by Susan Ronald
Then there were those two tapestries that had been hidden in the vault of the American embassy in Paris just before the occupation. It took a great deal of time for the Met to negotiate their safe arrival—which was done with extreme care—and the first tapestry was shipped from Paris only in March 1946. A Hawking Party made in Arras sometime between 1420 and 1435 arrived at La Guardia Airport in New York along with Judith with Head of Holofernes, a Flemish tapestry from the mid-fifteenth century, after finally clearing customs that November. While each tapestry was insured for around $80,000, a separate Met valuation determined they were worth a combined $50,000.* Nonetheless, it was an incredibly generous gift, and one close to Frank’s heart.
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While her art collection grew finer and more significant with each passing year, Florence strived to remain at the forefront among the world’s elite. Age, rarely kind to women, was a sharply perceived enemy, always lurking in a mirror or reflected when passing a shop window. She lamented to her young friend Jean Chalon, “look what I have become.” Her final fifteen years were spent giving parties, giving her time, giving to charity; giving, always giving. Years of holding a champagne glass aloft and eating rich food, the endless laughter and fun, the nuits blanches, or sleepless nights, were taking their final toll. She was dying of cancer. By 1982, she frequently used a wheelchair to get around. Travel became impossible, eating a burden.
Her final official lunch with friends at Le Patio began with an appetizer of foie gras, followed by tournedos of beef with capers, and plum mousse, served with an amusing Rothschild Bordeaux and Boldington champagne. Her champagne glass was filled with water while her friends enjoyed the wines; her plate of food remained practically untouched.
On the morning of February 18, 1983, Florence remarked to Madeleine Manigler, “I would have never believed it was so hard to die.”18 But die she did, later that day. She was the undisputed Queen of the Riviera. She was eighty-seven years old. Other Americans had come and gone, but only Florence had endured.
EPILOGUE
Florence decided long before her death that she would lead the way, not follow, Anna Gould’s example. Evidently, she had second thoughts about setting up a foundation in Frank’s memory. Instead, she set up a foundation in her own name to promote Franco-American amity and understanding. All her possessions that were not bequeathed to trust funds for her close friends or those employees who had served her faithfully were to be sold at auction. The books and furniture were estimated to sell at Monte Carlo for $5 million, or just over double that value in 2016. The jewelry was exhibited privately before it was sold at Christie’s in New York in 1984. Her art collection traveled to London to be put on show at the Royal Academy, prior to its auction in New York. In all, Florence’s estate on her death was estimated to be worth some $123.8 million, or around $300 million now.
The Shah of Iran once said that only Florence’s jewelry collection could rival his own. If the auction results are anything to go by, he was right. It sold for $8.1 million at Christie’s in New York—the highest price achieved for a sole-owner jewel collection at that date. Today it would be worth closer to $182 million.
Her art collection of 180 artworks sold for $34 million ($76.4 million today). By our standards now, it was a paltry sum when one considers that the Van Gogh painting of Dr. Gachet sold only five years later to a Japanese businessman for $82.5 million. In part, it can be explained by the fact that in 1985 art was just becoming an investment vehicle—like gold or diamonds. After all, her Van Gogh Landscape with Rising Sun fetched the highest price to date for any Impressionist painting—$9.9 million. Only three of her other paintings sold for over a million dollars: the Degas Three Dancers ($1.1 million); Courbet’s Bouquet of Flowers in a Vase ($1.21 million—a new high for a Courbet); and Monet’s Antibes Seen from the Salis Gardens ($1.375 million).1
In part, however, the prices reflect the quality of some of the paintings. Many experts commented off the record that some of the artworks were disappointing, particularly when one considered the signature attached to them. On closer study, thirty-six of the fifty-six nineteenth- and twentieth-century paintings had Daniel Wildenstein as part of their provenance, giving pause for further thought, too. Then there’s the fact that Wildenstein often acted as Florence’s agent, even when his name does not appear on the provenance.
