Baroness Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knight ...

Lotus de Païni (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Elvezia Giulia Maria Gazzotti; 28 November 1862 – 22 July 1953) was an Italian painter, sculptor, writer, and

occultist The occult () is a category of esoteric or supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of organized religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving a 'hidden' or 'secret' agency, such as magic and mystic ...

. She also used the names L. E. De Paini, Lotus Gazzotti, and Lotus Péralté.

Early life, family, and education

Lotus de Païni was born on 28 November 1862, in

Copparo Copparo (, ) is a town and ''comune'' of Emilia Romagna, Italy, in the Province of Ferrara, located northeast of the regional capital of Bologna and east of the provincial capital of Ferrara, Copparo sits in the fertile Po River Delta— sou ...

Emilia-Romagna Emilia-Romagna (, , both , ; or ; ) is an Regions of Italy, administrative region of northern Italy, comprising the historical regions of Emilia (region), Emilia and Romagna. Its capital is Bologna. It has an area of , and a population of 4.4 m ...

, Italy, and raised in

Vallauris Vallauris (; ; Niçard subdialect: ''Valàuri'') is a seaside commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in Southeastern France. It is located in the metropolitan area (and is today effectively an ext ...

Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur (commonly shortened to PACA), also known as Région Sud, is one of the eighteen Regions of France, administrative regions of France, located at the far southeastern point of the Metropolitan France, mainland. The main P ...

, France. Her mother Thérèse Guignon was French from Vallauris, and her father Giuseppe Gazzotti was Swiss-born Italian. She married Baron Nicolas de Païni in c. 1890, and they divorced nine years later. Her second marriage was c. 1900 to Paul Péralté, a surgeon, however the date was complicated by the French courts over her divorce not finalized.

Career

De Païni was a self-taught artist, who liked to make her artwork while traveling. In 1894 she was working in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

, Romania; where she painted the noted, ''Portrait of Queen Carmen Sylva'' ( Carmen Sylva, the Queen of Romania). She exhibited at

Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (SNBA; ; ) was the term under which two groups of French artists united, the first for some exhibitions in the early 1860s, the second since 1890 for annual exhibitions. 1862 Established in 1862 by the painter a ...

in Paris, in 1897, 1898 and 1899. Around 1904, De Païni accompanied Paul Péralté on a trip to

Ceylon Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...

(now Sri Lanka),

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

and

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

, which inspired a number of paintings. Followed by a trip years later to Egypt, and Palestine. After her marriage to Péralté, they were both member of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society is the organizational body of Theosophy, an esoteric new religious movement. It was founded in New York City, U.S.A. in 1875. Among its founders were Helena Blavatsky, a Russian mystic and the principal thinker of the ...

. She started following

Rudolf Steiner Rudolf Joseph Lorenz Steiner (; 27 or 25 February 1861 – 30 March 1925) was an Austrian occultist, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant. Steiner gained initial recognition at the end of the nineteenth century ...

around 1913. Under the name Lotus Péralté, starting from 1914 she published writings on painting and then on

Western esotericism Western esotericism, also known as the Western mystery tradition, is a wide range of loosely related ideas and movements that developed within Western society. These ideas and currents are united since they are largely distinct both from orthod ...

. Her writings and artwork were admired by

André Breton André Robert Breton (; ; 19 February 1896 – 28 September 1966) was a French writer and poet, the co-founder, leader, and principal theorist of surrealism. His writings include the first ''Surrealist Manifesto'' (''Manifeste du surréalisme'') ...

, , and . Her artwork is in museum collections, including at the

Guimet Museum The Guimet Museum (full name in ; ''MNAAG''; ) is a Parisian art museum with one of the largest collections of Asian art outside of Asia that includes items from Cambodia, Thailand, Viet Nam, Tibet, India, and Nepal, among other countries. Found ...

in Paris.

Publications

* * * * * * * *

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:de Païni, Lotus 1862 births 1953 deaths 19th-century French painters 19th-century Italian women painters Artists from Emilia-Romagna Artists from Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Italian emigrants to France Italian occult writers Italian portrait painters