Jo Manning - My Lady Scandalous Table of Contents

My Lady Scandalous: The Amazing Life and Outrageous Times of Grace Dalrymple Elliott, Royal Courtesan by Jo Manning

Note: This excerpt does not include the figures and photographs that are in the book. Here, only the figure captions are shown, enclosed in square brackets.

Was Grace Elliott beautiful?

      Is beauty merely skin deep? Or is the well-worn phrase merely facile? True, there is such a thing as inner beauty – a component of which is charm – meant to compensate those whose outward trappings don't quite pass muster. And, granted, renowned great beauties may not really be, on an objective scale, the most beautiful creatures, but their ability to convince their admiring audience that they are the fairest of them all is what sets them apart from other goodlooking women and puts them into the ranks of the incomparables.
      That was one of the period's names for great beauties: Incomparables. There were also Diamonds, from Diamonds of the First Water, and Toasts, as in all the toasts – champagne, of course – smitten, besotted men made to their beauty. The legendary Helen of Troy's face "launched a thousand ships," and beautiful faces in the 18th century launched many a career, but there was more to the story than those often very lovely faces, for some of the most successful courtesans of the time were not conventionally beautiful.
      Harriette Wilson, nee Harriette Dubochet (1786-1846) stands out as the most obvious example of the latter case; her wit, vitality, sharp tongue, and – yes – very large breasts, shown to advantage in high-waisted Regency era decolletage -- compensated for what anyone would agree was a rather plain and uninteresting face. (The writer Sir Walter Scott went further, calling her "ugly," though agreeing that she was "remarkably witty" in a letter to Lord Montagu dated February 17th, 1825.)

[Portrait of Harriette Wilson]
Harriette Wilson, alas, not a face that would ever have launched one ship, much less a thousand of them…and this is one of the more flattering images of her. On the plus side, Harriette's chestnut brown hair was said to be thick and glossy, her breasts well developed – displayed to good advantage in Regency dress -- and her mischievious, devil-may-care, tomboy-like personality appealing to men.

      Then, too, notions of beauty shift and change somewhat over the ages and within divergent cultures. The shape of a woman's body, for example, is either pleasing to the eye or not. The fleshy pink super-sized females beloved of the Dutch painter Rubens do nothing for aficionados of 21st century super-model-thin, long-legged bodies. African women with large buttocks were considered a curiosity in Georgian England – as witness the Hottentot Venus – and still do not fulfill European expectations of what constitutes a beautiful body.
      Marilyn Monroe, that curvaceous American film icon of the '50s and '60s whose name is synonymous with sexiness, is today dismissed as fat by many critics. She was 5' 5 1/2" and 140 pounds. Admirers of athletic, even muscular bodies achievable only by regular, strenuous gym workouts and strict no-carb diets would say that she was overweight in an age where women five feet nine inches weigh 135 pounds or less.
      The 18th century's standards of beauty were undoubtedly influenced to some extent by the craze for classical Greek and Roman statuary brought on by a wave of archaeological discoveries (i.e., Pompeii, which began to be excavated in 1748) and what pieces of art young lords brought back from their Grand Tours. The white marble body of the goddess of love, named the Venus di Milo (Venus of Melos) by the French, found on the Aegean island of Melos in 1820, epitomized perfect female beauty in the ancient world.
      The English – with the much earlier importation (many say theft) of the Parthenon marbles by Lord Elgin – found these Hellenistic bodies to be perfection. This was a form with gently rounded curves and a graceful symmetry that served as an admirable model of womanly loveliness for the period. No excess poundage, smooth, willowy limbs, and, ah, that white marble skin!

