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Early life
The younger daughter of a wealthy cottonmanufacturer, Alberto Amman, and his wife,
the former Lucia Bressi,
Luisa Adele Rosa Maria Amman
was born in Milan to a life of luxury.
Luisa's father was of Austrian descent,
while her mother was Italian and Austrian.
Luisa's father was made a count by
King Umberto I for his contributions to
the cotton industry.
Countess Amman died when Luisa
was 13, and Count Amman died two
years later, making his Luisa and her
elder sister, Francesca
(1880-1919, married Giulio Padulli)
reportedly the wealthiest women in Italy.
Marriage
Luisa married, in 1900, Camillo Casati Stampa di Soncino, Marchese di Roma (Muggio, Milan, 12 August 1877 - Roma, 18 September 1946).A year later, their only child, Cristina, was born. After the early years of their marriage and the birth of their daughter, the Casatis maintained separate residences for the duration of their marriage.
They were legally separated in 1914, and the marriage ended upon the marchese's death.
The couple's daughter, Cristina Casati Stampa di Soncino (1901-1953), married, as her first husband, Francis John Clarence Westenra Plantagenet Hastings, known as Viscount Hastings (later 16th Earl of Huntingdon), in 1925; they had one child, Lady Moorea Hastings (b. 1928, who became the third wife of Labour politician Woodrow Wyatt and later wed Brinsley Graham Black), and divorced in 1943.
As her second husband, Cristina, Viscountess Hastings married, in 1944, the Hon. Wogan Philipps.
Muse and patroness
A celebrity and femme fatale, the marchesa's famous eccentricities dominated and delighted European society for nearly three decades. She captivated artists and literati figures such as Robert de Montesquiou, Erte, Jean Cocteau, Cecil Beaton, and Jack Kerouac. She had a long term affair with the author Gabriele D'Annunzio.The character of Isabella Inghirami from D'Annunzio's Forse che si forse che no (Maybe yes, maybe no) (1910) was said to have been inspired by her, as well as the character of La Casinelle, who appeared in two novels by Michel Georges-Michel, Dans la fete de Venise (1922) and Nouvelle Riviera (1924).
In 1910 Casati took up residence at the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, on Grand Canal in Venice (now the home of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection). Her soirees there would become legendary. Casati collected a menagerie of exotic animals, and patronized fashion designers such as Fortuny and Poiret.
Later, when she had lost her immense wealth, the marchesa retired to England, spending her last years in London, where she died at age 76. Characters based on Casati were played by Vivien Leigh in La Contessa (1965) and by Ingrid Bergman in the movie A Matter of Time (1976).
The beautiful and extravagant hostess to the Ballets Russes was something of a legend among her contemporaries. She astonished Venetian society by parading with a pair of leashed cheetahs and wearing live snakes as jewelry.
Her numerous portraits were painted and sculpted by artists as various as Giovanni Boldini, Paolo Troubetzkoy, Romaine Brooks, Kees van Dongen, Man Ray and Augustus John; many of them she paid for, as a wish to "commission her own immortality".
She was muse to F. T. Marinetti, Fortunato Depero, and Umberto Boccioni. John Galliano based the 1998 Spring/Summer Christian Dior collection on her. Gowns from this collection have been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Fashion Institute. And Casati served as inspiration for one of Galliano's ensembles created for his autumn/winter 2007/2008 Bal des Artistes haute couture collection for Dior.
As the concept of dandy was expanded in the 20th century to include women, the
marchesa Casati fitted the utmost female example by saying: "I want to be a living work of art."
Debt, flight and death
By 1930, Casati had amassed a personal debt of $25 million. Unable to satisfy her creditors, her personal possessions were auctioned off. Rumor has it that among the bidders was Coco Chanel.Luisa fled to London, where she lived in comparative poverty. She was rumoured to be seen rummaging in
bins searching for feathers to decorate her hair.
She died in London on 1 June 1957, and was interred in Brompton Cemetery. The quote:
Age cannot wither her,
nor custom stale her infinite variety
from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra was inscribed on her tombstone.
She was buried wearing not only her black and leopardskin finery but a pair of false eyelashes. She also shares her coffin with one of her beloved stuffed pekinese dogs.
Her tombstone is a small grave marker in the shape of an urn draped in cloth with a swag of flowers to the front. The inscription strangely mis-spells her name as 'Louisa' rather than 'Luisa'.It's a very hard grave to find and despite her fame, wealth and notoriety is very modest compared to the thousands of grand monuments within Brompton Cemetery.
Further Reading
The Marchesa Casati: Portraits of a Muse
Amazon Price: $30.72 (as of 01/02/2010)
List Price: $50.00
Used Price: $25.55
During the first half of the twentieth century, the Marchesa Luisa Casati (1881-1957) was Europe's most notorious celebrity. Her extravagant lifestyle, eccentric personality, and scandalous escapades captivated and inspired some of the most influential artists of her time. She was painted by Boldini and Augustus John, sketched by Drian and Alastair, and photographed by Man Ray and Cecil Beaton, among others. Jean Cocteau praised her strange beauty; Jack Kerouac dedicated poems to her; Fortuny, Poiret, and Erte dressed her. She continues to inspire top designers today, including John Galliano and Karl Lagerfeld.
