Never on, or anywhere near, the breadline, Consuelo became a wealthy woman in 1901 when her brother Fernando left his entire estate to her, worth between $3 million and $4 million,39 the equivalent purchasing power of which today would be $87 million to $117 million.40 As the New York Times reported it, this inheritance enabled her to ‘resume her state as a Duchess in London and to entertain a great deal’.41 In June 1909 each of the three sisters, Consuelo, Natica and Emilie, inherited some $120,000 from the estate of their father.42 When Consuelo herself died in November 1909, at her London residence at 5 Grosvenor Square, her American estate was worth nearly $2.5 million43 and her English estate had a gross value of over £300,000.44
Evidently Consuelo was a wealthy woman at the centre of the English social scene, well able to afford to buy old master paintings. If, however, the French pictures in the Yznaga Gift were acquired in France, she would have had relatively few opportunities to see her purchases in advance. Although she made trips to France from time to time both during her marriage and her widowhood – for example, at the end of 1901,45 during the winter of 1907–846 and in the late summer of 1909, the last year of her life47 – her domicile was in England.48 If she collected as such, it was jewellery rather than paintings which she bought avidly, including, among items recently auctioned,49 an antique diamond corsage brooch.50 There is, however, no mention in contemporary journals of her having any interest in paintings. No French painting, eighteenth-century or otherwise, nor for that matter any picture by Tiepolo, appears in any lists of pictures at Kimbolton Castle.51 Some evidence that Consuelo was interested in paintings, and French eighteenth-century ones specifically, is contained in a letter written to her by her sister Natica in 1903 describing a visit to Potsdam and Sanssouci: ‘The Emperor’s chamberlain took us to the private apartments to see a particularly lovely Watteau which has never been exhibited.’52
It is tempting to suggest that it was Emilie (who later declared herself to have been resident in France since 1901),53 not Consuelo, who was buying the pictures in the Yznaga Gift. However, in the first place, according to an old label once on the stretcher of Nattier’s Manon Balletti and noted by Martin Davies in his 1957 catalogue, the painting was sold in 1907 by the baronne de Marbot, a direct descendant of the sitter, to the Duchess of Manchester.54 That makes it likely that the Manon Balletti is ‘the portrait by Nattier’ which Consuelo bequeathed to Emilie by a codicil to her will dated 28 October 1909, rather than Nattier’s Portrait of a Man in Armour (NG 5587) which was also in the Yznaga Gift.55 The reference to ‘the’ portrait by Nattier suggests that Consuelo had only one portrait by Nattier, and it follows that it was probably Emilie who later acquired the Man in Armour.
Secondly, in the case of Tocqué’s Portrait of a Young Woman, which was sold at the sale of Thirion deceased in Paris on 10 June 1907, a copy of the sale catalogue in The Hague is annotated with the buyer’s name, ‘Duchesse de Manchester’.56 This too, therefore, was bought not by Emilie, but by Consuelo. In the evening two days before that sale Consuelo had been at Buckingham Palace at a state banquet in honour of the King and Queen of Denmark.57 It seems unlikely therefore that Consuelo was in Paris when the auction took place and more probable that she instructed an agent to buy the picture. She may have seen both it and the Manon Balletti during a trip to Paris which she made in April 1907.58
The Nattier was the only painting mentioned in the codicil. As to Consuelo’s will itself, which was dated 7 January 1909, with the exception of family portraits, a portrait of General Boyd by Gilbert Stewart (sic) and a pen-and-ink sketch by the Prince Imperial, all of which were left on trusts for Consuelo’s son or daughter-in-law, there was only one other specific bequest of paintings. This was to Emilie of ‘my four landscape paintings by Pilment [sic]’. They were not subsequently part of the Yznaga Gift, but were instead bequeathed by Emilie to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, where they now are.59 All other specific bequests were of lace, furs and, above all, of jewellery. The residuary estate, including other moveables, was given to Consuelo’s descendants, subject, however, to certain annuities including one of £1,000 for Emilie. Presumably, therefore, the Tocqué was the subject of a lifetime gift by Consuelo to Emilie. This might be an exceptional case. At all events, Consuelo did not give or bequeath to Emilie all her French paintings. A sale at Christie, Manson & Woods, London, on 5 July 1918, on behalf of the trustees of Consuelo’s will, included the following:
Drouais – Portrait of a Lady
French School – Portrait of a Lady
J.F. Dagoty Gauthier – Portrait of a Child
Largillierre – Portrait of a Maréchal of France
Vigée Le Brun – Portrait of Jeanne Charlotte St. Aubin
De Troy – Portrait of a Lady60
The position therefore at Consuelo’s death was that she certainly owned a number of French eighteenth-century paintings, mainly portraits; she bequeathed five paintings to Emilie: a Nattier portrait and four landscapes by Pillement; the Nattier she bequeathed was probably the portrait of Manon Balletti; and she must have made a lifetime gift to Emilie of the Tocqué described as ‘a portrait of Mlle. De Coislin’.
