Ml Theory: Origins of Emilies name and Mayuras design
While looking up the real life equivalent of Emilies portrait and its artist I came across something that is just WAY too good to be a mere coincidence.
As many fans know already Emilies golden portrait is in real life the painting “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” by Gustav Klimt from 1907.
Its to this day the painting sold for the highest price EVER, making it a fitting portrait to visualize Gabriels love for Emilie I always thought. But there is quite more background information with potential to be important.
Back before we were given Emilies name in “Gorizilla” Adele was a very common name for her in the fandom because of the original golden Lady, Adele. Funnily enough, the idea that Emilies name is connected to her portrait has quite likely never been a wrong assumption in the first place. We just never went deep enough to find her actual name or a couple of other similarities for not only her but for Natalie as well.
Because as the names might have already given it away, Adele Bloch-Bauer and Gustav Klimt were not husband and wife. Adele was married to someone else and Gustav never married at all. So while this painting is one of Gustavs most well known and one of the most valuable paintings in the world, the lady in the painting wasn’t his wife/lover and therefore Emilies name also isn’t Adele.
But just because Gustav Klimt wasn’t married doesn’t it mean that there wasn’t a very special woman in his life, one he was incredibly close with.
So may I present to you:
Emilie Flöge
Right away its obvious that both painting were done in the same eye catching style, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
She was the almost life long and very dear life-partner and Muse of Gustav Klimt. Just like him she was austrian and she was a fashion designer/creator and business woman and the sister of Gustavs sister-in-law. From 1891 onward he drew/painted her several times and rumors even say that Gustav, on his most well known painting “Der Kuss (The kiss), eternalized him and her together as lovers.
So if there is a name associated with the “Adele” portrait that were to be Emilies namesake it certainly was the right call to have it be the dear life-partner of the artist who is basically representing Gabriel in this. Emilie Flöge.
But digging even deeper into Gustav Klimts works one could even make the argument that another name in the show wasn’t as completely random either and apparently not lazy at all:
Amilie Graham de Vanily
Because 7 years after finishing “Adele Bloch-Bauer I” he started painting another portrait called “Das Bildnis der Amalie Zuckerkandl (The Image of Amalie Zuckerkandl)”
but it was never finished because… well… both he and Amalie died in that timeframe for reasons unrelated to each other so.. yeah. But still.
I do think this woman is the namesake for our Amilie de Vanily, not because of background information as with Emilie, its more that I can indeed imagine it very well that for Emilies sister Thomas Astruc and Team went back to the same artist they got her name from and looked for a fitting name. And since it’s a pair of twin sisters we are talking about here the name “Amalie” was probably just waaaaaay to good and convenient to pass on.
So Amalie became Amilie and our family Graham de Vanily twin sisters had their names.
But you know what? If I’m already at it, lets take this to another level and you all know what I'm about to point out.
Because the first thing I thought when I looked at the portrait of Emilie Flöge was a sober: "Yeah, so THAT looks like Mayura"
-Main color blue with pink highlights
-one piece of each outfit has white incorporated
-both have a "peacock tail". Mayuras is just part of her dress and Flöges is something like a big fancy collar (idk man)
-Hands gloveless
-necks covered. Natalie/Mayura wears a turtleneck and Flöges wears a scarf
-Flöges has dark hair like Natalie (not as dark but definitely closer to Natalies than Emilie Agrestes)
I do even have another reason why I think Mayuras design was inspired by the real life background of Emilie Agrestes golden portrait.
Not only does Miss Flöges blue dress with pink highlights explain why the peacocks signature color is blue combined with (FREAKING) pink even though that isn’t anywhere close to an accurate depiction of a real life peacock the way all the other Miraculous do (It bothered me to no end but now I can finally sleep again in peace) But would you believe it? One of Gustav Klimts last finished paintings shows a woman who is supposedly meant to visualize what he thought to be the epitome of beauty:
Peacocks, fan, you get where I’m going here right?
And this would make sense, RIGHT? Emilie was the peacock miraculous holder before Natalie so Emilies namesake wearing an outfit resembling the peacock holder we know and the peacock in general combined with the symbols of what the artists thought to be beautiful should checkout, shouldn’t it?
Weeeeell yes but mostly no imo.
While it is true that Emilie was the blue peacock long before Natalie became Mayura, it doesn’t change the fact that we, the viewers, were trained to associate the direct complementary color with Emilie right from the start. Emilie for US is not blue, she’s the opposite of blue, she’s yellow like her portrait:
So it is very unlikely in my opinion that the blue Mayura outfit would be used like that for Emilie as well. That’s just WAY to harsh of a color whiplash for a character only given to us (for now) through stoic visual representation and a couple of lines from her family. We have very little to directly associate Emilies character with so yeah, her color coding with yellow and white is way to important to just break like that.
Therefore I do think its safe to say that the Mayura outfit/colorscheme is meant to be primarily associated with Natalie, meaning if the team actually took inspiration from this portrait for the Mayura design even though its also the portrait they took the name of the lost WIFE from, I do think this is supposed to mean something.
Especially when you consider that the painting of the epitome of beauty woman is obviously hindu oriented. Which comes right back to Natalie because not only is her villain name MAYURA the name of the male peacock in hindu mythology (the female one is called Mayuri) a general oriental flair is also how her room is designed as we just saw in the New York special
So what does all of this mean now? I’ve thrown quite a lot at you and a lot is contradicting each other too much to get a clear picture right away. So lets bring a little order into all of this and translate how these informations properly with what we see in Miraculous.
I’ll break it down like this:
Adeles golden Portrait doesn’t show the actual lover of the artist. Although Adele was married the actual special woman in Gustav Klimts life was Emilie Flöge, his partner, friend and companion he may have been in love with.
Translating this for Miraculous would become this:
Emilies golden Portrait doesn’t show the actual lover of Gabriel Agreste. Although Emilie was married to him the actual special woman in Gabriels life was Natalie Sanccour, his partner, friend and companion he may be starting to fall in love with.
Meaning this for the usage of the real life portraits as references:
Yes they still choose the right name for Emilie. The lady on the golden portrait is neither lover nor wife hence why Emilie couldn’t be named Adele. Because even if Gabriel is now falling in love with Natalie its doesn’t change that before all of this started Emilie was indeed the special woman in his life, hence her namesake being Emilie Flöge.
But on the other hand Natalie/Mayura, Gabriels new love, we know from the very start and a lot better than Emilie, is the right person to give the design of the blue portrait. E. Flöge was life-partner, friend and companion to a single man, everything that Natalie is as well. So while all of these aspects also applied to Emilie Agreste in the past they are way more fittingly at home with Natalie in the narrative of the show.
Besides that I will continue to stand to my believe that once we get Emilie back things will not go the way Gabriel wanted. Too much has happened that is too unforgivable. So our Emilie is portrayed as the not-wife-lady in gold because once Emilie is back and finds out what a monster (of a father) Gabriel has become there will very quickly be no marriage between them anymore.
Okay, that’s all I have but I just had a thought so I wanna say it for protocol that I called it:
I'm calling dips on Gabriel getting a portrait for Natalie in s4 that looks like the the blue one from Emilie Flöge.
Just saying, I'm calling dips