Rosalie Duthé

Catherine-Rosalie Gerard Duthé (1748–1830), alternately Duthe or Du The, was a celebrated French courtesan. A companion of French kings and European nobility, she has been called "the first officially recorded dumb blonde." She then became a dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet, and the companion to various noblemen, including the Duc de Durfort, the Marquis de Genlis, and the young Comte d'Artois, the future Charles X of France. In an incident around 1788, Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, presented Duthé to his 15 year-old son Philippe (later King Louis Philippe I) to "learn some facts of life."

In Parisian society, Duthé developed a certain "reputation by adopting the habit of pausing for extended periods of time before speaking." The play apparently distressed Duthé so much that she promised to kiss anyone who restored her honor; the offer went untaken. Although the origin of the stereotype of the dumb blonde is not entirely clear, cultural historian Joanna Pitman has noted that "Rosalie Duthé acquired the dubious honour of becoming the first officially recorded dumb blonde." though it has been claimed the real author was Baron Lamothe-Langon, who had known Duthé personally.

Rosalie Duthé died in 1830, probably around the age of 82.

In art

Duthé was often requested by portrait painters for sittings, including for partial and full nudes. She was painted by François-Hubert Drouais in 1768, for a full-length portrait now held by the English branch of the Rothschild family.

Henri-Pierre Danloux (1753–1809) was Duthé's favorite artist, and he recorded some of his sessions with her in his diary. Danloux painted a number of portraits, including Mademoiselle Rosalie Duthé (1792), commissioned by Duthe's friend and banker Jean-Frédéric Perregaux, who is said to have contemplated this image on his death-bed. Claude-Jean-Baptiste Hoin (1750–1817) painted Presumed portrait of Rosalie Duthé (date unknown).

Other painters who made portraits include Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Pierre-Paul Prud'hon and Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine. Among the sculptors who created busts of her are Jean-Baptiste Defernex and Jean-Antoine Houdon. Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun painted Portrait of Mademoiselle Rosalie Duthé (1776), but she never took Duthé as a model and the painting is now considered a copy of someone else's portrait.