Lot Essay
Lina Cavalieri was an opera singer and a famous beauty of the Edwardian period. Although she began as a worker in a tobacco factory, she was to make her career as a renowned soprano. By the turn of the century, Lina was singing at Covent Garden, and the Opéra. She was the first singer to accompany Enrico Caruso, when he made his debut in Paris on April 14, 1904, at a benefit for wounded Russian soldiers. During a performance in the Unites States of Fedora by Giordano, she inherited the title "La Primadonna che bacia" (the kissing Primadonna), when, during a love duet, she threw herself into the arms of Caruso, kissing him passionately. Cavalieri was to sing Andriana Lecouvreur in the opera's first performance, at the Metropolitan in New York, and also performed the role of Manon Lescaut there in 1907, opposite Beniamino Gigli. However, her marriage in 1907 to the American millionaire Robert Astor Chanler, whom she left within a week, and the eddy of scandal that followed, made further engagements at the Metropolitan impossible. She later returned to America following her marriage to the popular French tenor, Lucien Muratoré and together they toured successfully.
In Europe, Lina was an inspiration. Violet, the Duchess of Rutland, advised her children, "If you wish to comport yourself in the most graceful and distinguished manner possible, if you wish to assume beauty...and the grace of a great lady, then you cannot do better than to study every detail and gesture of Lina Cavalieri"and Erte's description has immortalized her beauty: "Lina Cavalieri was tall, very slender with a wonderfully long neck, like that of a swan. She was a brunette with large, dark eyes and perfectly chiseled features. Her beauty was not at all cold because her face, never static, was always expressive. But the most important thing about her was her extraordinary charm... She had an innate sense of movement; every gesture deserved to be immortalized by a painter or sculptor..."
The portrait was painted circa 1901. Emilia Cardona describes the portrait on two occasions. "During this period, he painted some dancers and a ravishing Italian who was dazzling Paris: Lina Cavalieri. She appeared totally pure in a black bodice which would evoke the clothing of a novice if it wasn't enhanced by the fashionable note of a pearl necklace of royal richess." Dario Cecchi concurs that
"The Italian Lina Cavalieri often went to his studio. She posed for a series of portraits, of which one seemed to defy the usual. While he painted ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in their provocative poses, he created his most beautiful portrait of the actress, in a most chaste posture and pose. Lina Cavalieri is seen dressed in a black blouse in a severely high black corsage and her soft carefree face seems like a child's. The pearl necklaces alone, interrupting all this black, seem to insinuate that this innocent beauty is capable of provoking dramas of love."
In Europe, Lina was an inspiration. Violet, the Duchess of Rutland, advised her children, "If you wish to comport yourself in the most graceful and distinguished manner possible, if you wish to assume beauty...and the grace of a great lady, then you cannot do better than to study every detail and gesture of Lina Cavalieri"and Erte's description has immortalized her beauty: "Lina Cavalieri was tall, very slender with a wonderfully long neck, like that of a swan. She was a brunette with large, dark eyes and perfectly chiseled features. Her beauty was not at all cold because her face, never static, was always expressive. But the most important thing about her was her extraordinary charm... She had an innate sense of movement; every gesture deserved to be immortalized by a painter or sculptor..."
The portrait was painted circa 1901. Emilia Cardona describes the portrait on two occasions. "During this period, he painted some dancers and a ravishing Italian who was dazzling Paris: Lina Cavalieri. She appeared totally pure in a black bodice which would evoke the clothing of a novice if it wasn't enhanced by the fashionable note of a pearl necklace of royal richess." Dario Cecchi concurs that
"The Italian Lina Cavalieri often went to his studio. She posed for a series of portraits, of which one seemed to defy the usual. While he painted ladies of the Faubourg Saint-Germain in their provocative poses, he created his most beautiful portrait of the actress, in a most chaste posture and pose. Lina Cavalieri is seen dressed in a black blouse in a severely high black corsage and her soft carefree face seems like a child's. The pearl necklaces alone, interrupting all this black, seem to insinuate that this innocent beauty is capable of provoking dramas of love."