Meet the woman who shot up with Coco Chanel, inspired Proust, and was painted by Renoir

Over the course of her unusual and long life, Misia Sert achieved something truly rare: a kind of immortality. The coquette of Belle Époque Paris, Sert was painted by some of the best known artists in the world, including Renoir, Bonnard, Toulouse-Lautrec, and Vuillard. “The painters had the privilege of immortalising her miraculous looks,” wrote critic Clive James in the London Review of Books, “which included a legendary pair of legs and a bosom that kept strong men awake at night thinking.” She was a confidante of Picasso’s, and a friend of Proust, Mallarmé, Verlaine, Cocteau, Gide, Monet, Stravinsky and Serge Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes. She and Coco Chanel were “soul sisters,” and likely lovers.

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