In 1903, the estate of the esteemed miniaturist and high society fancy-boy Peter Marié bequeathed his collection of four-hundred portraits of America’s most beautiful women to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The institution, however, declined Marié’s bequest, claiming the miniatures lacked the both the artistic merit and requisite hotness to warrant their acquisition. Then-director Luigi Palma di Cesnola dissed them thusly: “In the first place, some of them are not art… It was said that the collection was of the most beautiful women in the United States,” he added. “That is not true, for beautiful women are not confined to the ‘four hundred,’ and I could go out on Broadway and find women as beautiful as any in the collection.”

Who exactly were these nineteenth century foxes? Apparently, being one of Marie’s beauties usually involved having buckets and buckets of money, a penchant for silly costumes, or being married to the president. The society portraits included reclusive thespian (and original Peter Pan) Maude Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt’s mom, Mrs. Grover Cleveland, etiquette guru Emily Post, and Mrs. Bradley Martin (pictured)– a woman who once dressed up like Mary Queen of Scots and threw such an offensively expensive/ridiculously awesome party she had to leave the country!

While the Met dismissed the series as a botched vanity project, The New York Historical Society curator Margi Hofe contends the portraits have stood the test of time. “They do vary in quality,” she admits, “some of them, you look at the miniature itself and it’s an exquisite work of art; some to our eye today look a little garish.” Alas, the one-hundred-and-ten year old question remains: hot or not? You can see for yourself at the New York Historical Society, which will put the majority of the collection on display starting Nov. 11. [Salon]

— Chloe Wyma

Tags: But Is It Art?, New York Historical Society