Focus on this artwork and discuss the Montesquiou.
The Parisian dandy Robert de Montesquiou, who was the main inspiration for Baron de Charlus in Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu, was one of the early owners of La psyché. Of the work he wrote that it is "as if an apotheosis of Stevens' art and of his loves: the women, the objects and the reflections they multiply". As mentioned, on a chair there are the Japanese prints that the artist was so fond of. Montesquiou, however, was especially fascinated by the trinkets and other exotica that better suited him and his own lifestyle. He summarized the rubbish in the studio as d'une vérité bien hollandaise (of a truly Dutch reality). In a laudatory article, he pointed to the similarity between Vermeer and Stevens, especially the way in which both could paint to the finest detail not familiar, but rather exotic gems and objects: rubies, turquoise, and even the wonderfully colored wings of an exotic butterfly.
Robert de Montesquiou À la recherche du temps perdu Proust Vermeer Paris