While the identity of the sitter of the present lot remains unknown, his graceful pose was immortalised in a black-and-white photograph by the French photographer François Antoine Vizzavona (1876-1961) (fig.1). Vizzavona, who had a studio on the rue du Bac, was a highly respected photographer of fine art who collaborated with numerous Parisian galleries between 1900 and 1915. He was also however hugely popular with the artists themselves because of the novel service he offered: he would visit them in their studios and photograph their models thereby allowing the artists to work from images and reducing the number of sittings required.