From: Matt Davies   
<matt davies@jssgallery.org>    
Date:   Thu, 8 Aug 2002   
 

This caricature by Sem of Boldini dancing with Ava Astor.  Ava (nee Willing) was married to John Jacob Astor.  The two had divorced by 1912, when Astor went down so valiantly on the Titanic while honeymooning with his much younger second wife.  

Ava remarried Thomas Lister, Lord Ribblesdale [John Singer Sargent painted Ribblesdale in 1902], whose first wife had been Charlotte ('Charty') Tennant, sister of Margot Tennant Asquith and a member, like her sister, of the Souls. Ava was notoriously fond of bridge, according to the memory of Lady Decies. 
 
 

Notes 
The date of this drawing, most probably coincides with a the date of a portrait done by Boldini, of which I don't know. 

Special thanks to Matt Davies, of Kansas City, a friend of the JSS Gallery, for sending me a note regarding this image. 

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