Olga de Meyer

Of Portuguese, Italian, French, and American descent, she was born Donna Maria Beatrice Olga Alberta Caracciolo in London, England.

[1][2][3][4][5][6] Her great-grandmother Margaret O'Neill Eaton was the central figure in the Petticoat affair, a scandal that plagued President Andrew Jackson.

Immediately after the death of her mother in 1891, Olga went to Naples and married in 1892, Prince Marino Brancaccio, a member of another Catholic family, but they were divorced at Hamburg in June 1899.

Olga Caracciolo was married to: Among her affairs was one with Princess (Edmond) de Polignac, an heiress of Singer sewing machines and arts patron, in the years 1901 to 1905.

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.

[20][21][22] Another of her artist admirers was Charles Conder, who was infatuated with Olga Caracciolo and painted her portrait; Aubrey Beardsley was part of her youthful circle as well.

The New York Times condemned the novel as "morbid, exaggerated, ... [and] guilty of many carelessly written sentences",[24][25] 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.