Notable portraits by Beltran Masses

Federico Beltrán-Masses (1885–1949) ~ La Maja Maldita, 1918. Oil on canvas. Posed (likely) by Carmen Tórtola Valencia

Federico Beltrán-Masses (1885–1949) ~ La Marchesa Casati, 1920. Oil on canvas

View on WordPress

Debra Shaw

Christian Dior HC SS 1998

By John Galliano

1922 Man Ray, Marchesa Luisa Casati. 

"In 1922, Luisa visited a young and still unknown photographer named Man Ray. In his autobiography, the American tells the story of the photo that became the most famous of all the representations of the Marchioness Casati (...) "I drew a few where one could distinguish a semblance of face; On one of the negatives, we saw three pairs of eyes. It could have been mistaken for a surreal version of the Medusa. It was precisely this photo that delighted her: I had made a portrait of her soul, she said, and she ordered dozens of copies from me. I wish my other clients had been so easy to please. The photo of the marquise went around Paris. Figures from the most closed circles began to come, all expecting miracles. I had to leave my hotel room and find a real studio. » (x)

Augustus John - Marchesa Casati (1942)

Lady Gaga's look is inspired by these photos taken by Cecil Beaton of Marisa Berenson dressed as Marchesa Louisa Casati for Vogue US' "Remembrance of Things Proust" in January 1972.

Renato Bertelli (1900 - 1974) - Marchesa Casati in maschera di medusa, ca. 1920 

"My inspirational icon of glamorous eccentricity is the Marchesa Casati. I would like to give every person who thinks she is so risque and so eccentric a book called Infinite Variety so she can read about what eccentricity really is and who was living it in a big way almost a hundred years ago! "I want to be a living work of art!" the Marchesa said.

I also love Empress Elizabeth of Austria, who seemed pretty eccentric to me too. Being corseted down to 17 inches in a flowing black silk riding habit and sitting sidesaddle and jumping horses shows a real dedication to glamour, no?

- Dita von Teese

Before there was Gaga there was Marchesa Casati.

Prepare to be astonished.

Luisa, Marchesa Casati Stampa di Soncino, was an Italian heiress, muse, and patroness of the arts in early 20th-century Europe.

described as wearing more perfume than clothing,

on Marchesa Luisa Casati, Infinite Variety by Michael Orlando Yaccarino & Scott D. Ryersson

Trícia Helfer / Erin O'Connor

Eugenia Silva / Eva Herzigova

'Marchesa Casati' Collection

Christian Dior Haute Couture Spring Summer 1998

By John Galliano

Gustav Adolf Mossa, Pastel of Marchesa Luisa Casati. 1915

Luisa was on holiday in Nice when she chanced accorss the work of Gustav Adolf Mossa. This French symbolist dedicated his craft to rendering fantastical creatures of myth – many of them in ghoulish feminine forms with bloodied lips and nightmarish eyes. His unsettling pastel vision of Luisa reduces her to a shrieking, nonhuman elemental force. At least in part, Mossa perhaps meant the almost perceptible scream from his siren-like subject to echo the horror and indignation expressed by so many at the recent start of the First World War. (x)

Marisa Berenson as Marchesa Luisa Casati by Cecil Beaton 1971

Marchesa Luisa Casati

Augustus John, The Marchesa Casati, 1919

Augustus Edwin John, Marchesa Casati, c. 1942