Others that do not bear a Wildenstein provenance have the dates of previous sales unstated, perhaps masking transactions that took place in the Nazi era, whether as forced sales or heavily discounted ones by a distressed owner. Three such examples were Pivoines; Fleurs d’Été; and Nature Morte aux Quatre Pêches, all by Henri Fantin-Latour. While many do not advertise the date of transfer of ownership, others bear the mark of families and art dealers who were looted during the war.
Names such as Weill, Bernstein, Bernheim, Bernheim-Jeune, and Cassirer tell their own tales of woe. Paintings bought through the large Paris art dealership Durand-Ruel may also be suspect, as the sales of Durand-Ruel are currently being evaluated by restitution experts.2 Still others bear the clear signs of having been traded in the buoyant Paris art market of the occupation, like Toulouse-Lautrec’s L’Assomoir, which has the sales mark of the notorious Galerie Charpentier in 1943. Then there are those, like Madonna and Child Enthroned with Eight Male Saints, described as belonging to the “Florence Gould Collection before 1932.” Sotheby’s acted entirely within the moral, ethical, and legal codes prevailing at the time of sale. The auction house relied heavily on information provided by Daniel Wildenstein. It is only since 1998 and the signing by forty-four countries of the Washington Principles regarding the restitution of Nazi looted art that public owners of paintings need to be concerned. In December 2016, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Restitution (HEAR) Act was passed in the United States, allowing civil claims for the recovery of Holocaust-era looted art. Any private owners of art from the Gould Collection—as well as any owners of looted art exhibited publicly in the United States—are now subject to the same laws.
The big question is, Did Florence know that some of her art might have had dubious origins? The even bigger question is, Did she care? Obviously, as a savvy buyer of art during the occupation, Florence was quite aware that much of the art appearing on the market was looted from less fortunate individuals who had their very lives ripped away from them. She even entertained one of Hitler’s big art thieves, Erhard Goepel. So, yes to the first question. As for the second, Florence rarely showed empathy for those who were not in her vast circle of friends. Like most cunning people, too, she could reason away any wrongdoing, just as she had done during the occupation by helping both sides when it suited her.
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Despite any questionable ethics, Florence managed to successfully nail her legacy by always remaining a patron of the arts. Her lavish surroundings—be it in Paris or on the Riviera—were home to some of the greatest names in French literature—André Gide, André Malraux, Colette, and Jean Cocteau, to name names—as well as great living artists like Marie Laurencin, Georges Braque, and Henri Matisse. She supported the American Hospital in Paris, the American Library, also in Paris; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which named four decorative arts galleries after her. She founded two literary prizes: the Max Jacob Prize for Poetry, after her friend and former lover who died at the hands of the occupiers at Drancy near Paris; and the Roger Nimier Prize for Literature, in honor of the right-wing writer beloved by Jean de Noël. Additionally, she funded the Engraving Prize and the Musical Composition Prize.3 She was inducted into the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1974. Yet neither she nor her foundation has ever given a cent to Jay Gould’s Lyndhurst, Frank Gould’s childhood family home.4
Her childhood was marred by one seismic and one biblical natural disaster. As a young woman, she like so many others, briefly became a nurse, during the First World War. These cataclysmic events helped fuel her insatiable desire for fun, and for creating a sort of Neverland for those who surrounded he
r. With Frank’s money, she lived well, and the way she wanted—irrespective of the dangers and regardless of the cost. “She shone with equal luster at lunch when you sat down 6 or at a dinner for 24 or more,” Peter C. Wilson, the former chairman of Sotheby’s, recalled shortly before her death. “To both she brought her special quality of enjoyment. She was no lion hunter. Her guests were chosen for no other reason than that she wanted to see them and keep warm friendships.”5
In another age, perhaps another lifetime, Florence would have sat upon a peacock-blue silk brocade sofa overstuffed with hummingbird feathers, attired seductively in the richest fashions, so that all could become captivated by her beauty, wit, and charm. She’d be sipping the finest drink of those times, delighting in an amuse-bouche of larks’ tongues like a queen of old. Instead, she used her beauty to gain wealth beyond her own venal imagining, and with that wealth, the absolute power of a queen in the world of her own choosing. To be patronized by Florence, her authors and artists had to play by her rules or not at all. And play they did—in France.