Sidebar
Lord Elgin and the Parthenon Marbles

Thomas Bruce, the controversial 7th Earl of Elgin, was the British ambassador at Constantinople in 1799 when he fell in love with the exquisite bas-relief freizes around the Parthenon, on the hill called the Acropolis in Athens. (Ironically, in a discussion about beauty, Elgin's face was horribly disfigured, the result of mercury poisoning.) In 1801 Elgin obtained a firman from the Turkish Sultan – and overlord of Greece -- that gave him permission to strip these sculptural elements from the 5th century BC temple. The stripping began in 1801 and in 1804 the marbles arrived in London. They were stacked haphazardly in the open about Lord Elgin's Park Lane mansion, on full view to the ton and any other interested parties, while the peer tried to convince the government to buy them. Their classical perfection profoundly influenced the arts and architecture of England, as many churches, public buildings, and private homes came to be designed in this neo-classical style. In portraiture, ladies were frequently depicted as ancient goddesses, clad in rippling togas and draped around Ionic columns. The friezes had already suffered badly from the dampness caused by open exposure to the English climate and their later storage in a coal shed at Burlington House, when the government, in 1816, decided to purchase the marbles for the British Museum. A special gallery had been designed and built to display them. There was, even then, criticism from concerned contemporaries who'd been to Greece and seen the friezes in place at the Parthenon, of the destructive methods used to strip the sculptures from the temple. Writers, statesmen, politicians, and clergymen were appalled at this brutal pillage of art and history. That great and vocal admirer of all things Greek, George Gordon, Lord Byron – who died for the cause of Greek independence, albeit not on the battlefield – chimed in for the ages in his magnificent epic poem "Childe Harold":

"Dull is the eye that will not weep to see
Thy walls defaced, thy mouldering shrines removed
By British hands, which it had best behoved
To guard those relics ne'er to be restored.
Curst be the hour when from their isle they roved,
And once again thy hapless bosom gored,
And snatch'd thy shrinking gods to northern climes abhorred!"
[Canto the Second, XV, published 1812]

Though there was a strong movement to return the marbles to Greece, the English have retained them and the issue has not abated a whit even after 150 years. The current Greek government is now actively seeking the return of the marbles. Among those calling for the repatriation of the friezes in the 20th century was Philip Sassoon, MP and Private Secretary to Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. Sassoon's sister Sybil was married to the 5th Marquess of Cholmondeley, the direct descendant of Grace Elliott's lover, the lst Marquess. Grace and Lord Cholmondeley may have viewed the Parthenon marbles together one fine day at the dawn of the 19th century; he also may have seen them earlier on his Grand Tour.

[Section of Parthenon frieze]

      What kind of looks, then, were considered beautiful in the 18th century? Though there are certain characteristics of feminine loveliness that never seem to vary much from century to century – such as a fine, clear, unspotted complexion – there are others peculiar to time and place. 16th century Venetian women, for example, plucked back their hairlines for a coveted high-brow look, and in certain African tribes and Pacific cultures large facial tattoos are considered beauty-enhancing.
      Beauty was captured for posterity in an official portrait by a prominent artist of the day. Among courtesans, a commissioned portrait was a mark of rank, for only the most beloved would a lover go to the trouble and expense to sow his pride in her and his appreciation of her beauty and style, by having her portrait painted by a noteworthy artist, preferably a member of the prestigious Royal Academy. It's interesting to note that no portrait of Harriette Wilson exists, only an amateur drawing or two and a number of cartoons. Grace Elliott, meanwhile, was painted at least twice by Gainsborough (she may have sat for him a third time but that portrait was either unfinished or lost), and several times by Richard and/or Maria Cosway, the eminent miniaturist painters.
      It can be seen from the smaller Gainsborough portrait that Grace had the celebrated "Dalrymple brow, so well known in Scotland," that is, a rounded brow with a widow's peak, that vee-shaped dip at the hairline that forms the curve at the top of a heart-shaped face.
      A good complexion in Georgian times meant a flawless, white-skinned complexion, not freckled, certainly not suntanned, smooth and definitely not one marred and marked by smallpox scars. Eloquent, speaking eyes, a long, white neck, elegant rounded white shoulders, tiny feet and hands, innate grace and poise, plus what the French called "tournure," were all recognized as hallmarks of great beauty.
      This is a fascinating word, tournure, as it can mean not only a graceful figure and pleasing contour of body, but it is also the word for bustle, the device used to expand the skirt of a dress below the waist. Late 18th century female costume was dependent upon the graceful set of this tournure. The taller the woman, too, the more elegant the bustle appeared. On a tall woman with good posture and a straight back who moved well, the effect could be striking, the kind of effect that turned heads.
      Grace Elliott was a striking, head-turning woman. Evarts Seelye Scudder, the British biographer of Louis-Philippe Joseph, the 5th Duke of Orleans/Philippe Egalite, did not miss an opportunity in his 1937 book, Prince Of The Blood, to praise her beauty. Scudder wrote of her, "This young Scotchwoman was as courageous as she was beautiful – and she was very beautiful." In her diary, Grace's niece Frances, Lady Shelley, described Grace as simply "the most beautiful woman I had ever seen."

