“Dangerous” is probably not the first adjective that comes to mind when perusing Susan Ronald’s minutely detailed biography of Florence Gould, A Dangerous Woman. “Determined” and “devious” would be more apt descriptors, since this professional enchantress pursued her life of pleasures less by brute force than by working harder and smarter than anyone who stood in her way.

Born in San Francisco to French-immigrant parents, Florence, her sister and her mother decamped to Paris just months after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906 laid waste to the city by the bay. Except for occasional returns to the U.S., principally for business and philanthropy, Florence remained a Parisian. Her mother’s preferred child, Florence was blessed by remarkable beauty and animated by an iron determination to marry well. This she did via her marriage in 1923 to multimillionaire Frank Gould, son of the eminent robber baron Jay Gould.

The marriage vaulted Florence into the upper layers of Parisian society and insulated her from the discomforts the general population of Paris suffered as a consequence of the Great War, the Depression and the German occupation of the city during World War II. Among the many notables who enjoyed Florence’s friendship and largesse were Ernest Hemingway, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Charlie Chaplin, Estée Lauder, Maurice Chevalier, Pablo Picasso and Coco Chanel. Although Florence was clearly a Nazi collaborator and trader in stolen art, she remained essentially untouched after the war and ended her life as an honored contributor to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The one element missing here is the sound of Florence’s own voice. That’s because her estate denied the author access to its archives, including Florence’s letters. So while we’re told virtually everything she did and everyone she slept with (a long list), we know precious little of how she felt as she moved full sail through her momentous life.

One of the French Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s favorite models was Suzanne Valadon, a working-class teen raised in the Montmartre district of Paris. In his paintings, she’s always softly pretty, vibrant, approachable. Aside from her physical appeal, Valadon was herself a talented artist. Her first serious self-portrait couldn’t have been more different from Renoir’s depiction: She portrayed herself as spiky and tough, with a skeptical look and sharp nose.

That might give you some hint as to why you know Renoir’s work but perhaps have never heard of Valadon. She became an admired professional painter, but she was never widely popular. She was too unsparing, too “unfeminine.” The title of Catherine Hewitt’s biography of Valadon, Renoir’s Dancer, helps place her in the artistic universe, but the book is very much about the Valadon of the self-portraits.

Born in 1865, the incorrigible Valadon was the illegitimate daughter of a linen maid. She became a circus acrobat, then a successful model—and the probable lover of Renoir and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, among others. The latter recognized her talent and helped her connect with Edgar Degas, who became her tireless mentor.

She also had an illegitimate child, Maurice Utrillo, an emotionally troubled, alcoholic artist whose charming cityscapes made them both rich. Valadon eventually married one of her son’s friends, who was 20 years younger than her, and the trio lived a tumultuous life together.

You can’t go wrong with material like that, and Hewitt excels at re­creating the atmosphere of Montmartre as it evolved from bohemian enclave to tourist nightspot. The reader tags along with Valadon to heady establishments like Le Chat Noir and the Lapin Agile, where she stuns the men with her verve and intelligence. Hewitt introduces us to a frank, generous woman and bold artist who painted more nudes than babies. She ultimately overcame the prejudices: When she was 71, the French nation bought several of her works, and her paintings now hang in museums around the world.

This article was originally published in the March 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.