While her foundation continues her wishes to promote Franco-American amity, it should be made clear that Florence never backed individual American artists, musicians, dancers, or writers during her lifetime. It is the foundation that has initiated and promoted any reciprocity for American artists. Though she lived most of her life in France, Florence is buried in America, in the Gould family crypt at Woodlawn Cemetery in New York. Why? Because that is where Jay Gould and Frank Gould—and all the Goulds of any repute—are buried. Above all else, Florence needed their cachet, even in death.
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The French have an expression that perfectly depicts the paradoxical—like Florence, with all her exquisite shining personality, hidden vulnerability, lust for wealth, and love of danger. Florence was une originale—unique, someone you could love and dislike in equal measure. Someone who could wound and control; then bestow tremendous favor upon those closest to her, and not even realize that she had done both in the blink of an eye. She was selfish, egotistical, generous, gorgeous, promiscuous, quick-tongued, and quick-witted. She was never dull, never boring—despite James Rorimer’s harsh words. Above all, she moved with the times and, given the dangerous sweeps of history in which she lived at the height of society, she became—perhaps, despite herself—a dangerous woman.
Florence Lacaze Gould, wife of millionaire sportsman Frank Jay Gould, for press shot “Popular on the Riviera,” September 1930. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Aerial view of Lyndhurst and the Hudson River. (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
First home of the Lacaze family in Paris, just opposite the Luxembourg Gardens.
Jay Gould (1836–1892). (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
Helen Gould Shepard (1868–1938). (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
Anna, Duchess of Talleyrand-Perigord (1875–1961), taken in 1939. Anna returned to Lyndhurst that year, acquiring the family estate from Helen’s widower. (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
Anna with daughter Helene-Violetta, who as an adult was Gaston Palewski’s lover and later wife. They became close with Florence after Frank’s death. (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
Frank Jay Gould as a young man. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Frank Jay Gould posing for the New York World-Telegram, 1912. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Florence Gould, circa 1954, talking to Jean Cocteau (right). She is fifty-nine years old in the picture and is beginning to wear her dark glasses. (Courtesy of Archives Municipales Montrose, Cannes, France)
Portrait of Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel, 1936. Hand-colored photo by Brois Lipnitski (1897–1871). (Private collection. Courtesy of Roger-Viollet, Paris/Bridgman Images)
Arletty starring in Le Jour Se Leve, 1939, directed by Marcel Carne Arletty. (Courtesy of Bridgeman Images, © DILTZ)
Edith Kelly Gould demonstrating her “highest kick in the world.” (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
As captioned in the New York World-Telegram, “Mrs. Frank Gould, society leader in New York and Paris, arriving in New York aboard the Ile de France,” 1934. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Isabelle Lacaze (left), sister of Florence Gould, with Florence, holding their Pekingese dogs on the maiden voyage of the SS Normandie in 1935. (Courtesy of Getty Images)
Florence Lacaze Gould aboard the SS Normandie in 1935 with two of her Pekingese dogs. Both she and Frank were devoted to the breed. (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Map of France showing how it was divided at various stages of the occupation between 1940 and 1944.
129 Avenue Malakoff, where Florence held her wartime salon in her apartment on the third floor. (Courtesy of the author)
133 Avenue Malakoff, home of Ludwig Vogel, Florence’s wartime lover. (Courtesy of the author)
View from Florence’s home in Cannes, Le Patio, renamed as Palais Gould today.
