Ellen Andrée

Ellen Andrée (born Hélène Marie André; 7 March 1856 – 9 December 1933 ) was a French actress and model for Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir and other impressionists, in the 1870s.

Life
Andrée was born in 1856 in Paris and lived in the Rue du Rocher. She started working as a model, and became notable as she appeared in important impressionist paintings. She became an actress in the Naturalist style of theatre, in which the purpose was to give a near perfect view of real scenes and not to rely on the audience's imagination. She acted for several decades, appearing in plays and comedies such as those by Sacha Guitry and Georges Courteline, but it was the brief period in the 1870s, when she was a model for artists, most importantly Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, that made her name. In 1878 she was the model for Rolla, a painting by Henri Gervex, that was based on a poem by Alfred de Musset. The main character in the film Amélie is compared to Renoir's depiction of Andree in his painting Luncheon of the Boating Party.

Andree was a collector of images and autographs.