Sidebar
Those Coveted White Complexions…

They held a deadly secret: ceruse. Not all women had naturally pale, ivory-colored complexions. Nature could be assisted by the use of a mixture of white lead and vinegar, a thick paste that was applied as foundation to the face, neck, and bosom. The first record of its use was in Tudor times, the 1500s. (Think Queen Elizabeth I.) Not only was a desirably white complexion achieved, but this concoction successfully hid what smallpox left behind: pits and scars. (Acne and zits would also be covered.) Unfortunately, white lead was a killer. Mercury, used for facial peels, was deadly as well. Vermilion (mercuric sulfide), used to paint lips and cheeks, was also dangerous. Belladonna drops, which made the eyes sparkle (it dilated the pupils and whitened the whites), was a toxic hallucinogen. Applied to the cheeks, it was a kind of blush, as the plant irritated the skin and caused redness. No FDA, then, to warn women away from these deadly cosmetics. Safer cosmetics were prepared from madder, cochineal, and ochre-based compounds, for lips and cheeks, and kohl (powdered antimony), to line the eyes. Over-application of ceruse would, like today's botox, limit a user's ability to smile; cracks would appear on the thickly-applied base. There was also a good possibility she'd die, as a number of aristocratic women and their demi-mondaine sisters did; the lower classes, with no money to purchase these artificial aids to beauty, were unaffected, and likely to live longer.

The "Dally" in "Dally the Tall," was taken from her maiden name of Dalrymple. Though she's sometimes referred to as "Dolly the Tall," it's an error, the phrase coming from a letter of Horace Walpole's. It's "Dally," not "Dolly" – there was nothing ever remotely doll-like about the statuesque Grace Elliott.
Though we cannot be sure of Grace's exact height in feet and inches, some assumptions can be made. The first Gainsborough portrait, from 1778, shows a slim, willowy woman with a small waist and full, high, rounded bosom. She is striking in looks and appears tall from her erect carriage and bearing, though there's nothing in the background against which her height could be gauged with any degree of precision.

[Details from Gainsborough's 1778 full-length portrait of Grace Elliott at the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

Height is relative to the times. What could have been considered tall in the 18th century might be dismissed as merely average height today. Biographer Horace Bleackley discussed her "lofty stature":

"…[her] nickname – derived from her patronymic and occasioned by her lofty stature – of 'Dally the Tall' … was elaborated into 'Dally the Maypole' and 'Dally the Colossus' … Many, however, did not admire her, calling her gawky…"

      How tall, though, was Grace?
     According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services statistics, the average height for an American woman now is almost 5' 4"; the average Miss America contest winner tops out at about 5' 7". Studies of bones from the 17th and 18th centuries exhumed from graves in London – such as the Farringdon Street site – determined that the average height of men was 5' 6" and that of females was 5' ½", figures that remained constant for the period.
      A 2003 study in the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) adds another layer to this elusive question. Grace was Scottish, and Scottish women, on average, were taller than their English counterparts. In the 17th /18th centuries, the average height of Scottish females was 5' 3", compared to the English average of just a half inch over five feet. (Mary, Queen of Scots, was unusually tall, at 5' 11".)
      Five feet three inches would have been considered tall for an 18th century English woman; five feet seven inches would have been substantially tall. Grace's biographer Bleackley states "that her figure was more remarkable than the beauty of her features, for she was uncommonly tall, being far above the ordinary stature of women."
      "…far above"… "uncommonly tall"? How is one to interpret this? Five foot three, five foot seven, or six feet tall? Five foot three would have been well above average, but, "far above"? A woman who was five foot seven or six feet tall in those days could well be described thus, though, and also as "uncommonly tall." Lady Craven -- showing not a little jealousy, perhaps, to a possible rival -- upon seeing Grace at the Ranelagh pleasure garden, described her in a catty manner as akin to a "Glumdalclitch," the young giantess in Jonathan Swift's fantasy tale, Gulliver's Travels. (Grace's biographer Horace Bleackley – who rarely has anything good to say about any woman he writes about – got his digs in about Lady Craven, too, calling her "clever and winsome…[but the] … most wanton of wives."
      Suffice it to say that Grace was tall – and we have to assume this was upwards of five foot three, even perhaps up to six feet tall. To quote the "winsome" Lady Craven in full:

"Oh, Lord, I know that figure; (cried her ladyship) it is extremely familiar to me; that is GLUMDALCLITCH, the heroine of Gulliver's Travels, -- I have the Dean's works in my private library, with cuts!" (The Rambler's Magazine, August 1784)

The writer of that Rambler's Magazine article seems to be obsessed with Grace's height. He (or she) cannot let go! (Hmmmm…did Lady Craven – herself at one time involved with Grace's Lord Cholmondeley -- write that piece herself?) A bit later the claim is made that when Grace went to Paris she was:

"…no means an object of general admiration; she was too tall for the standard of Galic dalliances; and the tonish expression of the Parisians was, that she was a kind of agreeable monster!"

Grace's lover, Lord Cholmondeley, was a big man. Bleackley describes him as "a huge ungainly youth of great physical strength" who was known by various nicknames, including "Lord Tallboy." A tallboy was a piece of early 17th century/Queen Anne period furniture, a tall, substantial chest of drawers whose bottom part is slightly larger than the top portion it supports.

[A tallboy (photo by Ray Wadia of a piece belonging to author)]

That no one ever described the couple as ill-suited in terms of size is worthy of note, for no opportunity was ever missed by the tabloids and their paparazzi to demean or satirize the ton and its playmates. A disparity in size would have been noted and remarked upon with glee. The height difference between Grace and Dr. John Eliot (who was said to be barely 5 feet tall) was certainly noted, to the doctor's detriment. Grace and Lord Cholmondeley were a well-matched pair. Grace's friend, Gertrude Mahon, the flamboyant "Bird of Paradise," was minute, well under five feet tall, a tiny woman of the type known as a "Pocket Venus." That is, she was well-formed, in good proportion, but small enough to stash in one's pocket if one was so inclined, hence the term. Horace Bleackley quotes from the daily newspapers describing her (omitting, as usual, the exact publication -- probably the Morning Herald or the Post -- and the date -- probably circa 1780-81):

"The Bird of Paradise appeared at Vauxhall in glittering plumage, her waist not a span around, her stature four feet one inch…"

