MISIA SERT
Maria Zofia Olga Zenajda Godebska
30 March 1872 – 15 October 1950
The year of her birth is uncertain
The year of her birth is uncertain
Misia Sert became a famous and well loved patron of writers, artists, and dancers, especially in Paris, but this woman who was a gifted pianist, was also a muse, modeling for so many works of art by now famous and respect artists such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Renoir. She was born into an aristocratic ethnically Polish family with ties to Saint Petersburg that left Russia for ex-patriot life in France. Her father was a sculptor who was unfaithful to her mother, and her mother died when she was born and so Misia was raised by relatives. Her sculptor father had mistresses. Still, she was presented at the Court Ball and met the Queen of Belgium - a friend of a grandmother's.
She used the 300,000 franks in gold that she received along with diamonds from her mother-in-law on lingerie, all at one store, and settled in Paris. She was married for the first time young. She was just a bit over 15 years old when they married.
Her patronage of the arts was first supported by that well to do half-Jewish first husband whom she knew from childhood as a family friend, Thadee Natanson. (She herself was a quarter Jewish.) The young couple were involved with the literary social scene as he and his brothers published a literary magazine, Le Review Blanche, which featured writers such as Colette. The artists and composers she name drops in her memoir such as Picasso and Debussy were in their twenties when she was in her teens. She became a "snobinette."
One thing about Misia that perhaps had a profound effect on her life: She found childbirth and everything connected to it gross. Perhaps because her mother died after having her? Clearly she avoided the fate typical of being a woman because, despite three marriages, she remained childless. And her childlessness would be used against her to end her third marriage to the man whose name she carried, Spanish sculptor and artist Jose Maria Sert.
Her relationship with Thadee Natanson was not based on passion but it was good while it lasted. And was soon enough challenged.
One day while out shopping, Alfred Edwards, 30 years older than Misia, and the owner of Theatre de Paris and lots else, saw her and became obsessed. He plotted for a way to remove her husband from Paris. Edwards was rude and crude and yet he courted her with enormous bouquets and foisted endless attention - when he could find her - and Howard Hughes-like, had her followed.
The literary magazine was respected but Natanson and his brother had sunk a fortune into it. The young couple were social but Natanson's weak spot was that he needed money. Edwards offered Natansan the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the Director of a virgin coal mine in Koloschvar, Hungary. Bye Bye Thadee. In her memoir she seems to portray the courtship as whirlwind. Actually it took four years for the marriage to end. She was still a very young woman. Misia said Thadee kept encouraging her to make an arrangement with Edwards, as if he wanted her to be his boss's mistress.
Misia says she refused Edward's calls 80 times as Lautrec was painting a portrait of her, but finally she met Edwards at his flat where his wife and brother encouraged her to just become his mistress. Instead she took the Orient Express train to be with Thadee in Hungary. When the train got to Vienna, there was Edwards waiting. His persistence broke her down.
She became Edward's mistress and then married him or maybe she didn't. However, he who went from being obsessed with her, went to being obsessed with a famous actress who had been a prostitute.
For some time Edwards funded her post divorce lifestyle.
Finally after being his mistress, Misia had a third marriage to a famous painter, Jose Maria Sert, who was patronized by the Royal Family of Spain. He was known for his massive paintings for palaces. She had married first a little girl and second as a playmate. This third marriage was life with an equal, she a mature woman. The marriage lasted twenty years into her old age but ended in a heartbreaking betrayal.
Luckily my library had a copy of Misia's own memoir.
When you read her memoir you may feel as I did that she drops a lot of names which, when it was published, might have been more familiar to readers but which generations later might take some research to understand their importance. Misia is, to me, not a great beauty and in fact rather plain, but she apparently was extremely attractive to men and had a lovely personality, bright, enthusiastic, and caring. And she had enough money to help some of the creative people she believed in, some of whom despite their great talent were paupers.
In her old age she was probably depressed over what happened with Sert. She was a morphine addict and she and CoCo Chanel would go to Switzerland to buy their drugs.
Towards the end of her memoir is a chapter composed of an impassioned and heartbreaking letter to the long lost husband Sert. He'd found a much younger woman to marry and love but for a time there seemed to be an agreement that they would go on as three. For a while Misia though of this young woman, as a third party in her marriage, almost a daughter, and then she accommodated through divorce. She survived divorce obtained in another country, annulment by the Catholic Church in Spain (which wasn't recognized in France), and the remarriage of Sert to the young woman, called Roussy, first civilly and then in the Catholic church. The annulment was based upon Misia's inability to give old Sert heirs - their childlessness.
While she believed she loved him enough to do as he wanted, freeing him to marry again, he apparently thought if she loved him she would never divorce him. She signed in agreement to the annulment. The young woman, his new bride, shockingly died young, without providing Sert an heir. Misia survived the betrayal and she and Sert had a second act with each other as good friends after the young woman died. They saw each other frequently but no longer lived together.
Misia outlived both the young woman he had thrown her over for and Sert. And who was at her death bed? CoCo Chanel.
At a time and place when marriage was thought to be forever, even if it was supported by Mistresses or to be endured, Misia's life was quite unconventional. She lived fully and endured much emotional turmoil.