View of Palais Gould today. (Courtesy of the author)
Florence Gould, 1956. This Associated Press photo was captioned “Mrs. Florence Gould, third wife of Frank Jay Gould, gets the bulk of Gould estate.” (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)
Letter from Tom Hoving, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to Florence Gould, dated April 6, 1968—a time capsule and a letter of thanks. (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Promenade des Anglais in Nice with the Palais de la Méditerrannée in the background, circa 1929. (Courtesy of Hyatt-Regency Palais de la Méditerrannée)
Front view of Lyndhurst. (Courtesy of Lyndhurst, A National Trust Historic Site)
AUTHOR’S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There are many unanswered questions about Florence’s life, mostly because she decided from childhood that she would live a grand, worldly life with mirrors. The Florence Gould Foundation refused, despite my best efforts, to allow me access to their archives, their photographs (to which they hold the exclusive rights), and to letters that were clearly in their possession at the time the last biography of Florence was published in French in 1989. Indeed, they made it clear that they did not wish this book to be published. Similarly, many letters and documents that would have been useful were either destroyed during her lifetime or remain undocumented.
What is certain, however, is that Gandhi’s words, “As in law or war, the deepest purse finally wins,” applied to Florence, Frank, and many powerful, well-connected, or phenomenally wealthy people—then as now—who dare to play the odds and win, making the world a little more unjust daily. My path has crossed several talented “Florences” in my business life in hotel development and finance, as well as in investment banking, and they uniformly believe that laws they don’t like are for other people. While I said in my previous book, Hitler’s Art Thief (2015), that Florence was a Nazi, after having researched her as my primary subject, I must admit that this was an unfair remark. She, like most of her friends in the French Third Republic of the 1930s, was a capitalist, leaning heavily toward the right when it had gone out of fashion in a socialist state.
Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s did more than was required of them morally and legally at the time their auctions of Florence’s collections were held. The laws governing Nazi looted art were different then, and since 1998 all major auction houses have set up art restitution departments headed by world-class experts to avoid the sale of and to report on Nazi looted art (and stolen art) being represented legitimately. Their investigations are ongoing. I believe that the HEAR Act in the United States makes ownership of any artwork with a Florence Gould provenance subject to closer scrutiny.
I have attempted to find the copyright holders of all images used, but with images from the Library of Congress it has not been possible, as the publishers no longer exist, and the photographers/owners are presumed dead or cannot otherwise be traced. If this book affects the copyright held by you
, please contact my publisher, and it will be corrected in any future editions.
Finally, any errors in the telling of Florence’s story are my own.
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I am humbled by my husband’s daily support for me while I was writing this book. Without Dr. Douglas Ronald, a gifted historian and writer, the germ of the idea for Florence Gould’s biography would never have blossomed. He urged me to pitch it to my agent, Alexander C. Hoyt, who despite suffering from the “Florence Who?” syndrome, understood immediately why this story needed telling. When Alex Hoyt and I approached my editor, Charles Spicer at St. Martin’s Press, with the idea for the biography, he was a bit skeptical at first, simply because of his understandable “Florence Who?” reaction. Fortunately, it didn’t take very long for him to warm to the idea. Thank you, Charlie, and thanks to Alex for buying into what seemed like a silly idea. Others to acknowledge and thank for their help and goodwill are April Osborn at St. Martin’s; Richard Aronowitz-Mercer at Sotheby’s in London; interdisciplinary psychotherapist Alexander Balerdi; Matthew Balerdi, MBChB, MRCP; Marjorie Bliss; Jeff Bridger at the Library of Congress; Sir James Bulmer; Shep Burr; Kate Butterworth; Tom Campbell, Lizzie Fitzgerald, and James Moske (The Metropolitan Museum of Art); Monica Dugot (Christie’s Restitution in New York); Lynn Goldberg, Angela Baggetta, and Jeff Umbro at Goldberg McDuffie Communications; Pamela Head; Hugh Hildesley (Sotheby’s in New York); Dotti Irving of Four Colman Getty; Richard and Susan Parker; Luc Requier (Archives Nationales de France); Alan Riding; Charlotte and Steve Sass; Amanda Vail; Vincent Virga; Bruce Weiner; and medical anthropologist Mara Weiner-Macario, MSc. Hons.
