"I WANT TO BE A LIVING WORK OF ART"

Much of my time ferreting into the life and times of the inimitable Marchesa Luisa Casati was spent tracking down innumerable references to her. (In my mind I was already calling her Luisa). I found her name popping up in the oddest places. Being seduced by what I thought of as clues to her enigma, I was drawn deeper and deeper into Luisa. (In fact, I began to imagine that people were whispering about her at cocktail parties.) There are some people whom you think you know absolutely everything about, but you wake up one day to find you never understood their essence. They possess the quality that the French call le mystere. You're either born with it or you're not. C'est la vie, mes petits choux

Rummaging through my notes and examining my personal feelings about her, I found her fascinating, yes, but I couldn't decide whether she was a sympathetic creature or a repellent one. But then I realized that I didn't care-- I DIDN'T CARE --because as with everyone else who fell under her spell, I was mad for her--mad to know her, mad to be her--and no hope for either one, alas. Because Luisa Casati was the most devastating femme fatale of the early years of the twentieth century. She was not merely a celebrity--she was the real thing.

Luisa was born in Milan in 1881 into wealth and luxury. Her childhood was uneventful (by the standards of childhood). Her mother died young and when her father followed when she was sixteen, she and her elder sister became the wealthiest heiresse in Italy. A few years later she was married to Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, Marchese di Roma. After the birth of a child, the Marchesa and the Marchese separated. Luisa would now begin to fulfill her destiny.

Traveling throughout Italy and France, with a particular penchanant for Capri, Luisa collected palaces like charm bracelets. Around 1910 she settled in Venice, where she installed herself and her growing menagerie of exotic animals in the semi-ruined Palazzo Venier dei Leoni on the Grand Canal (later called home by Peggy Guggenheim--another notable Bohemian--and currently the Peggy Guggenheim Collection). Around that time Luisa began a passionate love affair with the then famous Italian lover and poet, Gabriele D'Annunzio, which lasted on and off for years. Exclusivity was hardly expected in their set, and Luisa simultaneously enjoyed love affairs with both men and women. Her scandalous indulgences had no effect on her fassinated hordes of admirers.

Luisa's guests must have stood by in jaw-dropping awe at the spectacle of her Nubian servants naked and gilded, holding great flaming torches at the entrance to her Palazzo. The Marchesa would greet them bedecked and bejeweled with live snakes. Guests would find her dinner table occupied by full-sized figures carved of wax--supposedly her lovers--slowly, slowly melting from the heat of the masses of candles on her long dinner table. Can you imagine the splendor of her impossibly extravagant masquerades, her grand receptions for Diaghelev, Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes-- all the while her cheetahs prowling in a midnight garden illuminated by red and gold Chinese lanterns.

Very tall and long-limbed--and of course very, very rich--the Marchesa scandalized (or secretly delighted) Venetian society by her late night soujourns through the Piazza San Marco. Naked under a long fur coat, she was accompanied by her two pet cheetahs straining at the end of their gem-studded leashes. (In fact, late one impossibly cold and damp winter night when I lived in Venice I thought I caught a glimpse of her with her spotted cats slipping through the Piazza before she disappeared under the Clock Tower. (But I had been celebrating my birthday with friends at Harry's Bar and it was Venice, after all.)

Luisa indulged herself in the outrageously sublime couture of Mario Fortuny, Paul Poiret and Erte. Fascinated with the mystical, the Marchesa upended the aristocracy when they listened to rumors of her opening her palazzo to various seers and psychics --as long term house guests! Bizarrely compelling in her exotic garb, accessorized with 'living jewels,' the palor of her skin like moonlight--not to mention her huge green eyes and marmalade-colored hair--she effortlessly commanded her audience.

After Cleopatra and the Virgin Mary, it has been said that Luisa was probably the most painted, sculpted, drawn and photographed woman in art (even if she herself commissioned many of the representations). Indeed, our Marchesa was possessed by a passion for the arts. She gave far more than great financial support and patronage---she gave her presence. At events artistic and literary people thronged about her, attempting to catch a glimpse. Luisa's house in the environs of Paris, the Palais Rose, with a private art gallery, contained more than 130 paintings of her likeness (and how many mirrors, I wonder). She posed for ManRay, Cecil Beaton, Kees Ven Dongen and Boldini among so many others. The English painter and infamous lover Augustus John became Luisa's lover and she his muse. He painted one of his greatest portraits of her but was unable to bend her will to his. He would tell anyone who listened, "Luisa Casati should be shot, stuffed and displayed in a glass case." Luisa's response is unknown as she had already drifted off with other artists, aristocrats and literati who worshipped at her feet.

Sadly, not all fairy tales end in 'happily ever after.' The cost of indulging Luisa's unrestrained desires finally exhausted her great fortune. What must she have felt to realize that at only 49 years old she was $25 million in debt? What would she do with the rest of her life? Was the party finally over? What could she do? An auction of all her possessions ensued--with notable figures such as Coco Chanel among the avid bidders. (I imagine a room full of well-dressed vultures all wanting a piece of her).

Luisa retired to London and lived in relative obscurity and not-so-genteel poverty for the next thirty years. Among others she was consoled in her exile by visits from the writer, raconteur and future gay icon Quentin Crisp, the art historian, aesthete and dandy Philippe Jullian and the eccentric composer Lord Berners who stopped by for tea. It almost brought me to tears to read that there were rumors of her seen rummaging through trash bins late at night searching for feathers to put in her hair. (If I am ever in similar circumstances, I shall do the very same thing in her honor).

Age shall not wither her nor custom stale her infinite variety, from Shakespeare's Anthony and Cleopatra was engraved upon her tombstone in Brompton Cemetery in London when the grand Marchesa Luisa Casati died in 1957.

For those interested in further exploring the Marchesa Luisa Casati, I suggest you read her definitive biography, Infinite Variety: The Life of the Marchesa Luisa Casati by Scot D. Ryerson and Michael Orlando Yaccarino; "The Other Heiress: The Marchesa Luisa Casati" by Lorette C. Luzajic (www.thegirlcanwrite.com) The Glass of Fashion by Cecil Beaton; Phillippe Jullian, Vogue September 1970; and follow up any references to Luisa that you come across. Please let me know should you find something interesting.