Maria C. Scott writes in TLS: ‘Baudelaire’s feelings about [Jeanne] Duval were complex, ranging from love, affection and pity to hatred; he wrote in 1845 that she was his only consolation, in 1852 that she had become an obstacle to his happiness and writing, and in 1856 that he craved her company.’

Baudelaire’s mother disliked her and burnt all of her letters.

Scott: ‘Duval is associated, in Baudelaire’s poetry, with the triumphant transcendence of physical constraints through the senses and the imagination: “Are you not the oasis where I dream, and the gourd / From which I slowly drink the wine of memory?” (“The Head of Hair”). If these newly discovered photographs tell us anything about Duval, what they say has very little to do with transcendence, and everything to do with resilience.’

The muse is passé.

Today, you need to be your own muse, which also has its shortcomings.

(a sf 2041)