Luisa Casati: la Divina Marchesa, wearing a crown via
Monthly Archives: October 2015
Camille Clifford by Bassano (1916)
Camille Clifford by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 22 May 1916
© National Portrait Gallery, London via
Camille Clifford by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 22 May 1916
© National Portrait Gallery, London via
Camille Clifford by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 22 May 1916
© National Portrait Gallery, London via
Camille Clifford by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 22 May 1916
© National Portrait Gallery, London via
France, Turn of the Century, by The Seeberger Brothers
Vintage Photos of French Novelist Anna de Noailles
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
Poet and novelist Anna de Noailles (1876 – 30 1933) was of Greco-Romanian origins, but was born in Paris where she lived all her life. She wrote three novels, an autobiography, and nine collections of poetry. In 1897 she had married Mathieu Fernand Frédéric Pascal de Noailles (1873–1942), the fourth son of the 7th Duke de Noailles.
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
The couple soon became the toast of Parisian high society.
De Noailles had friendly relations with the intellectual, literary and artistic elite of the day. So popular that various notable artists painted her portrait, including Antonio de la Gandara, Kees van Dongen, Jacques Émile Blanche, and the British portrait painter Philip de Laszlo. In 1906 her image was sculpted by Auguste Rodin; the clay model can be seen today in the Musée Rodin in Paris, and the finished marble bust is on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum.
For her works de Noailles was the first woman to become a Commander of the Legion of Honor. In her poetry she actively engaged with her French literary heritage while finding a source of inspiration in Greek paganism and in Nietzsche’s radical thought, de Noailles constructed an original poetic world view. Her work is best described as Dionysian–ecstatic, sensual, erotic, playful, sometimes violent, and always marked by a tragic undercurrent which becomes more apparent in her later poetry (source). She died in 1933 in Paris, aged 56, and was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Comtesse de Noailles, 1922 via
Anna de Noailles, 1922 via
Anna de Noailles wearing her trademark bouffant coiffure augmented by a wall of bangs and a 1900s dress with complex sleeves, 1904 via
Portrait of Anna de Noailles, 1918 via
FOR this I write, that when I lie in earth,
It may be known I loved the air and mirth,
And that my book to future races tell
How I loved life and nature passing well.
Attentive to the toil of towns and fields,
I marked what every changing season yields,
Since water, earth, and flames that gold refine
Are fairest imaged in this soul of mine.
I say what I do feel, what I behold,
With heart for which the truth was not too bold,
I who have had the hardihood to will
When I am dead and gone to be loved still.
And that young man reading what I wrote,
Feeling his troubled heart thrilled with delight,
Forgetting those who love him in the life
Should welcome me to be his best-loved wife.
Read more at http://www.blackcatpoems.com/n/my_writing.html#1hHWWDPuD89VtDg8.99
Photos of Eva Palmer-Sikelianos
Evelina “Eva” Palmer-Sikelianos (1874 – 1952) was an American woman notable for her study and promotion of Classical Greek culture, weaving, theater, choral dance and music. Palmer’s life and artistic endeavors intersected with numerous noteworthy artists throughout her life.
She was both inspired by or inspired the likes of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ted Shawn, the French literary great Colette, the poet and author Natalie Barney and the actress Sarah Bernhardt.
She would go on to marry Angelos Sikelianos, a Greek poet and playwright. Together they organized a revival of the Delphic Festival in Delphi, Greece. Embodied in these festivals of art, music and theater she hoped to promote a balanced sense of enlightenment that would further the goals of peace and harmony in Greece and beyond.
Eva Palmer-Sikelianos via
Eva Palmer-Sikelianos via
Mamie Whittaker by Bassano (1910)
Actress Mamie Whittaker by Bassano, whole-plate glass negative, 15 September 1910 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Actress Mamie Whittaker by Bassano, vintage print, 1910 © National Portrait Gallery, London
Theda Bara in Silent Film Sin (1915)
Theda Bara made over 40 films for the Fox Film Corporation, with titles like The Eternal Sin, The Blue Flame, The Soul of Buddha, Purgatory’s Ivory Angel & Carmen.
In 1915 Fox produced silent drama Sin with Theda Bara starring as Rose.
