Storytelling is a powerful tool that artists use to transport viewers to another time, evoke emotions, and inspire curiosity. In 1866, French artist Auguste Toulmouche painted “La Fiancée Hesitante” (“The Reluctant Bride” in English). Recently, the painting has been trending on social media, especially TikTok, with memes and speculative interpretations circulating online.
Toulmouche specialized in romanticism and fashion painting, often depicting beautiful Parisian housewives in lavish floral dresses set against opulent backdrops. His works are characterized by meticulously detailed settings, including lavish furniture and luxurious interiors. According to CNN, one reporter once described the women in his paintings as “delicious dolls.”
The painting depicts a dramatic scene in a high-ceilinged dressing room decorated with floral tapestries and heavy wallpaper. Four women in flared dresses and neat buns are depicted: one adjusts a floral headband in front of an oval mirror, while two console a woman, presumably a bride, who sits in a large chair with her feet up on a low stool.
The bride is wearing a luxurious, high-necked, silver-white silk dress with fur trim at the cuffs and seams, and her golden-brown hair is braided and tied up in a bun, but it is not these details that are most striking, but the expression of the bride in the foreground.
Her face, with its piercing gaze, furrowed brows, and disdainfully set lips, expresses a skeptical, sullen expression that many have interpreted as “feminine rage” or “quiet indignation.”
TikTok is especially obsessed with the woman’s “flea bag gaze.” A vortex of memes related to the painting has swirled around TikTok feeds. @adownif3rta was one of the first TikTok users to post a meme about the painting in November 2023 with the caption “Me when I’m exactly right.” The TikTok has been viewed 7 million times. Dozens of people have since posted about the fiery gaze depicted in Toulmouche’s work. “You look so unapproachable and yet you’re here,” @ceraunic posted. @amandasowens1 posted the photo overlaid with the text “That’s probably because men are intimidated by you, duh.” @stanleytuccisnegroni also created a meme, writing, “Me when the mean guy isn’t even in our room. But I can get him and take him.”
In another video posted by @tatyanaaboutart, she shared some great insights about this vintage painting. “This is most likely an arranged marriage, very common in the 19th century,” she said in the video, before pointing to a woman admiring herself in a mirror. According to Tatyana, the woman is depicted as someone completely unaware of the bride’s anger, innocently dreaming of her own wedding. “The bride is completely alone with a sense of doom and unwillingness. Her gaze speaks of defiance, yet we sense she has no choice but to comply. The juxtaposition of hope and despair is the tragedy of this painting, suggesting the societal pressures of womanhood that many have to succumb to.”
@storiesbehindart, who pondered a similar scenario, said, “Her direct gaze represents a resistance to the dilemma she faces.” Thérèse Dolan of the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University in Philadelphia has similar thoughts about the painting. “She’s really expressing the sentiment that she doesn’t want to marry someone chosen by her obviously wealthy family,” she told The New York Times, adding, “What Toulmouche does so well is get into the psyche of a woman.”
Catherine Brown, an associate professor of art history and visual culture at Loughborough University in the UK, who wrote about Toulmouche’s work in the monograph “Women Readers in French Painting, 1870-1890,” said that to modern eyes, the painting shows 19th-century women supporting each other and coming together as they “negotiated an oppressive system,” according to CNN. Toulmouche’s work is now in a private collection at Sotheby’s.
