Lalla Vandervelde
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1870
-
Ferdinand Kufferath(m. 1891; div. 1901)
- Émile Vandervelde
Lalla Vandervelde | |
|---|---|
_by_Roger_Fry.png) 1917 portrait of Lalla Vandervelde by Roger Fry | |
| Born | Charlotte Helen Frederica Maria Speyer 1870 Camberwell, England |
| Died | 1965 (aged 94–95) |
| Occupation(s) | socialite, art patron |
| Spouses |
|
| Father | Edward Speyer |
Lalla Vandervelde (1870–1965), was a British-Belgian socialite and patron of the arts. She was married to Émile Vandervelde, the former minister d'etat of Belgium, and had close relationships with several influential artists and writers of the early twentieth century, including Roger Fry.[1]
Lalla Vandervelde was born Charlotte Helen Frederica Maria Speyer in Camberwell, England in 1870.[2][3] Her father, Edward Speyer (1839–1934), was a wealthy businessman and patron of music. Her grandfather, Wilhelm Speyer (1790–1878), was a German-Jewish composer.[1]
Vandervelde's mother, Helen Franziska Forsboom of Frankfurt, Germany, died in 1882, when Vandervelde was twelve years old. In 1885, Edward Speyer remarried to Antonia Kufferath, the daughter of German composer Hubert Ferdinand Kufferath.[1]
Vandervelde lived in Brussels for much of her adult life until the outbreak of World War I.[4][5]
Marriage
Vandervelde's first husband was Ferdinand Kufferath, the brother of her father's second wife and a Belgian civil engineer, whom she married on 19 January 1891 and divorced on 3 January 1901.[2][3] The socialite then married Émile Vandervelde, a Belgian socialist politician. Lalla and Émile Vandervelde reportedly had a contentious relationship, with Emile omitting Lalla from his autobiography, Souvenirs d'un militant socialiste. The couple had no children.[1]
During World War I, Vandervelde embarked on a speaking tour throughout the United States with the goal of obtaining money for Belgian Relief.[4][5]