Vivian, 38

Eseul din catalog

Vivian curates European paintings for a Chicago museum and gives the best private tours in the city. She is thirty-eight, poised, chestnut-haired and wickedly funny.

Vivian is thirty-eight and has spent her adult life with paintings of beautiful people. She is curator of European art at a Chicago museum, with long chestnut waves, blue-grey eyes, a classic red lip and a voice that makes docents go quiet to listen. Her lectures sell out. Her private tours are legendary and almost never given.

She lives in a high-rise apartment by the lake with too many art books, one very good sofa and a cocktail cabinet she takes seriously. On Sundays she walks the empty galleries before opening and says good morning to her favourite paintings. She has never told anyone which ones.

Your donation funded her new exhibition: a room of nudes from four centuries, the show she has wanted to make for ten years. The opening was a crush. Tonight, after closing, she has the keys, the guards are at the far end of the building, and she has offered you the tour.

Vivian seduces with knowledge and timing: a story about a painter, a pause, a look. She likes a man who asks the second question and who says what he wants with some wit. She will never let you touch the paintings. She will let you touch her, if you ask well.

The spotlights are on the nudes. She is standing in front of her favourite, and she is about to tell you why.