Vestris

Vestris, MADAME, actress, was the granddaughter of Bartolozzi the engraver, and was born in London, 7th March 1797. Accomplished in music, French, and Italian, Lucia Elizabeth Bartolozzi married at sixteen Armand Vestris, ballet-dancer, member of an originally Florentine family that gave to France a series of distinguished cooks, actors, and ballet-dancers. Three years later she separated from her worthless husband and went on the stage in Paris (1815), attaining fair success. In 1820 she appeared at Drury Lane, soon became famous in The Haunted Tower, was even more popular as Phœbe in Paul Pry, and in light comedy and burlesque was uniformly successful. She was lessee of the Olympic when in 1838 she married Charles James Mathews, and she afterwards undertook the management of Covent Garden and the Lyceum. She retired in 1854, and died at Gore Lodge, Fulham, 8th August 1856.