On Blondes by Joanna Pitman

Author:Joanna Pitman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2009-02-04T16:00:00+00:00

Hold then thy heart against her shining hair,

If, by thy fate, she spread it once for thee,

For, when she nets a young man in that snare,

So twines she him he never may be free.

Rossetti’s expressions of beauty in paint were perhaps a response to the unbeautiful broodings of his own mind, which spilled out in his caustically misogynistic poetry. Repeatedly he milked the sexual conceit of blonde hair. In 1859 he wrote a poem about a prostitute, a golden-haired temptress called Jenny, whose hair symbolises her lasciviousness and greed. The poem drips with ghastly combinations of lust, fear and avarice: Rossetti’s narrator wrestles between desire and contempt as he lays gold coins in the sleeping Jenny’s hair. In the end, Rossetti’s own fantasy of dominance is revealed, and with it a fearful loathing of the womankind he desperately desires.

With all these Victorians spewing out page after impassioned page about prostitutes with blonde hair, can we assume that the hordes of women employed in this booming industry had continued the historic tradition, and did actually have blonde hair? One document published in 1883 for the edification of British visitors to Paris gives us a clue. Entitled The Pretty Women of Paris. Their Names and Addresses, Qualities and Faults, Being a Complete Directory or Guide to the Pleasure For Visitors to the Gay City, this enthralling little volume lists the prostitutes of Paris alphabetically. It gives comprehensive details of their careers, their men and their marriages, and merciless details of their attributes and their specialities, as well as Michelin-style ‘worth a detour’ recommendations. Among the nearly three hundred entries, there are roughly three times as many blondes as there are brunettes.

Clotilde Charvet, of 23 Rue Boissy d’Anglas, gets a reasonable star ranking. ‘Youth and beauty are to be found united here – fine liquid eyes, well-cut features; small waist, and divine bust which proudly advances its twin riches – such are the charms of Clotilde. Her hair, naturally black, is dyed a rich gold, offering a strange contrast, when in a state of nudity, to the other hirsute attractions of her fair form.’

Valentine d’Egbord, of 12 Avenue d’Atnin, fares less well. She ‘appears in our new Book of Revelations as a curiosity. Like a work of art, for marvellous preservation of remains of beauty, we treat her as such and request visitors “not to touch”. Through the use and abuse of some cheap golden dye, her hair has fallen off, never to grow again, and has been replaced by an expensive arrangement of a rich, door-mat colour.’

Cora Pearl, the famous English courtesan who was once carried into her own dinner party on an enormous silver dish, naked but for a sprinkling of parsley, is listed as a blonde. In her heyday this harlot de luxe, who included Napoleon III and the Due de Rivoli among her long ‘golden chain’ of customers, used to dye her hair to match her outfits, often appearing in a fetching canary yellow from head to foot. Her

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.