Interesting Women of the Nobility

[alixaannencova]

Thank you Ella for directing me here! It is such a shame that there is not more interest in these amazing women!

My absolute fave amongst their number is Consuelo Manchester..... goodness did she have a rotten time of it with that awful Mandeville! She was such a survivor and was a fascinating character! Ooooh...I will sit down later and compose a little bit of useful stuff about some of those Dollar Princesses later!

[alixaannencova]

OOOh what about Joyce Grenfell as a candidate for this thread? I know she was not noble born, but having Nancy Astor for an aunt and being the grand daughter of Chillie Langhorne makes Joyce one of those interesting women on the periphery.

I have always found Joyce Grenfell one of those women one would love to have as an aunt...so witty, kind and full of beans!

Sadly there seem to be so few of her particular kind left nowadays.

[Clemence]

Could someone help me find some more information about Ada Winans?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Winans

She was the (second) wife of prince Paolo Troubetzkoy, and I' ve much admired a statue of her in the Galleria Nazionale d' Arte Moderna in Rome, but it seems hard to find more on her ...

[Svetabel]

Could someone help me find some more information about Ada Winans?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Winans

She was the (second) wife of prince Paolo Troubetzkoy, and I' ve much admired a statue of her in the Galleria Nazionale d' Arte Moderna in Rome, but it seems hard to find more on her ...

Ada Winans was Paolo's mother not a second wife. An american by birth Ada (1835-1917) went to Florence, Italy, to take singing lessons,and there she met and married Petr Petrovitch Troubetzkoy (1835-1897), and they had 3 sons, including famous Paolo.

[Clemence]

Yes, you are right, I'm sorry, I'm looking for information about Paolo's wife, since I much admired a statue of her in Rome - not of Ada ... but there's no trace of a wife in wiki, so if someone could help me ...

[Clemence]

Espone inoltre a Stoccolma, città in cui conosce Elin Sundström, sua futura moglie.

http://www.museodelpaesaggio.it/it-it/home/collezioni/scultura/paolo_troubetzkoy?page=151

any information on Elin and the reason why she's not mentioned as the artists' wife?

[Tony de Gandarillas]

Could someone help me find some more information about Ada Winans?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Winans

She was the (second) wife of prince Paolo Troubetzkoy, and I' ve much admired a statue of her in the Galleria Nazionale d' Arte Moderna in Rome, but it seems hard to find more on her ...

Ada Winans, born 1831, died 1917, was a daughter of Anthony Van Arsdale Winans (1797-1849) and a Mrs. Jay who was not his wife.  He was a grocer and merchant in New York City with a store on Front Street that burned in the great fire of 1835. Ada graduated from St. Mary’s Hall in 1853, latter she taught there in the music department.  Ada was a lyric soprano who went to Italy to study music, especially opera.  There she met the diplomat Prince Peter Troubetzkoy, born in Tulcin, 22 August 1822, died 28 August 1892.  He had been appointed governor of Smolensk and of Orel in 1844 and was later sent on a diplomatic mission (which included supervision of the Russian Church) to Florence, Italy, where he met Ada Winans.  He was already married to Princess Vavara Yourievna Troubetzkaya by whom he had three daughters, Tatiana, Elena, and Marie.  After leaving his wife and children to live openly with Ada, he was never able to return to Russia.


Prince Troubetzkoy and Ada Winans lived at Villa Ada at Ghiffa on Lake Maggiore in Italy, where they lived a Bohemian lifestyle. The family was very artistic - Ada in music
and the Prince in botany and landscape design.  Prince Troubetzkoy was an accomplished botanist and established an important garden on the grounds of the estate.
In 1870 Prince Peter Troubetzkoy obtained a divorce from his first wife and then married Ada.  At that time they obtained legitimation for the birth of their three sons: son Paolo was an internationally famed sculptor, was born in 1866, Pierre became a noted portrait painter, married an American Amelie Rives, and Prince Eugene was born in 1867.  In 1884 financial reverses forced Prince Peter to sell Villa Ada.  He later left Ada and their sons and retired with his then-mistress, Marianna Hahn, to Milan where their illegitimate son, Peter, was born in 1886.  They moved to Menton, France where Ada’s former husband died in 1892.  Ada lived until 1917. 

The above information is from Crowning Glory- American Wives of Princes and Dukes by Richard Jay Hurto and Diane Dallal’s article:

http://doaneacademy.org/documents/IvyLeaves2009Fall_000.pdf

[Clemence]

Teresa Damala, the Great Diva of Europe. She began her life as an up-rooted wildflower of Eastern Thrace and after leaving her husband in Milan in 1918, she met Pablo Picasso (she was his undisputed favourite model), Anatole France, Gabrile D' Annunzio, Mistinguette, Benito Mussolini, Venizelos, Kemal Ataturk and, of course, Ernest Hemingway, who was to become the secret love of her life. If she had written her autobiography, she would have said: I was chosen one of the gods- I met the most important people of the century and I also slept with two or three of them  Published in German by Rotbuch Verlag Published in Turkish by Alfa Basim Yayim Dagitim

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060807010329AAp8Alr

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacques_Damala

[Clemence]

I am looking for information on a Russian - French poet of Greek origins, countess Eugenie Kapnist. She was already known as a poet in the first years of the 20th century and then she came to Greece to become a nurse during the Balcan wars in the north of Greece, together with some Russian relatives of her. She was engaged to be married to Dr Iason Dragasis-Palaiologos, a Greek doctor who also left his work in France to come and serve in Greece in every war in that troubled decade (1912-1922: 1st and 2nd Balcan wars, WWI, Greek national schism, Greco-Turkish war of 1919-1922).
I'd much like to find more on her, but I was not able to, so I would appreciate your help.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eug%C3%A9nie_Kapnist

[Mike]

Eugenie Kapnist is virtually unknown in Russia, and no biographical source on her is available in Russian. However, a lot of information can be found on other counts Kapnist, some of whom have contributed notably to Russian history, politics and culture. The first Russian Kapnist, Peter, moved from Venice to Russia as early as 1711, and already by the end of 18 c. the family's Greek roots were almost never mentioned, and the Kapnists were rather considered to be of a Ukrainian Cossack origin.

[Clemence]

Thank you for checking this out!