#luisa amman

[higherentity]

[higherentity]

[lamarchesacasati]

1922 Man Ray, Marchesa Luisa Casati.

"In 1922, Luisa visited a young and still unknown photographer named Man Ray. In his autobiography, the American tells the story of the photo that became the most famous of all the representations of the Marchioness Casati (...) "I drew a few where one could distinguish a semblance of face; On one of the negatives, we saw three pairs of eyes. It could have been mistaken for a surreal version of the Medusa. It was precisely this photo that delighted her: I had made a portrait of her soul, she said, and she ordered dozens of copies from me. I wish my other clients had been so easy to please. The photo of the marquise went around Paris. Figures from the most closed circles began to come, all expecting miracles. I had to leave my hotel room and find a real studio. » (x)

[lamarchesacasati]

Prince Paolo Petrovich Troubetzkoy (Italian 1866-1938), Bronze Sculpture Marchesa Luisa Casati with Greyhound, 1914.

Prince Paolo Petrovich Troubetzkoy was an artist and a sculptor who was described by George Bernard Shaw as "the most astonishing sculptor of modern times".

[lamarchesacasati]

1912 Léon Bakst, Indo Persane dance costume for Marchesa Luisa Casati.

[lamarchesacasati]

Marchesa Luisa Casati, circa 1915

Luisa Casati (1881- 1957), Italian heiress, muse, and patroness of the arts in early 20th-century Europe. Ca. 1915. 

[lamarchesacasati]

1906 Alberto Martini, Luisa Casati on one of her night strolls along the Grand Canal in Venice. 

[lamarchesacasati]

1971 Cecil Beaton, Marisa Berenson in a Paul Poiret dress as the Marchesa Luisa Casati for The Proust Ball at the Rothschild family’s opulent Château de Ferrières in France, December 1971.  

Tribute to Marchesa Luisa Casati.

Marisa Berenson went as Marchesa Luisa Casati to The Proust Ball—the idea of costume designer Piero Tosi, with whom Berenson had just worked on the film Death in Venice. “You are not going to go like all those other women,” he proclaimed, instead dressing her in a Paul Poiret dress adorned with jeweled snakes, a curled red wig, black lipstick, and a black tiara. "When I walked in, nobody recognized me,” she says. “I had so much fun because I was totally sticking out from everybody else.  

The Proust Ball (Bal Proust), 1971.

The Proust Ball, thrown in honor of the 100th anniversary of Marcel Proust’s birth in 1971, might be considered Marie-Helene de Rothschild’s greatest triumph. Around 350 guests attended the extremely rich dinner at her home outside of Paris, the Château de Ferrières, with 350 or so more arriving in time for a second, later dinner. Among the guests were Audrey Hepburn, Princess Grace of Monaco, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard Burton, while Cecil Beaton was the night’s photographer. French model and actress Marisa Berenson remembers the night, saying, “As soon as you arrived at Ferrières it was like going back in time, but more luxuriously with highly refined taste… . The women wore dresses, bodices, big headdresses, tiaras, lots of jewelry. It was truly the era of Proust.” (x)