Cover image: Black woman in Manet's Olympia as depicted by Mariella Bettineschi
© Entrée to Black Paris

The Dior boutique at 30, avenue Montaigne reopened this spring after months of renovation, and its decor is heavily inspired by art. During a recent "On the Grandest of Avenues" tour, I was stunned to see artwork depicting two black women in their window and quickly snapped some photos.  The work at the upper right represents Aïcha, a well-known 20th-century Montparnasse model, while the work at the lower right is inspired by Fréderic Bazille's "Young Woman with Peonies."

Window dressing at Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne
 © Entrée to Black Paris

Window dressing at Dior, 30 avenue Montaigne - detail
 © Entrée to Black Paris

Because of ETBP's interest in Black images in European art (which is the title of our iconic Louvre tour), I returned to the boutique last Saturday to take more photos and to inquire about the artist.

I learned that these works are part of a series called L’era successiva/The next era by Mariella Bettineschi, a female Italian artist. She launched the series in 2008, and it is still a work in progress!

Bettineschi is described as a feminist artist. The Z20 Gallery Website presents the series as follows:

The Portraits (great icons of European art, works by artists such as Caravaggio, Raffaello, Leonardo, Tiziano) are removed from their time and brought to the contemporary world through the choice of a detail, the cancellation of the background, the cut and the split eyes. These “very famous anonymous” women, objects for the gaze of the painters who painted them, through a feminist gesture, are returned to their condition as subjects.

Bettineschi represents four black women in The Next Era.  See images of the original paintings next to her paintings as shown in the Dior windows below.

Left: Aïcha, Félix Valloton, 1922 Oil on canvas, Private collection
Right: Félix Valloton, Aicha, Mariella Bettineschi,
2022 Digital painting on plexiglass
Image by Entrée to Black Paris

Left: Young Woman with Peonies, Frédéric Bazille, 1870 Oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.
Right: Frédéric Bazille, Ritratto (Frédéric Bazille, Portrait),
Mariella Bettineschi, 2022 Digital painting on plexiglass
Image by Entrée to Black Paris

Left: Olympia (detail), Edouard Manet, 1863 Oil on canvas,
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Right: Edouard Manet, Olympia, Mariella Bettineschi,
2022 Digital painting on plexiglass
Image by Entrée to Black Paris

Bettineschi has also done a rendition of Portrait of a Black Woman (Portrait of Madeleine) at the Louvre, but it is not displayed in the windows at Dior.

Portrait of a Black Woman (Portrait of Madeleine)
Marie-Guillemine Benoist
1800 Oil on canvas
Louvre, Paris
Image by Entrée to Black Paris

Multiple copies of all fifty-four (54) paintings from The Last Era were hung as a commissioned installation in a specially designed showroom for Dior's Autumn-Winter 2022-2023 Ready-to-Wear Fashion Show in March 2022.  Other iconic works that inspired Bettineschi's digital paintings include Leonardo's Mona Lisa, Johannes Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, and Jean-August-Dominique Ingres' The Grand Odalisque.

Find images of selected works from The Last Era HERE.

Watch the video of the fashion show below.