Clara Ward, Princesse de Caraman-Chimay

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Clara Ward in "pose plastique", around 1905

Clara Ward , temporarily married as Princesse de Caraman-Chimay (born June 17, 1873 in Detroit , Michigan , † December 9, 1916 in Padua ), was a celebrity of the Belle Époque . She was a daughter from a rich family. Her father, the steamship operator, owner of a silver mine and iron industrialist Captain Eber Brock Ward (1811-1875) is said to have been the first millionaire in the state of Michigan. In her first marriage, Clara Marie Joseph married Anatole Pierre Alphonse de Riquet, Prince de Caraman-Chimay (1858-1937), a Belgian prince and member of parliament. The marriage was concluded on May 19, 1890 in Paris . A daughter and a son sprang from her.

The Parisian chef Escoffier named the dishes he invented Œufs à la Chimay and Poularde Chimay after Clara.

Presumably in 1894 Ward entered into a relationship with the Hungarian gypsy primate Rigó Jancsi (1858-1927). For almost two years, the couple lived in a secluded place in Einehof, a secluded forest inn near Lüneburg .

Clara Ward and Rigó Jancsi, around 1905

The Ludington Record newspaper of December 24, 1896 reported on the affair under the heading Gone With a Gypsy , and other media also took up the subject. In Budapest a cake was named after Rigo Jancsi. The divorce from Marie Joseph Anatole Pierre Alphonse de Riquet, Prince de Caraman-Chimay took place on January 19, 1897. Rigó (the violinist's last name) and Clara were married, probably in Hungary. Relatively soon after the wedding, however, there was another divorce because of Jancsi's infidelity.

As long as the sensational idyll with Rigó lasted, Clara marketed her beauty and popularity. She posed in skin-tight costumes in the Folies Bergère and called this art form her poses plastiques . In 1897 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec made a lithograph by Clara and Rigó, called Idylle Princière . Numerous postcards by the couple and Claras were in circulation in Europe.

Two more marriages followed, one in 1904-10 with Peppino Ricciardo and the last with a Signore Cassalota, station director of the Circumvesuviana Railway.

Clara is said to have shot herself in a villa that she owned in Padua.

The character of La Môme Pistache (played by Shirley MacLaine ) in the film version of Cole Porter's musical Can-Can is based in part on Clara Ward.

literature

  • The National Cyclopedia of American Biography , Vol. XIII, p. 125. New York: James T. White & Company, 1906.
  • Cleveland Amory: Who Killed Society? , p. 234. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1960.
  • Cornelia Otis Skinner: Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals , p. 220.Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Caraman-Chimay, Clara Ward, Princesse de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ward, Clara (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American model during the Belle Époque
DATE OF BIRTH June 17, 1873
PLACE OF BIRTH Detroit , Michigan
DATE OF DEATH December 9, 1916
Place of death Padua