Amandine Dore (1912–2011), Lithograph "homage To Venus," 20th Century

Born into a family that traced its lineage back to a famous ancestor, Gustave Doré, Odette Bonne studied art in Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, and began her career as a painter and illustrator for the magazine La Vie Parisienne. She produced erotic illustrations under the pseudonym “Amandine Doré” and others of a more pornographic nature under the pseudonym “Madame ***.”She met the Belgian novelist Albert t’Serstevens through her brother, the publisher André Bonne, who sent her to the writer’s home to explore the possibility of illustrating a text about privateers. She married him in 1947 in Papeete (Tahiti, French Polynesia). She then began working as an illustrator for her husband’s travel books, primarily using watercolor and drypoint. She also designed scarves while continuing to produce erotic artwork. They lived in Polynesia for three years and then traveled to Greece, the Aeolian Islands, Sicily, Sardinia, Spain, as well as Morocco and Mexico.