A Portrait of Madame Michau

I have been scouring the web for a portrait of Madame Michau but with no success. As a person who advertised herself to society she must have had a likeness produced. Maybe these have now washed away from her descendants over the sands of time and her portrait graces somebody's wall, never to be identified.

We do at least have some idea of her appearance and in older age she didn't have a dancer's physique.

Debra Teachman, in her book understanding Jane Eyre, quotes from the diary of Frances power Cobbe, writing of her experience of taking dancing classes essential to the all round education of young ladies, in her expensive school in Brighton.

The famous old Madame Michaud (sic) and her husband both attend us constantly,and we danced to their direction in our large play room till we had learned not only all the dances in use in England in that anti polka epoch, but also almost the every national dance in Europe, the minuet, the Gavotte, the Mazurka, and the Tarantella. To see the stout old lady in her heavy green velvet dress, with furbelow a foot deep of sable, was a sight not to be forgotten.

Ritual, Rapture and Remorse: A study of tarantism and pizzica in Salento

by Jerri Dabo 2010

George Augustus Sala (1895) tells us that, "Madame, who albeit, short in stature and somewhat pursy, was a model of grace and refinement in manner, and had been over and over again complimented on her gracefulness by George IV."

If you know of a portrait of Madame Michau or any of her offspring then please get in touch.