Its name suggests high tea with Edith Wharton, but the Gilded Age — the period just before and after the start of the 20th century — was far from golden. Old New York, it seems, was rife with social climbers, scam artists and hideous hairstyles long before Bernie Madoff and Donald Trump were even born. “Beauty’s Legacy: Gilded Age Portraits in America,” the new show at the New-York Historical Society, gives us a window into the period, with 65 paintings of the titans of that time. The Post asked its curators to point out a few of the more notorious. Here is a rogues’ gallery of the forerunners of today’s Page Six personalities.
OUR MARIE ANTOINETTE
Mrs. Bradley Martin
(by Meave Thompson Gedney, 1897)
The former Cornelia Sherman married Bradley Martin in 1869. For the next decade, they lived with her parents until Daddy died, at which point Cornelia inherited several million dollars. Determined to one-up the Vanderbilts, Mrs. Martin threw the costume ball to end all costume balls in 1897, when many New Yorkers were reduced to wearing rags. The party swiftly became a symbol of decadence, and the disgraced couple decamped to England, which presumably had a higher tolerance for the idle rich.
THE CHARLATAN
James Hazen Hyde
(by Théobald Chartran, 1901)
The picture of entitlement — note the hand at his hip — Hyde, at 23, inherited the lion’s share of the Equitable Life Assurance Society from his father. He proceeded to throw elaborate balls, commissioning a play about France for one little bash for 600 guests, before he nearly toppled Wall Street with his questionable business practices. Hyde then high-tailed it to Paris, where he received the French Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Apparently, financial misdoings hadn’t cramped his style.
THE REAL LILY BART
Amy Bend
(by Fernand Paillet, 1889)
Like the heroine of Wharton’s “The House of Mirth,” Bend started out rich, the cosseted daughter of the president of the New York Stock Exchange. An A-list regular, she saw her family fortune disappear virtually overnight during the Panic of 1893. For a time, she relied on the generosity of such friends as Emily Vanderbilt Sloane before marrying up, literally: Her husband was aviation pioneer Cortlandt Field Bishop. A memoir by the couple’s only child describes her mother’s life shadowed by the fear of losing her beauty.
THE DEEP-POCKETED PLAYBOY
James Gordon Bennett Jr.
(by Alexis Joseph Perignon, 1867)
This son of the owner-editor of the New York Herald was born in New York, educated in France — and addicted to his yacht, the Henrietta. The year this portrait was painted, he’d just taken the helm at the Herald and was elected vice-commodore of the New York Yacht Club. His reputation as an arrogant, entitled hedonist peaked in 1877, when he reportedly relieved himself in his future father-inlaw’s fireplace — only to be assaulted by his fiancé. The engagement ended, a duel was fought, and Bennett fled to Paris, which put up with him for the rest of his days.