the help of the Société des Amis du Louvre.
When was the Chanel portrait painted?
In 1923, while Laurencin was designing Les Biches for Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and Chanel was making the costumes for Le Train Bleu.
In the atlas
