Apollonie Sabatier

Who was Apollonie Sabatier?

Apollonie Sabatier was a French courtesan, artists' muse and bohémienne in 1850s Paris. She hosted a salon in Paris on Rue Frochot, where she met nearly all of the French artists of her time, such as Gérard de Nerval, Nina de Villard, Arsène Houssaye, Edmond Richard, Gustave Flaubert, Louis Bouilhet, Maxime du Camp, Gustave Ricard, Judith Gautier, daughter of Théophile; Ernest Feydeau, father of Georges Feydeau, Hector Berlioz, Paul de Saint-Victor, Alfred de Musset, Henry Monnier, Victor Hugo, Ernest Meissonnier, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Charles Jalabert, Ernesta Gisi, Gustave Doré, the musician Ernest Reyer, Louis Bouilhet, James Pradier, Auguste Préault, Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, Auguste Clésinger and Édouard Manet.

Gustave Flaubert, Théophile Gautier and some others have written articles about her and she was one of four women who inspired Charles Baudelaire's famous work Les Fleurs du Mal. Edmond de Goncourt was the first to nickname her "La Présidente".

In Gustave Courbet's painting L'Atelier du peintre she is said to be shown together with her longtime lover, the Belgian tycoon Alfred Mosselman. After his death she was the longtime mistress to art collector and donor to the Wallace fountains, Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet.