With a fine eye for beautiful jewels, an inherited treasure trove and the generosity of her husband, Katharina formed a magnificent collection notable for its pearls, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and diamonds. Furthermore, in 1901, they were elevated to Prince and Princess Henckel von Donnersmarck. It was a superb match, with Katharina's background and beauty, and the Count's reputation as the richest man in Germany. A proportion of the wealth of La Païva was her spectacular collection of jewellery, which would pass into the hands of the Count's second wife, the young, beautiful and aristocratic Katharina. The couple left Paris for Germany in 1871 and when La Païva died in 1884, Count Henckel von Donnersmarck absorbed her riches back into his already enormous fortune. In his memoirs, Baron Horace de Viel-Castel, conservator of the Louvre until 1863, and a sharp society diarist of the Second Empire, noted that La Païva routinely wore two million francs of diamonds, pearls and other gems. The Boucheron archives alone show that she owned entire parures of the most magnificent diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires and pearls, composed of not only the largest gems, but also the finest. No less impressive was her collection of jewels which were equally remarkable for their quality and opulence. The project was a mammoth undertaking and the epitome of extravagance and luxury: the bathrooms were said to be of solid marble and onyx and the main staircase of lapis lazuli.
After meeting the Count, La Païva had amassed a large enough fortune to build the most lavish and grandest hotel in Paris, the Hôtel La Païva on the Champs Elysées. Mirroring many of his own attractive qualities - looks, charm and astute business acumen - Count Henckel von Donnersmarck was naturally fascinated by this seductive Russian with alluring eyes, an extraordinary mind for artistic, literary and business matters and an equal love of all things beautiful. Best known as 'La Païva', following her marriage to the Marquis, she also became known in Paris as 'La Lionne', an epithet earned on account of her green eyes and tawny hair, and undoubtedly her strong personality. Having reinvented herself with several name changes, firstly to Therese, and secondly to Blanche, she had succeeded in propelling herself through two marriages, the second to the Marquis de Païva, and into the highest intellectual and aristocratic circles in Paris. It was here that the eligible young Count fell in love with and married the fantastic figure 'La Païva', one of the most successful and glamorous courtesans of the nineteenth century, famed for her initiative and hypnotic charm.įrom a humble Moscow background, Esther Pauline Lachmann had been born to a shoemaker and seamstress, it is thought circa 1819, although she had always kept the exact date a secret. At the age of 18, the young Guido took over the entire running of the family estate and associated businesses, moving to Paris in the 1850s. Tall and commanding in figure, with an exceptionally handsome, and characteristic head, it is not difficult to imagine that in his prime he must have been superbly good looking.'Ĭount Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck (1830-1916) was born into an aristocratic Silesian family whose enormous estates with rich mining deposits had brought them vast wealth. In this rather wonderful description by the diarist Leila von Meister, recounting dinner with the Prince and Princess in their castle in Berlin in 1904, von Meister furthermore described the Prince: 'Prince Donnersmarck is an interesting personality both as to looks and intelligence. She is rather an exotic flower in this hale and hardy Prussian atmosphere.''*īorn Katharina Wassilievna de Slepzoff, 'Rina', as she was known, was the elegant and aristocratic young wife of Prince Guido Henckel von Donnersmark (1830-1916). A frail little woman, with a graceful wisp of a figure and wonderfully luminous Slav eyes. 'She is a Russian, the widow of a Count Mouraview.
HISTORICAL JEWELS FROM THE PRIVATE COLLECTION OF PRINCESS KATHARINA HENCKEL VON DONNERSMARCK (1862-1929).
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