Mistress of the Arts: The Passionate Life of Georgina, Duchess of Bedford

Summary (from the publisher): Two hundred years ago, there lived a magnetic and manipulative aristocrat whose complex relationships and strong passions will strike a chord with any modern woman. Georgina, Duchess of Bedford, had a long and happy marriage with one of the richest men in England. Yet she also kept a handsome lover over 20 years her junior—the famous artist Edwin Landseer—who adored her till the day he died. Georgina's controversial life caused scandal even in that decadent era. She was at the center of Regency society and mixed with the leading politicians, artists, and nobles of the time. Mistress of the Arts explores the life of this intriguing woman and the colorful world she inhabited.

 

Review: Georgina was born in 1781 as the fifth daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Gordon. Georgina's mother Jane had a strong personality - she managed the family finances rather than her husband and arranged formidable marriages for her daughters (although no woman proved good enough for her sons, who didn't marry until after her death). For her youngest daughter, the Duchess of Gorden set her sights on the very eligible Duke of Bedford.

 

Unfortunately, just as Georgina's relationship with the Duke proved promising with an engagement forthcoming, he suffered a strangulated hernia during a strenuous game of tennis. The rupture led to gangrene of his intestines and the Duke died, leaving his younger brother John the new Duke. Fortunately for Georgina and her mother, the new Duke was newly widowed and Georgina and John quickly bonded over their mutual loss of the former Duke. They were married and Georgina became stepmother to the Duke's three sons from his first marriage and went on to have twelve children of her own, all but two of which lived until adulthood. 

 

Despite a large age difference, the Duke and Duchess had a very close relationship and enjoyed many years of happiness. They largely lived lives of leisure, which was common to the aristocracy of the time. In particular, they enjoyed building Endsleigh, a "retreat" from their usually socially hectic lives. "Like Marie Antoinette, Georgina wanted to play at farming, so a miniature thatched diary, complete with a bubbling fountain in the middle, marble slabs and marble troughs for holding the milk, was built by the Dairy Dell pond. Further away from the house, to recreate the romance of nineteenth-century Alpine travel, a Swiss cottage was constructed on a hill overlooking the Tamar" (118). 

 

As the Duke's health faltered as he aged, the Duchess began to fear life after her husband's death, particularly since she was not the mother of the next Duke. She began an affair with the painter Edwin Landseer, and her youngest daughter Rachel was likely his child. Yet her husband seems to have tolerated his wife's relationship (and certainly had extramarital relationships himself), and in fact was a close friend with Landseer himself. The Duke and Duchess still maintained a close and loving relationship until his death. 

 

I found this to be a well written biography that captures the typical life of an aristocratic wife and mother at the turn of the nineteenth century. Although many would judge her life frivolous, she was a devoted wife and mother, and was unique in her refusal to condescend to those of lower station that her and extnded humane treatment to all she met. The summary tried to make her relationship with Landseer lurid, but it seems to been an unusual arrangement that worked for her and her husband, who appear to have truly loved one another.

 

Stars: 4