The Marchesa Casati is a visual biography, telling Casati's captivating life story alongside the art and designs she has inspired, featuring 200 images covering her lifetime and beyond. Personal family momentos, paintings, sculptures, and photographs, some never before seen, illustrate the artistic and cultural legacy she left behind. Runway images, sketches, and advertorials show her continuing impact on the present-day fashion community.
Release Date: 12/31/1969
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Infinite Variety: The Life and Legend of the Marchesa Casati (Definitive Edition)
Amazon Price: $12.89 (as of 01/02/2010)
List Price: $18.95
Used Price: $11.33
From Kirkus Reviews
She strolled Venice's Piazza San Marco clad only in a fur cloak, escorted by pet cheetahs on jeweled leashes; she adorned herself with snakes, live and stuffed, and accessorized an evening costume with chicken blood. She was a Belle Epoque eccentric, big time. Luisa Casati was also extraordinarily wealthy in her own right, heir to a Milanese cotton fortune and wife of an Italian noble. Her marriage began to disintegrate after just a few years, when she began an affair and a lifelong friendship with Italian poet and writer Gabriele D`Annunzio. Here she began to re-create herself, evolving from a rather shy, conformist young woman to the flamboyant pale-faced redhead, her remarkable green eyes rimmed by kohl, who would be the subject of more than 130 portraits, many by famous artists. She decorated a villa in Rome, refurbished a Venetian palazzo (now the Peggy Guggenheim museum), and threw extravagant parties and costume balls, mingling socialites and her newfound artist friends. As illustrator/graphic designer Ryersson and film critic Yaccarino describe it, her behavior grew increasingly bizarre: life-size wax replicas of herself and others were seated as guests at dinner parties but she continued to intrigue serious artists like Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, and Augustus John, who was her lover briefly and a friend until she died. Eventually, her self-indulgent life style left her $25 million in debt; in 1932 her personal possessions were auctioned off. She resettled in England, sinking into poverty so acute that it was a choice between food for herself or for her dogs. (The dogs won.) Her life was the inspiration for a play starring Vivien Leigh and an Ingrid Bergman film. Casati died in 1957, her tombstone inscribed: ``Age can not wither nor custom stale her infinite variety.'' In essence, a predictably superficial superstar bio-Cher at the turn of the century, as it were.
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Quotes
The Marchesa lived partly as a slave to her dream world...
her palaces and her
aristocratic circles.
They served as stages
where everyone was
usually an actor, but
when she made her entrance,
they automatically became
spectators or background extras.
- Alberto Martini
Her carrot-coloured hair hung in long curls. The enormous agate-black eyes seemed to be eating her thin face.
Again she was a vision, a mad vision, surrounded as usual by her black and white greyhounds and a host of charming and utterly useless ornaments.But curiously enough she did not look unnatural.
The fantastic garb really suited her.
She was so different from other women that ordinary clothes were impossible for her.
- Catherine Barjansky
A black-gloved hand on which several rings sparkled, brushed the veil aside.
The face was that of a sinister Pierrot, utterly white, the thin mouth a slit that seemed to be of the same black as the rings encircling the eyes. The high cheekbones, the forward-thrusting chin, the long neck bespoke the apparition's class. Was this the vampire Nosferatu in drag or the daughter of Dracula turned grandmother? Had Miss Havisham discarded her bridal veil for the costume of the Blue Angel? Assuredly it was no Madwoman of Chaillot. On this skeleton tawdry fineries had acquired an elegance beyond the canons of any fashion. This figure could arouse panic-but pity, never.- Philippe Jullian
The door to the room where we sat chatting suddenly opened. A dead woman entered.
Her superb body was modeling a dress of white satin that was wrapped around her like a shroud and dragged behind her. A bouquet of orchids hid her breast. Her hair was red and her complexion livid like alabaster. Her face was devoured by two enormous eyes, whose black pupils almost overwhelmed her mouth painted a red so vivid that it seemed like a strip of coagulated blood. In her arms, she carried a baby leopard. It was the Marchesa Casati.- Gabriel-Louis Pringué
LuisaCasati
should
be
shot,
stuffed
and
displayed
in a
glass
case.
- Augustus John
But her alchemy was much more complex, producing many other marvels.
By what fire did she transmute the substance of her life into the beauties of such moving power?She demonstrated how true it is that all enchantment is a madness induced with art. But what was the real essence of this creature?
Was she aware of her continuous metamorphosis, or was she impenetrable to herself, excluded from her own mystery?
- Gabriele D'Annunzio
Links
- Dandyism.net Blog Archive
- A page on the website dandyism.net about her.
- Find A Grave - Millions of Cemetery Records and Online Memorials
- Find A Grave memorial for Luisa Casati
- SIREN OF THE CENTURY BY RYERSSON AND YACCARINO
- "The Marchesa Luisa Casati"
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