Gilded Age Doings at Ducal House

The Figaro says that the Duchess of Marlborough (formerly Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt) has been led by the praise of injudicious friends to overrate her elocutionary gifts to such an extent that her “Victims” have nicknamed her the “Demon Reciter.” –
Though she eventually became an integral part of the British peerage, when the newly minted Duchess from the U.S. was skewered regularly in the press after first marrying the Duke of Marlborough. Above is a newspaper cartoon poking fun of the newly minted Duchess’s authenticity.

COUNTRY HOUSES ENTERTAIN

Mild Winter in London

Warm Nights Are Swelling the Spring Buds

Alva Vanderbilt’s Triumph

That Mrs. Alva Smith Vanderbilt knows how to exert power has been abundantly proved times without number. It was her genius in this particular regard which directed the famous Vanderbilt fancy-dress ball some thirteen years ago. More money was expended upon that festival of wealth than on any private function in the social history of the land, and it secured for the Vanderbilts an entrance to the smart set which the Astors had long opposed. Mrs. Vanderbilt earned undying fame by that achievement, but it will be pushed far into the shade by the extravagant grandeur of the wedding which will make of her daughter a Duchess. — A newspaper artist’s rendering of Alva Vanderbilt’s New York residence.

Such Magnificence Puts Old Aladdin in the Shade

Mrs. Vanderbilt Will Dazzle Swelldom by the Lavish Display of Wealth She Will Exhibit in Her Mansion

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Young Duchess of Marlborough and Her Jewels

The New York Home Will Be a Wondrous Sight on the Day Miss Consuelo Becomes a Duchess

👑Some of the Art Treasures👑

The Rank She Will Take Among the English Nobility on State Occasions

At the corner of Seventy-Second Street and Madison Avenue there is a plain ordinary looking house of buff brick, with nothing particular about it to attract the attention of the passer-by. To those who know anything abont architecture it would be possible by a violent stretch of their knowledge to perceive a misty resemblance to the Renaissance in its style. There are a thousand other finer homes in the city, but the fact that this particular structure is the New York home of the future Duchess of Marlborough lends a tinge of romance to an otherwise most prosaic place. Plain and almost ugly from the street side, it is rapidly being converted into a veritable fairy palace within. The fin-de siecle synonym of Alladin's lamp is boundless and limitless wealth, and not only one good genie is commanded by it, but scores of the happy fellows.

That Mrs. Alva Smith Vanderbilt knows how to exert this power has been abundantly proved times without number. It was her genius in this particular regard which directed the famous Vanderbilt fancy-dress ball some thirteen years ago. More money was expended upon that festival of wealth than on any private function in the social history of the land, and it secured for the Vanderbilts an entrance to the smart set which the Astors had long opposed. Mrs. Vanderbilt earned undying fame by that achievement, but it will be pushed far into the shade by the extravagant grandeur of the wedding which will make of her daughter a Duchess.

It is too early to go into details, as all the arrangements are still in an embryonic condition, but it is possible to give some idea of the way the house will look when the guests bidden to the wedding reception are enjoying the festivities. The feature of the large drawing rooms on the second floor of the house, forty feet in length and sixty in depth, is the magnificent fresco work on the walls and ceiling. Mrs. Vanderbilt has always been fond of a great deal of color in the ornamentation of her numerous homes, and the mass of richness to be found in those apartments is almost oppressive. But the fact that the ceilings are very high tone which is always formal, the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough come very near to the person of the Queen in processions and at dinners. — Los Angeles Herald, 1895

To be continued…

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