In 1954, a 19-year-old girl named Sylvette David sauntered past Pablo Picasso’s window. The aging artist was instantly beguiled. A few weeks later, he revealed a portrait of David, the first of 60 that he would paint that spring. She became his inspiration, his Girl with the Ponytail, his muse. The muse is one of western culture’s enduring archetypes: Elizabeth Siddal, the pale goddess who appeared in the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Lou Andreas-Salomé, desired by Freud and Riilke…

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