Cornelia (née Martin), Countess of Craven
(1877-1961), Wife of 4th Earl of Craven; daughter of Bradley MartinSitter in 2 portraits
Cornelia was the only daughter of Bradley Martin, a wealthy New York banker. The socially ambitious family rented a Scottish highland estate, Balmacaan, where Cornelia met William Craven, 4th Earl of Craven, whom she married in New York in 1893, aged only sixteen. Her mother famously co-ordinated the lavish society costume party, the Bradley-Martin Ball, at the Waldorf Hotel, New York in 1897. Despite her good intentions to create an economic stimulus for the city at a time of recession, the event was criticised for its display of excessive consumption and is remembered as a marker of the end of the so-called Gilded Age.
Cornelia (née Martin), Countess of Craven
by H. Walter Barnett
bromide print, 1910-1914
NPG x45415
Group in fancy dress for the Shakespeare Memorial National Theatre Ball
by Langfier Ltd, published by Hudson & Kearns Ltd
photogravure, 20 June 1911, published 1912
NPG Ax135782
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