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| from Man Ray more info luisa casati |
Marchesa Luisa Casati was an eccentric patroness of the arts
and socialite, born into an aristocratic Italian family in 1881. As a teenager,
she inherited an immense fortune that she later used to fund her transformation
into a living work of art. In her ruined Venetian palace (the
same that houses the Peggy Guggenheim Collection) she held legendary soirées,
surrounding herself with artists and intellectuals, dabbling in the occult,
wearing live snakes as jewellery and parading around the city with cheetahs on
jewelled leashes. Her signature look consisted of eyes blackened with kohl,
deathly pale face, and crimson-painted lips.
The Marchesa commissioned countless portraits of herself and became
one of the most portrayed women in history. Her quest to
immortalise herself in art was one of the many things the Marchesa had in common
with the Countess of Castiglione, the notorious 19th century femme fatale she
had modelled herself on. The Marchesa had lived so lavishly that despite her
wealth, she was $25 million in debt at the time of her death.
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