      A span, or hand span, was usually measured from the extended tip of the thumb to the tip of the pinky, or, 9 inches. As regards the span of a waist, this would be doubled, so about 18 inches around was probably Mahon's waist size. Gertrude and Grace, arm in arm at a Carlisle House masquerade, must indeed have been a pair to watch – an 18th century version of the 20th century cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, at just over 4' and possibly almost 6', respectively.
      Fair white complexion, eloquent eyes, long white neck, rounded, elegant white shoulders, tiny feet and hands, grace and poise, that all-important tournure – Grace fit all the criteria the 18th century set for female beauty, save that she might have been too tall to suit the times. Her lovely long white neck and rounded shoulders – not to mention her fine bosom in its décolletage -- are displayed to perfection in the second portrait that Gainsborough painted of her in 1782, the year she was pregnant with her daughter Georgiana.
      It's an oval-shaped portrait bust, and the sitter looks directly at the viewer. Grace's hair (dark blond or light brown from a lock of hers preserved on the back of a miniature portrait in a private collection) is powdered -- white powder was de rigueur for the period -- and her face is very white. Her cheeks are heavily rouged, in the French style a la Madame Pompadour, and her lips are glossed. Her eyebrows are dark and no doubt enhanced by black frankincense, resin or mastic. These were the three most popular ingredients used to darken eyebrows from blond to black. Rubbing the eyebrows with burnt cork, burnt cloves, or elderberry juice would also darken them.
      A very unusual earring arrangement is exemplified by this portrait. Grace was typical of the girls of that time and had pierced ears; ears were commonly pierced in young girlhood with a darning needle and a cork. Earrings then were fastened with hooks; butterfly/stud fastenings came much later, as did screws and clip-ons. Heavier earrings would have a long hook which could fasten around the top rim of the ear from the back. The usual kind of earring was a girandole – a central jewel with pendants – but the pendants were often removable, so the earring could be worn at less formal events.

[Mrs. Elliott, by Thomas Gainsborough, portrait-bust painted in 1782]

      Another way of securing the earring was with a ribbon that was tied around the ear, and this arrangement is what's shown in the Gainsborough portrait-bust. Grace's earrings are secured by a ribbon tied under the chin that continues downward across the chest and is clipped to the dress neckline, disappearing behind the large carved green gemstone cameo surrounded by seed pearls that is pinned to the middle of the bow just below the bust line.
      A description of Grace when she was newly out of her French convent, at fifteen or sixteen years of age, "declared that 'her complexion was clear as the clouds of a May morning and tinged with the roseate blush of Aurora.'" The portraits bear this out. And her eyes!
      Grace's eyes, and her sensual stare, the eyes half-lidded, caused consternation amongst art critics when her portrait was first exhibited at the Royal Academy. Too bold by half was the opinion of a critic in the Public Advertizer (May 2nd, 1782), who said that the portrait was "not a good moral likeness – the Eyes are too characteristic of her Vocation." In "The Spectacle of the Muse: Exhibiting the Actress at the Royal Academy," Gill Perry makes the point that:

"What worried the writer for the Public Advertizer, paradoxically, was that Gainsborough's picture was too close to its subject, inasmuch as it was seen to betray her lack of moral character. The critic found her expression simply too alluring, as evidence of a threatening feminine sexuality that had no right to be seen in respectable society. To be deemed acceptable for public exhibition, portraits of women of dubious repute had to undergo a form of masquerade: such sitters had to be given 'polite' masks, even if these made it hard to tell them apart from 'proper' members of their sex."

The eyes are simply beautiful, the expression more serene than come-hither. They are large, dark, and appealing. These are not necessarily the eyes of a whore, but rather the eyes of an attractive woman. Nothing shouts out that this is a demi-mondaine. Interesting that Grace's looks would be considered threatening because, although she is a notorious courtesan, she appears in this painting to be a respectable woman, just like any other respectable woman sitting for a portrait, though perhaps more beautiful than most.
In the 1778 full-length portrait, Grace's hands and feet are small compared to her overall height. Tiny hands and feet – even in men – were thought to be another sign of beauty. In her Memoirs, the courtesan Harriette Wilson goes into raptures on the small, white hands of her young lover Meyler, her "little sugar-baker," something that strikes a modern-day reader as odd. Men – if they are at all masculine -- are supposed to have large hands, are they not? But Wilson praises him for his little hands.

