Tissot, James-Jacques-Joseph (1836-1902) French Painter

Proust met the artist in 1894 at a party given by Count Robert de Montesquiou. In the Search, after Swann's death, the Narrator gives the reader a clue as to the identity of the real person who was one of the principal models for Swann. Charles Haas is the figure seen in Tissot's painting, Le Cercle de la rue Royale, along with General Galliffet and the others.

And yet, my dear Charles Swann, whom I used to know when I was still so young and you were nearing your grave, it is because he whom you must have regarded as a young idiot has made you the hero of one of his novels that people are beginning to speak of you again and that your name will perhaps live. If, in Tissot's picture representing the balcony of the Rue Royale club, when you figure with Galliffet, Edmond de Polignac and Saint-Maurice, people are always drawing attention to you, it is because they see that there are some traces of you in the character of Swann.

The Captive 5: 262-63

Et pourtant, cher Charles Swann, que j'ai si peu connu quand j'étais si jeune et vous près du tombeau, c'est déjà parce que celui que vous deviez considérer comme un petit imbécile a fait de vous le héros d'un de ses romans, qu'on recommence à parler de vous et que peut-être vous vivrez. Si dans le tableau de Tissot représentant le balcon du Cercle de la rue Royale, où vous êtes entre Galliffet, Edmond de Polignac et Saint-Maurice, on parle tant de vous, c'est parce qu'on voit qu'il y a quelques traits de vous dans le personnage de Swann.

La Prisonnière 3: 705

See Charles Haas