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Madame Ganna Walska sold the Castiglione photographs to New
York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975, just four years after the
famous 1971 sale of her jewels at the renowned Parke-Bernet auction house,
which fetched nearly one million dollars. Presumably the proceeds from
both sales went toward the enhancement of Lotusland, Walska’s garden in
Montecito.
Given the large number of photographs that still exist of Ganna
Walska, carefully composed, wearing clothing that ranges from opera
costumes to ball gowns, one cannot help but imagine her paging through
the photo albums of the Comtesse di Castiglione and being inspired to
create a similarly lasting record of her own style and beauty.
Besides St. Petersburg and Paris, Madame Ganna Walska also spent a
substantial amount of time in New York. Even after establishing her home
in Montecito, she went to New York every year, and was a regular visitor
to Paris. She considered living in Montecito as living in the country, which
of course it was by comparison to the world capitals she had known. Her
life was quite a journey, from Tsarist Russia to space age California. How
fortunate that like the famous courtesan “La Divine Comtesse” from an
earlier century, Madame Walska had the prescience to capture her own
beauty through the medium of photography, so that we can appreciate her
marvelous sense of style and fashion to this day.
(All historic photographs courtesy of Ganna Walska Lotusland Foundation)
Erté (Romain de Tirtoff,
1892-1990), Costume
Sketch for Ganna Walska in
Don Juan (1924), gouache
on paper, © Sevenarts
Ltd. Madame Walska
commissioned Erté to design
many costumes for her
favorite operatic roles as well
as for costume balls.
Ganna Walska dressed as the Comtesse di Castiglione, probably for a costume ball. The
photo can be dated to 1927 by the Cartier necklace, which underwent various redesigns
before it was sold at the 1971 jewelry auction. The pendant portion of the necklace
included a 256.60ct Mogul engraved emerald, suspended from a 39.41ct oval sapphire,
topped by an emerald of 33.58cts, all strung with emerald and sapphire beads. The side
of the necklace featured a 197.75ct sapphire that likely was once part of the Russian
state jewels, mysteriously acquired by Cartier and then sold to Madame Walska for
inclusion in this necklace.