[Artist and publisher Richard Newton's July 1794 satire of the plunging-neckline costumes (almost to the navel) favored by demi-mondaines and aristocratic ladies. "A Peep Into Brest With A Navel Review" is a play on "breast" and "naval"; Brest is a French port. (Library of Congress)]

Sidebar
The Women's 'Zines

Though some French and German magazines like the Journal des Dames et des Modes and the Journal des Luxus und der Moden could be purchased by London's fashionable women, the following titles were all written in English, published in London, and perhaps the best known of this type of publication from the late 18th - early 19th centuries:
The Lady's Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, a long-lived publication produced by Robinson and Roberts that ran an astonishing 67 years from 1770 to 1837; Le Beau Monde or Literary and Fashionable Magazine, published from 1806 to 1809 by John Bell, the same entrepreneur who also published the Morning Post, The World, and Bell's Weekly Register, and, renamed Le Beau Monde and Monthly Register, taken over by J. Tyler from 1809 to 1810; The Gallery of Fashion, published by Nicholas Heideloff, 1794 to 1803; another John Bell fashion 'zine, La Belle Assemblee or Bell's Court and Fashionable Magazine Addressed Particularly to the Ladies, 1806-1832; The Lady's Monthly Museum, or Polite Repository of Amusement and Instruction: being an Assemblage of what can Tend to please the Fancy, Instruct the Mind or Exalt the Character of the British Fair, edited by a "Society of Ladies," 1798-1813, renamed The Ladies' Monthly Museum…and published for almost twenty years more, from 1814 to 1832; Rudolf Ackermann's The Repository of Arts, Literature, Commerce, Manufactures, Fashion, and Politics, a very high-end publication which had a run of 20 years from 1809 to 1829; and the short-lived La Miroir de la Mode (1803-1804), published by a fabulous character, a prominent early 19th century modiste who styled herself Madame Lanchester.

[Ball dress from The Lady's Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, February 1801. It was copied from a more daring plate in the 1801 Parisian Journal des Dames et des Modes, in which the lady's left nipple clearly showed. The London publication raised the neckline to cover the nipple. Image courtesy of historical novelist Candice Hern, from her collection of ladies' fashion magazines at her website, www.candicehern.com]

How a woman moves can be infinitely pleasing. The loveliest woman – if gawky or ill-coordinated – loses all claims to beauty. The cumbersome costume of the day was not easy to carry off – not until the Regency period were women able to relax in loose, comfortable dress. Grace moved well in bustle and panniers. She had poise, and charm, "her disposition was lively and her temper mild and engaging."
Consider this assessment of the fashionable looks of another comparable celebrated courtesan, Elizabeth Armistead. Grace Elliott was probably much prettier, but they had some characteristics in common, per this description by I. M. Davis:

"She [Mrs. Armistead] was not a great beauty, but it was her fortune that her looks entirely conformed with the requirements of current taste. This, while approving girlish freshness, saw nothing to please in girlish slenderness. Fashion in dress favoured maturity of figure: height to carry off spreading hoops and high-piled hair, a bosom to justify deep décolletage…a bearing of stately ease despite the weight of hoops, the grip of tight-lacing and the burden of the lofty coiffure. (Small slight girls were in this generation singularly unlucky…) Fashion demanded and fashion displayed the fine woman, and Mrs. Armitstead, younger in face than her years but tall, deep-bosomed and superb in bearing, was now reckoned one of the finest women in England."

Grace Elliott's extremely generous lovers allowed her to afford the very latest in style, the "dernier cri" as it was called. And courtesans set style, so whatever she chose then become the style to follow. It was a superior package in every way that mattered and, as her memoirs were later to show, the package was completed by her intelligence, vivacity, and superior conversational skills. Unfortunately none of the above is easily conveyed by brush strokes.

[Larger-than-life 1778 portrait of the statuesque Grace Elliott by Thomas Gainsborough now hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art]

One more thing: The long faced, long-nosed physiognomy, the creamy, flawless complexion, the carriage, the height, the long-legged leanness and athleticism combined with the high-bosomed figure, these attributes of Grace Elliott bear no little passing resemblance to Diana, the late Princess of Wales, another lovely British female. There is a timeless kind of British beauty exemplified both by the Princess and by Grace that continues to be appealing. Though standards for beauty change and are affected by culture and fashion, their kind of attractiveness does not go out of style, especially in their native land.
Grace Elliott was beautiful then, and would be considered beautiful now, no question about it. Grace Elliott's face and figure on the cover of a modern fashion 'zine like W or Vogue? Absolutely!