The San Francisco call. [volume], April 10, 1898, Page 21, Image 21

About The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913

Image provided by: University of California, Riverside; Riverside, CA

                
"THESE THREE WOMEN ARE THE MOST BEAUTIFUL TYPES OF
LOVELY WOMANHOOD IN FRANCE. ENGLAND AND AMERICA".---Carolus Duran.
Carolus Duran, the Great French Painter, Who Has Just Come to This Country, Declares That the Typical Beauties of America, France and
England Are Miss Jennie Leiter of Chicago, Comptesse Pourtates and the Countess of Warwick.
CAROLUS DURAN, the great
French painter, who has come
over here to immortalize the
features of our American beau
tiea on canvas at from $3000 to
116,000 a canvas, has declare.: it the
throe typical beauties of Ami-r: ■>, Eng
land and France are, respectively,
Miss Nannie Letter of Chicago, the
Countess of Warwick of England and
the Comt< urtalea of France.
He does not say that they are the
LUtiful women in the world,
but that they are the most beautiful
women he has painted. As he has for
nearly thirty years devoted his talent
to transferring to canvas the great
ladies of Europe and those fair Ameri
who have visited Paris and could
afford to pay his prices, his judgment
is not to be despised.
When the New York reporters who
Interviewed him secured this modern
Judgment of Paris from him he gave
also a long list of beautiful women
whom he has painted. Among them he
mentioned Mrs. Will Crocker, whose
full length portrait was accorded the
place of honor at the Loan Exhibition
of Portraits held at the Mark Hopkins
Institute of Art two or three years ago.
Put she is not one of the three t >■ ; ■ i • lI
beauties whose portraits we here re
produce.
Miss Nannie Leiter, to whom the
great French painter has assigned the
honor of representing the land of lib
erty in this trio of national beauties, is
the second daughter of Mr. and Mrs.
L. Z. Leiter of Chicago. She has but
recently made her debut In Washing
ton, and though her beauty has
brought the young men of the national
capital sighing to her feet, she herself
is as yet one of the happy women who
have no history.
The Leiters, hi ..-ever, are sufficiently
remarkable to make up for -liss Nan
nie's present comparative insignifi
cance. The old gentleman mad" his
money in dry goods and in real estate
ppeculation In Chicago, and when his
eldest daughter was of an are to come
out his spouse assail ~d the citadels of
New York. P.u her millions could not
batter down the gates of i's exclusive
ness, so she hied herself and her daugh
ter to Washington and was soon in the
thick of I*.
Then her eldest daughters beauty,
for Miss Mary Leiter is one of the
handsomest women America has pro
duced, began to have its effect on New
Yorkers visiting the capital, and the re
sult was a Newport season which grave
her the entree to New York's holy of
holies.
As for the male side of the family,
young Jo- Leiter is keeping its end up
by bis tremendous dealings In the Chi
wheat pit. Just how many mil
of dollars he is ahead now It
I he hard to say, but his transac
tions will be an event in the history of
vi finance.
tnd'B representative beauty, the
of Warwick, was born in 1861,
nsequently well on toward her
Neverthele; she is one
c most beautiful women in the
I She has the exquisite skin and
freph complexion that have always been
From
Photographs
of
Famous
Paintings
of the
Beauties
by
Carolus Durciia,
THE SAX FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, APRIL 10, 1898.
CAROLUS DURAN.
England's boast, tne regular and clean*
cut features that bespeak highborn an<
cestry, eyes of the purest violet hue,
and her head is crowned with masses
of chestnut hair.
When at the age of twenty she made
her debut in English society, the heir*
ess to a fortune of $150,000 a year, in-*
herited from her grandfather, the last
Viscount Maynard. Mayfair declared
she had chosen well when she bestowed
her hand en Lord Brooke, heir to the
Earl of Warwick. The late Duke of
Albany was Lord Brooke's best man,
and his elder brother, the Prince of
Wales, was among those who signed
the marriage resriste'
It will perhaps surprise many of oup
American beautfea to learn that th«
woman whom the great painter selects
as the representative French beauty,
was a belle of the second empire more
than thirty years ago. When Mile. Me
lanie de Brussac made her debut in
Parisian society she at once assumed
a place as a social star of the first
magnitude, and to-day, as the Com
tesse de Pourtales. she shares with the
Princess de Sagaa the leadership o£
Parisian society. Her dictatorship In
all matters pertaining to dress has been
acknowledged since, some twenty-odd
years ago, she'introdu ed the fashion
of wearing shoi i dresses. This she did
at a ball to which she invited her fair
friends to come in gowns that cleared
the floor. The effect was 1 rdly pleas
ing—though it led one Parisian wit to
remark that he had never seen so many,
pretty feet before in his life. The Com
tesse soon revived the vogue of trains
on ball ( wns. though she continued to
use the short skirt with her other cos
tumes.
Mme. de Pourtal' s was a great friend
of the Empress Eugenic, air when the
latter escaped to England through the
assistance of Dr. l]vans, the famous
American dentist who died a few;
months ago, it was throuj,"i the diplo
matic skill of Mme. de Pourtales that
many personal trinkets she had left be
hind in the hurry of her flight wer«
restored to her.
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