She was photographed by Adolf de Meyer, Edward Steichen, and Gertrude Käsebier, sculpted in alabaster by Malvina Hoffman, and was painted by Giovanni Boldini and John Singer Sargent, among others.

[3] Rita lived in New York, Paris and London, and counted Edgar Degas, Auguste Rodin, Leo Tolstoy, Sarah Bernhardt, Ethel Barrymore and Claude Debussy among her friends.

"[8] She also wrote one novel, Tragic Mansions (Boni & Liveright, 1927), under the name Mrs Philip Lydig,[9] a society melodrama described as "emotionally moving and appealing" by The New York Times.

[12] The marriage was unhappy, reportedly due to Stokes's temper and physical cruelty, and when it was dissolved by divorce in 1900, she received a settlement of nearly two million dollars, a record for the time.

[15] In 1902, she married Major Philip Mesier Lydig, a wealthy and socially prominent retired officer in the United States Army, in Grace Church chantry by the Rev.

Their wedding plans were broken off in 1924 when Bishop William Manning refused to authorize the marriage, citing Lydig being a divorcée with two living former husbands.

Grant died shortly afterwards, leaving his personal fortune to the woman he had hoped to marry, and Lydig spent large sums of money on fashion, art, furniture, and other objects to overcome her grief.