Such a photo taken inside the Villa du Temps Retrouvé in Cabourg draws the attention of the visitors to its central portrait with more familiar features than the others. It is indeed the Portrait of Marcel Proust painted in 1892 by the society portraitist Jacques-Emile Blanche (1861-1942). Friends in life and both born in Auteuil, the two men embody this society of the Belle Epoque that, before any other art, first practiced the art of living. This portrait of Marcel Proust is the only portrait of him painted during his lifetime. Marcel Proust (1871-1922) cherished it as a kind of mirror of his youth and never parted with it. Very little exhibited, the painting was used only once, in 1920, to illustrate the cover of a deluxe edition of Within a Budding Grove.