GOURIELLI

Speranza

 

 

Elena Rubenstein was the daughter of Orazio Rubenstein and Augusta Silberfeld.

Elena was born at Crakow, Poland, on 25 December 1871.

Elena briefly studied medicine in Switzerland.

She emigrated to Australia in 1902. 

Elena married first on 7 June 1908 in Sydney, Edward Morganbesser Titus, by whom she had two sons, Roy and Orazio. 

In Australia Elena noted that the weather caused women’s faces to appear rough and red.

She opened a shop in Melbourne where she dispensed her own facial cream and taught women how to care for their skin.

 In 1908 her sister joined her and assumed management of the shop while Elena went to London with $100,000 to found what would become an international business.

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THE ELIE NADELMAN EXHIBIT GOES "PRIVATE".

In 1911 at a London gallery opening of the sculptor Elie Nadelman, Elena purchased the entire exhibition to display in her international salons.


Elena and Titus lived in Paris until the Great War necessitated their move to the United States.

Elena opens salons throughout the country and established the phenominally successful “Day of Beauty” in her shops.

Elena and her Titus divorced in 1937.

The next year in NYC she married Principe Gourielli -- born at Georgia, 18 February 1895, died at New York City 21 November 1955.

The Prince Gourielli, who was 23 years younger than Elena, had a somewhat tenuous claim to the Princely title.

He had been born a member of the noble if untitled Tchkonia family, of Guria. It was his grandmother who had been born "Principessa Gourielli".

Elena developed a line of male cosmetics in her new husband’s name -- "Principessa Gourielli"

Her company was enormously successful and she became extremely wealthy and founded the Helena Rubenstein Pavilion of Contemporary Art where her collection of miniature rooms was housed.

Dali painted her portrait in 1943 with her face superimposed upon the side of a cliff.

In 1953 she created the Helena Rubenstein Foundation, stating:

“My fortune comes from women and should benefit them and their children, to better their quality of life.”

She contributed largely to health and medical research issues.

In 1959 she went to Moscow as the official representative of the U. S. cosmetics industry at the National Exhibition.

She died in New York City 1 April 1965.

The Prince was president of the Georgian Association in America from 1945 to 1947.

He died 21 November 1955.

Both Elena and the Prince Artchil are buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Queens, New York, with his inscribed coat of arms, headed by a princely coronet, atop their graves -- as it should.