C hampagne was always on ice for visitors who might drop by unexpectedly and there were even rumours that a member of the household staff was employed to polish the leaves of the plants in the garden so that they looked perfect at all times. Sometimes a reclusive man content to sit in a sunny spot in the garden deep in inspired thought, sometimes a flamboyant extrovert whose parties were attended by the great and the good (and bad) of London. A man who loved beautiful flowers, who collected Japanese woodblock prints and fabulous silk kimonos, who had been born abroad and was regarded as an outsider by some – adored by the public and with suspicion or unreserved reproach by some critics. Am I describing Freddie Mercury or James Tissot, the artist who painted the greatest of all Freddie’s treasures?
Type of Beauty was commissioned in 1880 by the owners of the popular Graphic magazine as part of a series in which various artists were asked to paint their ideal of female beauty - Tissot could not possibly have painted anyone but his muse and mistress Kathleen Newton. He depicted her with great intimacy and affection in a moment of contentment that he must have glimpsed a hundred times every day. He presented the love of his life to the world just as he saw her. Prints of the picture hung on the walls of countless homes around the world from humble sitting-rooms to grand salons.
Type of Beauty is an enigmatic picture which evokes an infinite number of stories by those who choose to wonder what thoughts might be going through the mind of this woman. It can be interpreted as simply a deliciously beautiful picture of flowers in full bloom, of carefree moments when life is good and a moment frozen in time amid the fragrance of nasturtiums and the warmth of a summer day. For Freddie, the painting encapsulated that but also much more because he recognised the poignancy of this hymn to beauty. It was bought a month before Freddie died and as he faced the close of his own life Freddie perhaps saw a parallel between himself and the beautiful girl depicted in the painting.
Kathleen Newton was Tissot’s beloved mistress and muse whose delicate health would lead to her premature death only two years after this picture was painted when she was only twenty-eight. Kathleen was a divorcee and therefore the relationship between her and Tissot was scandalous and made Tissot an outsider in the very proper establishment of the London art world. The irony is that the public loved the glamour and romance of Tissot’s work and at the heart of that was Kathleen clad is gorgeous fashionable gowns and seemingly living a perfect life. When she died from tuberculosis the devastated Tissot sat for days beside her coffin and on the day of her funeral he left his beautiful home in St John’s Wood with half-finished pictures on the easels – he abandoned London, never returned and spent the last twenty years in France.
When the painting was delivered to Freddie 110 years after it was painted, he knew exactly where it would be hung – in the sitting room where he could see it from his favourite seat on the sofa – it has remained there for the last three decades. The pleasure that an image of radiant beauty can bring to someone who is facing the infinite darkness makes this picture far more poignant than simply a portrait of a woman painted in a different age. When an artist creates something with passion and sincerity – whether it be a portrait or a rhapsody – that emotion lives on to be enjoyed by present and future generations.