This month, using both books as references, I'll give more detail about Misia's marriages, in particular to artist Sert. There are some surprises - even Hollywood connections.
To learn more about CoCo Chanel who was last Mistress of the Month in June 2018 and is mentioned in other parts of this blog, use my archives or the Search feature!
She used the 300,000 franks in gold that she received along with diamonds from her mother-in-law on lingerie, all at one store, and settled in Paris. She was married for the first time young. She was just a bit over 15 years old when they married.
Her patronage of the arts was first supported by that well to do half-Jewish first husband whom she knew from childhood as a family friend, Thadee Natanson. (She herself was a quarter Jewish.) The young couple were involved with the literary social scene as he and his brothers published a literary magazine, Le Review Blanche, which featured writers such as Colette. The artists and composers she name drops in her memoir such as Picasso and Debussy were in their twenties when she was in her teens. She became a "snobinette."
One thing about Misia that perhaps had a profound effect on her life: She found childbirth and everything connected to it gross. Perhaps because her mother died after having her? Clearly she avoided the fate typical of being a woman because, despite three marriages, she remained childless. And her childlessness would be used against her to end her third marriage to the man whose name she carried, Spanish sculptor and artist Jose Maria Sert.
Her relationship with Thadee Natanson was not based on passion but it was good while it lasted. And was soon enough challenged.
One day while out shopping, Alfred Edwards, 30 years older than Misia, and the owner of Theatre de Paris and lots else, saw her and became obsessed. He plotted for a way to remove her husband from Paris. Edwards was rude and crude and yet he courted her with enormous bouquets and foisted endless attention - when he could find her - and Howard Hughes-like, had her followed.
The literary magazine was respected but Natanson and his brother had sunk a fortune into it. The young couple were social but Natanson's weak spot was that he needed money. Edwards offered Natansan the opportunity of a lifetime, to be the Director of a virgin coal mine in Koloschvar, Hungary. Bye Bye Thadee. In her memoir she seems to portray the courtship as whirlwind. Actually it took four years for the marriage to end. She was still a very young woman. Misia said Thadee kept encouraging her to make an arrangement with Edwards, as if he wanted her to be his boss's mistress.
Misia says she refused Edward's calls 80 times as Lautrec was painting a portrait of her, but finally she met Edwards at his flat where his wife and brother encouraged her to just become his mistress. Instead she took the Orient Express train to be with Thadee in Hungary. When the train got to Vienna, there was Edwards waiting. His persistence broke her down.
She became Edward's mistress and then married him or maybe she didn't. However, he who went from being obsessed with her, went to being obsessed with a famous actress who had been a prostitute.
For some time Edwards funded her post divorce lifestyle.
Finally after being his mistress, Misia had a third marriage to a famous painter, Jose Maria Sert, who was patronized by the Royal Family of Spain. He was known for his massive paintings for palaces. She had married first a little girl and second as a playmate. This third marriage was life with an equal, she a mature woman. The marriage lasted twenty years into her old age but ended in a heartbreaking betrayal.
Luckily my library had a copy of Misia's own memoir.
When you read her memoir you may feel as I did that she drops a lot of names which, when it was published, might have been more familiar to readers but which generations later might take some research to understand their importance. Misia is, to me, not a great beauty and in fact rather plain, but she apparently was extremely attractive to men and had a lovely personality, bright, enthusiastic, and caring. And she had enough money to help some of the creative people she believed in, some of whom despite their great talent were paupers.
In her old age she was probably depressed over what happened with Sert. She was a morphine addict and she and CoCo Chanel would go to Switzerland to buy their drugs.
Towards the end of her memoir is a chapter composed of an impassioned and heartbreaking letter to the long lost husband Sert. He'd found a much younger woman to marry and love but for a time there seemed to be an agreement that they would go on as three. For a while Misia though of this young woman, as a third party in her marriage, almost a daughter, and then she accommodated through divorce. She survived divorce obtained in another country, annulment by the Catholic Church in Spain (which wasn't recognized in France), and the remarriage of Sert to the young woman, called Roussy, first civilly and then in the Catholic church. The annulment was based upon Misia's inability to give old Sert heirs - their childlessness.
While she believed she loved him enough to do as he wanted, freeing him to marry again, he apparently thought if she loved him she would never divorce him. She signed in agreement to the annulment. The young woman, his new bride, shockingly died young, without providing Sert an heir. Misia survived the betrayal and she and Sert had a second act with each other as good friends after the young woman died. They saw each other frequently but no longer lived together.
Misia outlived both the young woman he had thrown her over for and Sert. And who was at her death bed? CoCo Chanel.
At a time and place when marriage was thought to be forever, even if it was supported by Mistresses or to be endured, Misia's life was quite unconventional. She lived fully and endured much emotional turmoil.
This month, using both books as references, I'll give more detail about Misia's marriages, in particular to artist Sert. There are some surprises - even Hollywood connections.
To learn more about CoCo Chanel who was last Mistress of the Month in June 2018 and is mentioned in other parts of this blog, use my archives or the Search feature!
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