Christine Schwarzman in the Buff
Dorrit Moussaieff is Iceland's First Lady. Her husband is the country's president, Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson. (She's also a jewelry designer and Jewish; who knew there were Jews in Iceland?) Anyway, not long ago Moussaieff tried to come up with a birthday president for one of her good friends. The problem: Her pal, Steve Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of Blackstone Group, already had everything! What do you buy a man who snacks on $400 crabs the way normal people munch on popcorn at the movies?
Moussaieff came up with a novel idea in the end: She turned to London artist Natasha Archdale, who creates nude females figures using "coral-hued fragments" from the Financial Times. And so Moussaieff commissioned a portrait of Schwarzman's wife, Christine. Sex and money! What could be better.
Today, the work hangs between "a Rembrandt and a Picasso" in Steve's very modest 36-room, full-floor apartment at 740 Park. (Yes, the one with a gym, sauna, massage room, and four maid's rooms.) Moussaieff declined to say what the picture cost, Archdale's work is estimated to cost $30,000 per portrait. (Or pocket change in the world of Schwarzman.)
Unfortunately, very few people know what Christine looks like in the buff—at least on canvas. (She does have two ex-husbands, after all.) The work hasn't been shown publicly. Perhaps your only chance to see it is if you snag an invite to the Schwarzman home for dinner. Or pony up big bucks for John McCain: That might just earn you an invitation to one of his annual Republican fundraisers.
Female Nudes Crafted From Financial Times Lure Bank Barons [Bloomberg]