Art By Paul Cesar Helleu

An artist, born in Vannes, Brittany, France, best known for his portraits of many of the most famous and beautiful women of his time including the Duchess of Marlborough, the Countess of Greffulhe and Belle da Costa Greene, librarian to J. P. Morgan and one of the sharpest and most powerful women buyers of her time. He started as a ceramist, but at the age of 17, despite the disapproval of his widowed mother, he came to Paris to study with Gérôme and at the École des Beaux-Arts. He was the creator of the astrological ceiling decoration in New York City's Grand Central Station, completed in 1912.