Of Pansy, plastiques and prudes

Eyes goggled and tongues wagged when ‘La Milo’, wearing very little by early twentieth century standards, performed her ‘living statues’ in London, drawing the ire of the bishop who demanded her ‘art’ be banned.

Challenging Victorian morals was a lifestyle for Melbourne actress Pansy Montague, known as ‘La Milo’, as she performed her ‘poses plastiques’. Bedecked in white marbled paint, her ‘living sculptures’ begged the question: was it serious art or erotic tantalisation? In one notorious performance, Montague – outrageously wearing only pink ‘fleshings’, chiffon drapery and a lengthy wig – re-enacted the outing of another legendary unclad figure, Lady Godiva, riding for five hours in the 1907 Coventry Pageant before an audience of 150,000. ‘Pretty Pansy … Paralyses the Prudes’ ran the subsequent headline in the Brisbane Truth. In these souvenir postcards, a scantily clad Montague, all hypnotic gaze and enticing pose, portrays the mythological water nymph. An encounter with said creature could, reputedly, leave a man besotted, mad with lust, and drowned!