Olga de Meyer

Olga, the Baroness de Meyer (8 August 1871 – 1930/1931) was a British-born artists' model, socialite, patron of the arts, writer, and fashion figure of the early 20th century. She was best known as the wife of photographer Adolph de Meyer and was rumoured to be the natural daughter of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. After 1916 she preferred to be known as Mahrah de Meyer.

Background

Of Portuguese, Italian, French, and American descent, she was born Donna Maria Beatrice Olga Alberta Caracciolo in London, England. Her father was Neapolitan nobleman Gennaro Caracciolo Pinelli, Duke Caracciolo (1849–?), eldest son of the 4th Duke of Castelluccio, while her mother was the former Marie Blanche Sampayo (1849–1890), a daughter of Antoine François Oscar Sampayo, a French diplomat who served as that country's minister to Portugal, and his American wife, Virginia Timberlake. Her great-grandmother Margaret O'Neill Eaton was the central figure in the Petticoat affair, a scandal that plagued President Andrew Jackson. Another great-grandparent was a Marshal of France, Count Auguste Regnaud de Saint-Jean d'Angély.

To many individuals who observed the arc of Olga's early life the most distinguished familial connection was her relationship with Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales and later King Edward VII. Though officially her godfather, the British royal was known to be one of Blanche Caracciolo's lovers and, consequently, suspected of being her daughter's actual father. Most stories related about Olga's youth describe her as illegitimate, though surely this means her legal father, the duke, was not her biological father. According to French historian Philippe Jullian, the British king believed that Olga was his child and therefore went to great lengths to ensure that she and her mother had sufficient material comforts. Other potential fathers have been identified, however. The strongest candidate to many was Stanislaus Augustus, 3rd Prince Poniatowski and 3rd Prince of Monte Rotondo (1835–1908), a married former equerry of Napoleon III, whom Olga reportedly resembled and with whom the newlywed Duchess Caracciolo reportedly eloped on 1 September 1869, the very day her arranged marriage with the duke took place.

The duke and duchess separated soon after Olga's birth, and the child spent her youth in Dieppe, France, at a house called Villa Olga, where she lived with her mother and maternal grandmother. (Since the duchess's father-in-law, the Duke of Castelluccio, was still living, she used the title Duchess Caracciolo.)

In 1916 Olga de Meyer took the forename Mahrah upon the advice of an astrologer.

Marriages

Olga Caracciolo was married to:

• Nobile Marino Brancaccio (1852–1920), a Neapolitan nobleman who was a son of Carlo Brancaccio, Prince of Triggiano and Duke of Lustra. They married in Naples, Italy, on 9 May 1892 (civil) and 11 May 1892 (religious), and divorced on 7 June 1899, in Hamburg, Germany. Artist Jacques-Émile Blanche, a family friend, called it "a short and most dramatic union".'
• Adolph de Meyer (1868–1946), a celebrated artist dubbed by Cecil Beaton "the Debussy of photography." They married on 25 July 1899 at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, Cadogan Square, in London. This was a marriage of convenience, as the groom was homosexual and the bride was bisexual; some sources identify her as a lesbian. The de Meyers were characterised by Violet Trefusis—who counted Olga among her lovers and whose mother, Alice Keppel, was Edward VII's best known mistress—as "Pederaste and Médisante" (French for 'pederast' and 'woman who criticises/maligns [médire]') because, as Trefusis observed, "He looked so queer and she had such a vicious tongue."

Among her affairs was one with Princess (Edmond) de Polignac, a Singer sewing machine heiress and arts patron, in the years 1901–05.

Muse and Writer

Known for "her elusive combination of childlike innocence and soigné charm" and described as "tall and slender, with Venetian red hair", Olga de Meyer was muse and model to many artists, among them Jacques-Émile Blanche, James McNeill Whistler, James Jebusa Shannon, Giovanni Boldini, Walter Sickert, John Singer Sargent, and Paul César Helleu. Another of her artist admirers was Charles Conder, who was infatuated by Olga Caracciolo and painted her portrait; Aubrey Beardsley was part of her youthful circle as well. Olga de Meyer also inspired characters in novels by Elinor Glyn and Ada Leverson.

Of Olga's beauty, British novelist George Moore was unimpressed. As he commented to an admiring artist friend, "By Jove, you're all after the girl, a fine Mélisande for the stage, with her beautiful hair down to her heels. She's paintable, I admit, but as to one's daily use, I should rather have the mother than the child. Too slender for me ... you know my tastes."

She worked briefly as a society columnist for La Galoise, a Paris newspaper, in the 1890s. As Mahrah de Meyer, a name she adopted in 1916, she wrote one novel, the aubiographical Nadine Narska (Wilmarth Publishing, 1916). The New York Times condemned the novel as "morbid, exaggerated, ... [and] guilty of many carelessly written sentences", while The Dial called de Meyer's book "a miscellaneous mixture of paganism, diluted Nietzsche, worldly morals, and the doctrine of reincarnation".

One of de Meyer's short stories, Clothes and Treachery, was made into The Devil's Pass Key, a 1919 silent movie by director Erich von Stroheim.

Sportswoman

Known as the "woman [amateur fencing] champion of Europe", Baroness de Meyer competed at tournaments in Europe and the United States in the early 1900s. At the Colony Club in New York City on 6 January 1913, she participated in an exhibition match with California champion fencer Sibyl Marston.

Death

An observer wrote, "Nervous, drugged, surrounded by ambiguous friends and accompanied by a too-conspicuous husband, Olga had become frankly spiteful. Her scandal-mongering had eliminated the last of her respectable friends, and people visited her only because they could be sure to find a pipe of opium or a sniff of cocaine."

Olga de Meyer died of a heart attack in detoxification clinic in Austria in 1930 or 1931.