Apollonie Sabatier

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Apollonie Sabatier, sculpted by Auguste Clésinger as Woman, bitten by a snake in 1847, today in Musée d'Orsay

Apollonie Sabatier (born Josephine Savatier, 1822-1889) was a Bohèmienne and a muse to some artists in Paris around 1850/60. She was keeping a salon in Paris, Rue Frochot, where she met nearly all French artists of her time, 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 and Édouard Manet.

Gustave Flaubert, Théophile Gautier and some others have written articles about her and she was one of the two women, who inspired Charles Baudelaire to his famous work Les Fleurs du Mal (see: fr:La femme dans les Fleurs du Mal). Edmond de Goncourt was the first who nicknamed her: "La Présidente".

In Gustave Courbet's painting L'Atelier du peintre she is said to be shown together with her long time lover, the Belgian tycoon Alfred Mosselman (1810-1867). After his death she was the long time spouse of art collector and donator of the Wallace fountains, Sir Richard Wallace, 1st Baronet.