MISIA SERT : THIRD MARRIAGE TO ARTIST JOSE MARIA SERT and THE ACCOMMODATION OF ROUSSADANA MDIVANI

NOTE: April 2020
I got a comment that said two things that I question.  The link to the person who posted showed him on blogger but not to a blog.  The commenter first said that Serge Diaghilev was not a ballet dancer.  This is what Wikipedia says:  Serge Diaghilev was a Russian ballet impresario.  He was a Russian promoter of the arts who revitalized ballet by integrating the ideals of other art forms - music, painting, and drama - with those of dance.  From 1906 he lived in Paris, where in 1909 he founded the Ballets Russes.  Thereafter he toured Europe and the Americas with his ballet company, and he produced three ballet masterpieces by Igor Stravinsky: The Firebird (1910),Petrushka (1911) and The Rite of Spring (1913.)

The other thing this poster said was that Misia did not get a settlement from her marriage, that she was, in so many words, too proud.  I'm basing my account on the book noted.

And not publishing this comment.

Please back up any statement you make with some reference such as a book title and page, an article on the internet, or otherwise.  I realize that in some cases there are very many books that contradict each other.  Thanks, Missy

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ORIGINAL POST STARTS HERE:

Misia met and became the mistress of famous and accomplished artist Jose Maria Sert, who was patronized by the Spanish royal family. They lived together for twelve years before they married in 1920 when he was 45 and she was 48. She knew he had a lifetime habit of affairs. Two marriages behind her, she was finally with a man who wanted and needed more than a playmate or wife to show off. She was finally with an equal. Misia was said to be - for the first time - "Sexually overwhelmed" for the first time.  And she became serious with Sert quickly, so quickly that he seemed to want to back out of a relationship.  But she followed him to continue the affair and they went on an art and architecture tour where he played tour guide. She was now considered a liberated woman but she did not want to go it alone. Her money came from a settlement with her last ex-husband, Edwards, in their divorce.  (Before he died in 1914 he had even begged her to marry him again.)

Her life was continually entwined with the up and coming and the renown artists, sculptors, ballet dancers, choreographers - the biggest talents in arts, culture, and society in France. Together the couple were friends with ballet dancer Serge Diaghilev, who had been born in Russia in 1872.  He was a fashion "dandy," a homosexual and he and Misia gossiped and intrigued for the next twenty years as special friends.  Friends even said that she was the only woman Diaghilev could ever have married. By 1910-1911 Paris season his ballets were considered to be a "revelation" attended by aristocrats, royals, high society, and homosexual society, (Including Isadora Duncan, the dancer, who has also been a Mistress of the Month here at Mistress Manifesto.)

Misia rarely visited Sert at his studio, thinking of it as his sacred space but it is there that the young Georgian Princess Roussadana Mdivani, called Roussy, as a neophyte sculptor herself appeared, looking for advice in 1925.

For some reason, Misia did not initially feel threatened when she heard about her.  But then the young woman was young enough to be a daughter and so Misia felt that she and her husband could take the playful Roussy underwing. The day came though when she showed up at the studio hoping to meet her.  She was enchanted. Misia had grown up without her birth mother and Roussy's mother was dead.  The Serts were childless.  

Misia and Jose Maria had a Catholic marriage in Spain, considered impossible to divorce and had been married for 20  plus years and Misia loved the girl too but the idea that she would remain a surrogate daughter to the couple was ridiculous. The girl had once even crept in on all fours and watched Misia and Sert have sex!  The girl claimed she loved Misia as well. Would they go on as three?

They sure didn't want Misia along on their honeymoon.

Was it an act of love on Misia's part to let him go to the girl?  She cooperated with civil divorce and an annulment (considered invalid in France) so her old husband and the girl could marry.  She agreed there was something wrong with her sexual organs and he said he had married Misia in order to have an heir!  (Well, we wonder, how the childbirth adverse Misia managed to perhaps never become pregnant at a time when contraception was not what it is today.)

As the truth came to her, Misia became depressed, even driven insane.  She even took a job in a dress shop in New York to get away and it was there that she got the letter from Sert saying he had married again and in the Catholic church.

Roussy died of what sounds to be a throat infection that she went to Switzerland to cure, not having created an heir, and then Misia and her ex-husband lived separate but became friends.  They visited daily and sometimes went out to dinner.

Sert died November 27, 1945 and she didn't make it to his death bed. He left his property to others but he did give Misia his apartment and everything in it on the rue de Rivoli including paintings, furniture, and the library.  Over the next five years Misia sold whatever when she needed money as she herself had little.  It was there she died.

C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
References for this post are Misia's own memoir and the book about her by Fizdale and Gold.

MISIA SERT : QUOTATION

"Every woman decides to be either eighteen, thirty, or eighty for life.  Poor CoCo chose 18, the most difficult age.  I chose thirty."  Misia Sert

quoted by Fizdale and Gold

MISIA SERT'S SECOND MARRIAGE TO ALFRED EDWARDS : HIS MISTRESS BEFORE HIS WIFE

Alfred Edwards was married and 30 years older than Misia, who was married to her first husband Thadee Natanson, when they met.  She was out shopping when he saw her and approached.  From the beginning he seems to have been obsessed with her and determined to get her alone.  She evaded him some of the time.  Considered to be extremely wealthy compared to Natanson and his family, Edwards gave her jewelry and with Thandee out of the country so much, she began to consider him.

Edwards offered Thandee the chance of a lifetime, to be in charge of a coal mine he had in Hungary.  Thandee went and as Edwards pursued his wife, seems to have become complicit in Misia becoming Edward's mistress.

However, Misia went to meet his Edward's mother, another person now encouraging her to remain a mistress and not pursue marriage with the her son. 

As for Edwards, he had her followed.  He would probably be considered a stalker today.  He was considered rude and crude, even perverted; not saying she complied.  He purchased fans for her and she owned a beautiful and expensive collection of them. But he once locked her in a room so she couldn't get away from him.  He managed a  fast divorces and after that they married quickly.  He had a house boat built just for Misia called the Aimee.  The houseboat figures in what happened a couple years later.

Having acquired Misia as a trophy wife, near 60 years old, he began an affair with a famous actress named Lanthelme who had been born in a brothel and entered that profession young.  He became obsessed and had her followed. He set her up as his mistress. He brought the affair home to Misia's torment, claiming that this woman, who didn't shy away from his perversions, disgusted him. Yet he divorced Misia and then quickly married Lanthelme: there's a pattern here. His marriage with Misia ended exactly 4 years after their marriage, on Feb 24, 1909. 

Lanthelme drowned in the Rhine River on July 25, 1911.  It was called an accident.  Edwards was accused of murdering his latest wife but he sued for libel. Seems she would have found it awkward to jump out of a window.  Maybe someone was hoisting her from behind and pushing.


Edwards died in 1914.  Misia needed to see him but his newest young mistress, Colonna Romano, who also had been painted by Renoir) fled after he died.  He left everything to her including his theater and casino.

Misia had come to think she had been a playmate to her first husband.  With Edwards she came to think of herself as a show piece, a trophy wife, someone to show off.  She needed more. 

C 2019 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot
References for this post are Misia's own memoir and the book about her by Fizdale and Gold