La Grande Therese: The Greatest Swindle of the Century: The Unknown Scandal That Ruined the Matisse Family Book

Hilary Spurling's masterful biography The Unknown Matisse: 1869-1908 mentioned the little-known story of the woman who brought financial disgrace on his family. Now she has seen fit to devote an entire book--slim though it is--on this fascinating subject. A hundred years ago the fabulously wealthy Therese Humbert and her husband lived like royalty on a fashionable street in Paris where they were waited on by Matisse's parents-in-law. Therese let it be known that she had had an even wealthier American lover and paid for everything by borrowing money on the expectation that she would receive a legacy from his will. Annoyingly, his children kept disputing the will and the case dragged on for years. But the Humberts kept on living it up, socialising with the great and the good and running up debts all the while. In this wittily piquant morality tale Spurling describes the spectacular rise and fall of a cunning French peasant girl with a wicked imagination and irresistible powers of persuasion who worked up a hoax that fooled an entire society. Therese sadly died in disgrace and without a penny, but her story is as rich and entertaining as anything by Dickens or Zola. --Lilian PizzichiniRead More