The Belle Otero pandect

     A compilation of images and texts on the greatest dancer-courtesan of all times: Caroline Otero.

    Based on the private collection of Alkis Raftis, containing original postcards, books and articles. Completed with material from various other sources, this work aims at assembling the full range of information available on this unique personality.

    Considered the most beautiful woman of her time - around 1900 - as well as the most relentless lover of rich and powerful men, Caroline Otero lived an intense life full of dance, sex and gambling. No woman can compare with her in glamour and scandals, in the number of men who committed suicide for her, in the number of royalty who slept with her and in the number of millions lost in the casino.

    A living legend during the first half of the 20th century, she retired early and was then totally forgotten. Born in Gallicia, Spain, raped at the age of 11 in her village, she moved to Paris to become the first ever star of show business. Her Spanish dances on stage turned the mind of men and inflamed the jealousy of women. Her raw sensual attraction was irresistible: poets dedicated poems to her, theater managers scrambled to books her, journalists wrote raptuous articles, while crowned lovers heaped diamonds on her.

    She danced to arouse men, she squeezed fortunes out of her admirers, then lived unobserved her last 50 years losing everything on the roulette tables.