COLETTE.- REUTLINGER (Léopold-Émile). "Colette". Silver print (1906). Photograph representing Colette in light clothing. Size : 23,5 x 29,5 cm (upper edge cut by hand). Colette, very athletic, practiced physical culture and gymnastics assiduously. She takes great pride in her body, beautiful and well built. The swimsuit is in her eyes an unsightly fabric which constrains the movements and forbids the perfection of the gesture, annihilating all her work of mime. "I want to dance naked if the bikini bothers me and humiliates my plastic. Colette does not consider her nudity as degrading or vicious, on the contrary. In her conception of the music hall, the actress' body, if it is certainly sensual, becomes asexual: it is above all a body sculpted by sports practice. Moreover, later, she will defend herself from having been truly "naked": it is true that only her breast was offered to the view. Léopold-Emile Reutlinger (1863-1937) was a French photographer. He made a large number of photographic portraits, including those of Mata Hari, Colette and Sarah Bernhardt.