Chloé is an 1875 oil painting by French academic painter Jules Joseph Lefebvre. Measuring 260 cm by 139 cm, it depicts the naiad in "Mnasyle et Chloé", a poem by the 18th-century French poet André Chénier. The painting hangs in the Young and Jackson Hotel in Melbourne, Australia, where it has been since 1909. One of the most popular paintings on display in Melbourne, Chloé is considered an icon of the city, and was the mascot of the Royal Navy frigate . History Chloé made its debut at the Paris Salon 1875, where it drew critical praise. It was subsequently displayed in Australia at the 1879 Sydney International Exhibition and the Melbourne International Exhibition. Chloé was then purchased by Dr Thomas Fitzgerald of Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, for 850 guineas. Fitzgerald loaned the painting to the National Gallery of Victoria. In 1883, controversy arose when the painting was to be exhibited on Sundays, so Fitzgerald withdrew Chloé from the gallery. Upon Fitzgerald's death in 1908, the painting was purchased at auction by Henry Figsby Young, owner of the Young and Jackson Hotel. In 1908, Young installed the painting in the hotel's saloon bar. Influence on soldiers Chloé captivated many soldiers who frequented the bar of Young and Jackson's Hotel during World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. Letters were addressed to her from the trenches in Turkey, France, and Papua New Guinea, promising to return to her. American soldiers even went as far as coming up with a plan to abduct her. Identity of the model The model who posed for the painting has been the subject of much speculation and mythologising, with many accounts depicting her as having had a love affair with Lefebvre, and committing suicide after he declined to marry her. Such stories are believed to be the result of many decades of bar-room gossip at the Young and Jackson Hotel. An ardent admirer of Chloé since its debut at the 1875 Paris Salon, American journalist Lucy Hamilton Hooper travelled to Lefebvre's studio to ask him about the painting. She quoted him as saying that, after completing the painting, he traveled abroad for a few months, and on his return learned that the model had died: The only other first-hand account of the model, and her possible identity, is Irish writer George Moore's in his 1886 memoir Confessions of a Young Man.