In order to play up Theda Bara’s image as a vamp, Fox Film Corporation publicized the film with the tagline “Sin With Theda Bara!”. Upon its release, Sin was an enormous hit with audiences and Bara earned generally good reviews for her performance.
In spite of its success, the film was banned in Ohio and Georgia due to its themes of suicide, lust, Roman Catholic sacrilege and love triangles. The Pittsburgh Board of Welfare condemned the film as did the Kansas Board of Censorship (which apparently still allowed the film to run in Kansas theaters).
The film is now considered to be lost.
Theda Bara as Rosa in Sin, 1915 via
Theda Bara as Rosa in Sin, 1915 via
Theda Bara as Rosa in Sin, 1915 via
Theda Bara as Rosa in Sin, 1915 via
Beautiful Edwardian Era Photos of “Dollar Princess”Consuelo Vanderbilt
Consuelo Vanderbilt (1877 – 1964), was a member of the prominent American Vanderbilt family. Born in New York City, she was the only daughter and eldest child of New York railroad millionaire William Kissam Vanderbilt, and his first wife, budding suffragist, Alva Erskine Smith. By the time she she’d made her debut in 1895, she possessed $20 million (ca. $4 billion today). Her marriage to Charles Spencer-Churchill, 9th Duke of Marlborough became an international emblem of the socially advantageous, but loveless, marriages common during the Gilded Age.
It was only a matter of time before their marriage was in name only. The Duke of Marlborough married Consuelo Vanderbilt so he could preserve the family seat Blenheim Palace. The duchess eventually was smitten by her husband’s handsome cousin, the Hon. Reginald Fellowes (the liaison did not last, to the relief of Fellowes’s parents), while the duke fell under the spell of Gladys Marie Deacon, an eccentric American of little money but, like Consuelo, dazzling to look at and of considerable intellect. The Marlboroughs separated in 1906, divorced in 1921, and the marriage was annulled, at the duke’s request and with Consuelo’s assent, on 19 August 1926.
Consuelo’s second marriage, on 4 July 1921, was to Lt. Col. Jacques Balsan, a record-breaking pioneer French balloon, aircraft, and hydroplane pilot who once worked with the Wright Brothers. Also a textile manufacturing heir, Balsan was a younger brother of Etienne Balsan, who was an important early lover of Coco Chanel. Jacques Balsan died in 1956 at the age of 88.
During the second decade of the 20th Century she was a leading champion of women’s rights and child welfare causes.
Consuelo Balsan published her insightful but not entirely candid autobiography, The Glitter and the Gold, in 1953. It was ghostwritten by Stuart Preston, an American writer who was an art critic for The New York Times. A reviewer in the New York Times called it “an ideal epitaph of the age of elegance.”
Wedding via
Consuelo Vanderbilt (From the USA Library of Congress Bain collection) via
Consuelo Vanderbilt via
Consuelo Vanderbilt by Lafayette, 1899 via
Consuelo Vanderbilt, the Duchess of Marlborough, 1911 via
Consuelo Vanderbilt, Duchess of Marlborough with her sons John Albert William Spencer-Churchill, Marquess of Blanford (later 10th Duke of Marlborough) and Lord Ivor Charles Spencer-Churchill by Rita Martin via
Gabrielle Ray as Frou Frou in The Merry Widow (1907)
In the first decade of the 20th century, Gabrielle Ray (1883 – 1973) had a good career in musical theatre, she was considered one of the most beautiful actresses on the London stage, and became one of the most photographed women in the world.
In 1907, Ray played Frou Frou in The Merry Widow, which became a sensation. The operetta starred Lily Elsie, Joseph Coyne and Robert Evett, with costumes by Lucile. It ran for 778 performances in London and toured extensively in Great Britain.
Ray’s dance number, complete with handstands and high kicks, all performed on a table at Maxim’s held head high by four men, was a show stopper.
Gabrielle Ray as “Frou Frou” in “The Merry Widow” 1907. Costumes by Lucile via
Gabrielle Ray as “Frou Frou” in “The Merry Widow” 1907. Costumes by Lucile via
Gabrielle Ray as “Frou Frou” and mr. W. Berry in “The Merry Widow” 1907. Costumes by Lucile via
FROM THE BYGONE 