39 Ibid., 17 December 1902.
40 See www.measuringworth.com.
41 New York Times, 7 February 1904. Consuelo made provision for her mother and two sisters from her inheritance: ibid., 14 April 1901.
42 ‘Del Valle Trust set aside’, ibid., 9 June 1909.
43 Estate of Consuelo, Dowager Duchess of Manchester, deceased. Inventory of the Securities, Property and cash composing the Capital of the American Estate. 20 November 1909, Manchester Papers (DDM51B/8), County Record Office, Huntingdon PE29 3LF, Cambridgeshire. A copy of this printed document may be found among the numerous Manchester Papers at the County Record Office, Huntingdon. I am grateful to the Archivist, Alexa Cox, for her help in enabling me to access this and the other documents from the Manchester Papers. The American estate was later held subject to UK Legacy Duty (of some $300,000) because Consuelo was deemed domiciled in Great Britain: New York Times, 13 February 1912. The principal legatee was the 9th Duke of Manchester; Emilie Yznaga inherited $24,970 (ibid., 2 July 1912). The sterling equivalent of $2,500,000 was some £500,000: www.measuringworth.com.
44 The Times, 21 December 1909. The English estate would prove insufficient for the upkeep of 5 Grosvenor Square: ‘Dowager’s Estate aids Manchester’, New York Times, 30 December 1914. She had moved there from 45 Portman Square sometime after inheriting from her brother Fernando in 1901 (Fowler 1993, p. 62), but was still living there in late 1904 when a fire broke out there (New York Times, 27 November 1904).
45 New York Times, 1 December 1901.
46 Ibid., 8 December 1907, reporting on Consuelo’s plans to visit the Riviera and Rome later. If she did go to France, it was not for long because she was in New York for her mother’s funeral, embarking from Liverpool on the Lusitania, which took place on 3 February 1908: ibid., 25 and 27 January, and 2 and 4 February 1908.
47 Fowler 1993, p. 67.
48 New York Times, 13 February 1912, reporting this as the reason why Consuelo’s estate was subject to death duties in the UK. There is a portrait of her by John Singer Sargent in the Harvard Art Museums inscribed by the artist ‘Esher 1907’. The painting was probably made at Esher Place, Surrey, at the home of Sir Edgar (later Lord D’Abernon, and a Trustee of the National Gallery) and Lady Vincent, friends of Sargent: Ormond and Kilmurray 2003, no. 540.
49 Christie’s, London, 15 June 2006, lots 423–5.
50 Christie’s, London, 15 June 2006, lot 425, sold for £164,800 including premium.
51 Manchester Papers, County Record Office, Huntingdon, DDMB61/12: Miscellaneous lists, including Kimbolton Castle pictures 1890s; M2/110: Catalogue from the Inventory of the Paintings, Prints and Miniatures at the Castle, Kimbolton with Valuations made in March, 1867 for His Grace William Drogo, 7th Duke of Manchester which notes paintings there attributed to Kneller, Dahl, Snyders, Lely, Hudson, Soldi, Vandyck, Loth, Pellegrini, Holbein, Reynolds, Soldi, Honthorst, Mengs and Ramsay; and M2/114: Estimates of costs of [restoring] pictures belonging to the Dowager Duchess at Kimbolton from F. Haines & Sons. Other than two painted fans, there were no paintings of any kind listed among the gifts made to Consuelo when she married: New York Times, 23 May 1876.
52 Lady Lister-Kaye, Letters from the Far East to Consuelo Duchess of Manchester by her sister, London and New York 1904 (printed for private circulation), p. 10: letter of 30 October 1903.
53 On the passport application referred to in note 15.
54 In early 1907 there were three Duchesses of Manchester besides Consuelo, the widow of the 8th Duke: Harriet, the widow of the 6th Duke; Louisa Frederica, the widow of the 7th Duke, who however became, and was known as, the Duchess of Devonshire after her marriage to the 8th Duke in 1892 (the ‘Double Duchess’); and Consuelo’s daughter-in-law, Helena, wife of the 9th, and then current, Duke of Manchester. In spite of this potential for confusion there is no reason to suppose that the reference to the Duchess of Manchester on the label refers other than to Consuelo.
55 Emilie may well have seen the Manon Balletti when she was in London in July 1907 and almost certainly staying with Consuelo: New York Times, 14 July 1907, reporting that Consuelo and Emilie went together to a musical party in Upper Berkeley Street, London, on the previous Monday (8 July).
56 Possibly the sale of the genre painter, Jean Thirion, who died in 1905. His better-known namesake, Eugène Thirion, was not to die until 1910. I am grateful to Marianne de Voogd of the RKD, The Hague, for sending me a copy of this catalogue.
57 The Times, 10 June 1907. It was followed by a party where the guests were entertained by the soprano Nellie Melba and the tenor Enrico Caruso.
58 ‘Many American visitors to Paris’, New York Times, 28 April 1907.
59 Emilie Yznaga bequeathed five paintings by Pillement to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, inv. nos. 36232-36236, so she presumably acquired another picture by the artist in addition to the four left her in Consuelo’s will.
60 They comprised lots 54–9 of the sale.