Poor Madame X – her indolence all exposed:

one never does a lick of work

in a little black dress with jeweled straps like this

Poor Madame Pierre Gatreau

her soul’s bare shoulders exposed –

her identity speedily reviled by haute society.

Poor John Singer Sargent disparaged by Paris’s best –

his second version made matters worse —

where there was two now only a single shoulder strap.

NOTE: “Hand-grenade of sexuality” is Jonathan Jones phrase from his article in the Guardian UK about the painting: