TWO MAJOR paintings by Irish artist Sir William Orpen are to be auctioned at Sotheby’s in London in May. The portraits of a Co Meath aristocrat and his glamorous music-hall wife – whose marriage scandalised and enthralled Edwardian society – have never before appeared at auction. Portrait of Rosie, Fourth Marchioness of Headfort and Portrait of Geoffrey, Fourth Marquis of Headfort go under the hammer on May 10th.

In monetary terms, the lady wins hands down. Her portrait is estimated at £300,000-£500,000 and his at £60,000-£80,000.

The commissioned portraits were first exhibited at the Royal Academy’s 1915 Summer Exhibition in London, and are being sold by a family descendent.

…Rose Boote (1878-1958) was, according to Sotheby’s, “the daughter of a comedian from Nottingham and a straw hat sewer” although a report in The Irish Times at the time of her death claimed she was “Irish and was educated in the Ursuline Convent, Thurles”.

Using the stage name of Rosie, she achieved great fame as one of the Gaiety Girls – not of Dublin’s South King Street variety – but rather the chorus-line girls who sang in musical comedy spectacles at the Gaiety Theatre on the Strand, London. The girls attracted the attention of aristocratic young men – known as “Stage Door Johnnies” – and, in 1900, Rosie’s performance in a hit musical The Messenger Boy apparently charmed the eminently eligible young Irish aristocrat, the 4th Marquis of Headfort, Geoffrey Thomas Taylour (1878-1943). She quit the theatre and they married on April 11th, 1901.

The wedding created a sensation in Edwardian London. He was a member of one of the most prominent Protestant families in Ireland with estates of some 22,000 acres in Cavan and Meath while Rose, apart from being on the stage, was a Catholic. They lived in Headfort House, Kells, Co Meath and a London townhouse and had three children.

He had succeeded to the title 4th Marquis of Headfort on the death of his father in 1894 and moved in the highest echelons of British society. He was a lieutenant in the 1st Life Guards and later fought in the first World War. He subsequently served as a senator in the Irish Free State – from 1922-1928. Although a marquess, the family preferred the spelling marquis.

Rose lived until 1958 when she died aged 80. She was one of the very few people who had attended three coronations in Westminster Abbey (Edward VII, George V and George VI). The Irish Times reported that after “lying in state” at Headfort House, her grandson Lord Bective and employees of the estate carried her coffin to an island in the grounds of the house where she was buried alongside her husband.

[Source]

Photos from Arab Women Now

The Making Of A Marchioness: Rose Boote, Marchioness Of Headfort – The Esoteric Curiosa

Gaiety Girls’ Reunion 1946 with Lily Elsie, Edna May and Rosie Boote etc

Outside of a financial panic or murder, the only thing that struck fear into the hearts and minds of Gilded Age society was Town Topics. This elegant weekly, which recorded the exploits of society, published promising literature, sporting news, and even offered financial advice, was published by Colonel William d’Alton Mann, a Civil War veteran and businessman, who developed a railroad sleeping car before selling it to Nagelmackers (of Orient Express fame) in 1883. Between this time and his acquisition of Town Topics, Mann had made and lost a fortune warring with George Pullman, but through his various failures he quickly realized the fortune to be made in society gossip.

Town Topics began its life as The American Queen, and under editor Louise Keller (founder of the Social Register), it was a genteel periodical dedicated to “art, music, literature, and society.” The failing magazine was purchased by E. D. Mann, the Colonel’s brother, who renamed it Town Topics and began to change the tone from one of polite obsequiousness to fit the new era of celebrity culture ushered in by social climbing swells like the Vanderbilts. E.D. Mann handed control of Town Topics to the restless Colonel Mann, who pushed the magazine into infamy.

The Colonel, whom acquaintances described as “a kindly looking gentleman,” soon gathered a network of paid spies drawn from servants, telegraph operators, hotel employees, seamstresses, grocers, and vengeful socialites to supply the magazine with gossip. He created a column for these juicy scandals entitled “Saunterings,” where he planted them between seemingly innocuous descriptions of the latest social events in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. Anonymous gossip was nothing new to society journalism, but Colonel Mann turned the tables with “Saunterings” by scattering clues about the subject of his “blind items” throughout the harmless society news. And sometimes, he was bold enough to state the persons involved in the scandal outright.

An example after the jump:

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When we look at portraits of doughty Edwardians, read etiquette books from the period, and watch period films, it is easy to believe society of one hundred years ago was more genteel, more moral, and better behaved than today’s world. However, high society of the Edwardian era functioned because it presented the outward appearance of propriety and correctness to which the “lower orders” aspired. However, within certain social circles there existed many adages; among them numbered “Thou Shalt Not Tell” and “Never comment on a likeness”, as well as Mrs. Patrick Campbell’s famous quote, “Does it really matter what these affectionate people do — so long as they don’t do it in the streets and frighten the horses!”. Seeing that Mrs. Pat carried on an affair with the much younger George Cornwallis-West, the much younger husband of Lady Randolph Churchill (née Jennie Jerome), whilst starring in Lady Randolph’s play, His Borrowed Plumes, her advice definitely came from personal experience. This is not to assume all fashionable Edwardians cast all morals to the winds, but they were in a better position socially and financially to indulge in their desires, and woe to anyone who broke the rules of society by exposing their affairs to the public gaze.

The Marlborough House Set, and to a lesser extent, The Souls, largely set the tone of aristocratic Edwardian society—though sticklers such as the Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury (who never followed the common practice of inviting Alice Keppel to a house party with the King) did not approve of their hi-jinks. Based on those aforementioned adages, husbands and wives were permitted to take lovers after filling their nursery with legitimate children, and society respected these extramarital bonds just as much, if not more so in some cases, as they did the couples’ legitimate marriages. The Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII, known as Bertie to intimates), however, was permitted much more freedom for dalliance than his subjects, and everyone knew just whom a certain lady entertained when a particular carriage dawdled at her front steps during afternoon tea (the prescribed hour for affaires d’amour).

But our Edwardian gentlemen and ladies did not enter into affairs lightly. In fact, casual affairs were quite rare, if only because of their impossibility. Not only because of the cumbersome clothing ladies wore, but because they lived under the constant surveillance of servants. They were awakened and dressed by maids, servants were constantly cleaning or attending to the family, and they played their social roles in public—riding in Rotten Row, attending dinners, dancing at balls, paying calls, etc etc—all under the eye of servants and the general public. As a result, a lady and her erstwhile lover could spend months exchanging sighs, heated glances and brief embraces, and scribbling loving letters to one another, before they could arrange a schedule for their assignations. This all appears so bloodless and correct, but human nature doesn’t respect rules, and it wasn’t uncommon for even the most circumspect people to lose themselves in a blaze of passion.

And in stepped scandal.

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