At Madame Gautreau's suggestion, Sargent traveled to her estate in Brittany, where he began a series
of preparatory works for her portrait that would come to be called "Madame X", but just as in Paris,
she was bored by the process of sitting. Here, too, she had social engagements and responsibilities.
Sargent complained of "the unpaintable beauty and hopeless laziness of Madame Gautreau."