Portrait of Jeanne Duval

Jeanne Duval was a Haitian-born actress and dancer of mixed French and African ancestry. She was born in Haiti on an unknown date, sometime around 1820 and for 20 years, she was the muse of French poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire. They met in 1842, when Duval left Haiti for France, and the two remained together, albeit stormily, for the next two decades. Duval is said to have been the woman Baudelaire loved most, after his mother. Baudelaire’s friend Manet, painted Duval in his 1862 painting entitled Baudelaire's Mistress, Reclining. She was, by this time, going blind.