Peter Marié was an American socialite, philanthropist, and collector of rare books and miniatures from New York City. He commissioned nearly 300 miniature portraits of Gilded Age socialites.
Early life
Peter Marié was born in France in 1826. He was the fourth son in a family of nine children born to John Baptiste Marié, a ship merchant who traded with Mexico, and Leontine Marié, who married in 1811. Among his many siblings was eldest brother, Camille Marié, Joseph Marié, the Vicomtesse de Bermingham, and another sister who married Ferdinand Thieriot of Leipzig, whose father had been Chamberlain to the King of Saxony. His maternal grandparents were General Joseph Louis Arnaud, a French planter and from Santo Domingo, and his American wife, Mary Arnaud. His paternal grandfather was a merchant from Cap Français, also in Santo Domingo. His grandfather was assassinated during a native uprising in Santo Domingo, at which point his grandmother brought Peter's mother and two aunts to New York City. His paternal grandfather was maître de port in Cap-Francais in the French West Indies who died in 1792 from an accidental drowning.
Career
Marié worked for his father and as a banker until his retirement in 1865 at the end of the American Civil War. Upon his retirement, Marié, "a man of cultivated tastes who inherited a sufficient fortune to indulge them at a comparatively early age," became a socialite in New York.
Miniature portraits
Marié commissioned up to 300 miniature portraits of female socialites, many by Fernand Paillet, of the Gilded Age. These included Edith Minturn Stokes, Hope Goddard Iselin, Emeline Winthrop, Emily Post, Frances Cleveland, Maude Adams, Anna Hall Roosevelt, and many others. A collector of rare books, he also self-published Book of Beauty, a book featuring some miniatures of Gilded Age socialites. He was also a composer of vers de société. He intended to leave his collection of miniatures to the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, but his offer was turned down in February 1903. However, his collection was acquired by the New-York Historical Society in 1905. More recently, it was exhibited at the New-York Historical Society from November 11, 2011 to September 9, 2012.
Personal life
According to his obituary in The New York Times, "It was the custom for men to marry young in the antebellum days, and Mr. Marié was one of the very few bachelors in town, who, although most gallant and most devoted to the fair sex, was content with his own lot, and who lived in a house of his own and entertained as a bachelor host." He hosted many society dinners from his residence at 48 West 19th Street and, later at, 6 East 37th Street in Manhattan and summered in Bar Harbor, Maine and Newport, Rhode Island. He died on January 13, 1903 at his residence, 6 East 37th Street, in Manhattan. His funeral took place at St. Patrick's Cathedral and he was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Woodside, Queens. Marié's estate at the time of his death was valued at $1,568,201.
