How did the “stranger from the Seine” become the most kissed woman in the world? (5 photos)

This face is said to make people feel calm, peaceful and intoxicatingly charming. But it so happened that no one knows either the name of this woman or her story.





The only thing that is known about her is that she is the most kissed woman in the world. Want to know why?

Drowned woman

The story dates back to the 1880s, when French fishermen fished out the body of a young woman from the Seine. When she was taken to the local morgue, it was discovered that she had drowned. Since she had no injuries, she apparently committed suicide.

This may sound a little strange, but, according to the pathologist, she was the most beautiful woman of all the dead he had ever seen.



Bridge of Changes over the Seine River in the 1880s

The authorities tried to establish her identity by publishing news about the drowned woman in newspapers. But in the following days, no one reported the disappearance of a similar woman. There were no witnesses to what happened who could lift the veil of secrecy surrounding her death.

All the police had was the lifeless body of a beautiful woman who looked to be 18-20 years old.

Otherworldly beauty

The authorities had no choice but to display her body for a few days in a Paris funeral home, hoping that someone would recognize the woman. Alas, this did not happen. No one ever came for her.

The morgue workers could not help but admire the serene expression on the stranger’s face. There was so much calm and beauty in him that they asked the sculptor to take a plaster cast of the stranger’s face.





Death mask of the "stranger from the Seine"

Since no one came to claim the woman's body, she was buried in an unmarked grave. However, her face, her beauty and her mystery remained.

Popularity phenomenon

In subsequent years, copies of this death mask became very popular among Parisian bohemians. She was admired by Albert Camus, Jules Supervielle, Rainer Maria Rilke and many other cultural figures.

For its resemblance to the famous work of da Vinci, the “stranger from the Seine” was even nicknamed “The Drowned Mona Lisa.” It seemed that this woman’s serene smile hid a thousand mysteries. She simultaneously fascinated, frightened and made her admire her unearthly beauty.

In a matter of years, her story reached every corner of France, and later the whole world, serving as the inspiration for many books, poems and works of art.



Painting by Jules Joseph Lefebvre of the "Stranger from the Seine"

Vladimir Nabokov, for example, became obsessed with her to such an extent that he hung her mask in his apartment and spent hours staring at the graceful features of the “stranger from the Seine.”

"Hurrying the end of this life,

not loving anything on earth,

I keep looking at the white mask

your lifeless face.

In endlessly dying strings

I hear the voice of your beauty.

In the pale crowds of young drowned women

You are the palest and most captivating of all..."

Vladimir Nabokov, "L'Inconnue de la Seine", 1934

Saving lives

It is unlikely that the story of the mysterious woman from the Seine would have gone beyond the world of art if, in the mid-twentieth century, Piet Sefar had not thought about creating a mannequin to teach people CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) techniques.

He needed a face that his students would enjoy working with. He entrusted the creation of this part of the mannequin to the famous Norwegian toy designer Asmund Laerdal. For a long time he could not find the right image. After all, the face had to be kind, feminine, and beautiful.



"Resurrect Anna" dummy used to teach CPR techniques, released in 1958

It was then that Asmund remembered the mask that hung in his grandparents' house. This serene woman's face always attracted his attention as a child.

As you may have guessed, it belonged to the “stranger from the Seine”, who became the prototype of the famous mannequin “Rescue-Annie”. Over the next 60-plus years, more than 400 million people were trained on this mannequin.

That's why she bears the unofficial title of "the most kissed woman in the world." So if you have to learn CPR on this mannequin, know that you are trying to save the life of an unknown young French woman who remains a woman of mystery...