Word: titaness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...sublime beauty of, say, Fra Angelico's Annunciation or Francisco Goya's Women with Two Children, roils a family dispute of such sordidness that it would make Jon and Kate look like the Waltons. But when Borja Thyssen, son of deceased multimillionaire Heinrich Thyssen and his fifth wife, Carmen (Tita) Cervera, decided to lay claim to his inheritance, he unleashed a tide of criminal accusations and ugly recriminations that has kept the editors and producers of Spain's gossip industry in paroxysms of delight. In the process, he has also imperiled the future of one of the world's most...
...Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum is made up of about 800 works that the government of Spain bought outright from Thyssen in 1992, and another several hundred acquired from Tita's 1,000-piece collection, which she in turn compiled with her late husband's largesse. Her part was loaned to the Spanish government in an agreement that expires in 2011. Borja says that two years ago he learned that he was co-heir of that collection, and notes that he has not as yet co-signed any agreement with the museum. It is this inheritance, which includes important works by Monet...
...Tita was antagonized by the prospect of her son removing two valuable paintings from the museum that houses her and her husband's collections, Borja's revealing interview with Hola magazine claiming that she had "hidden his inheritance from him," turned her positively Medean. On Nov. 3, the former Miss Spain filed a lawsuit against her own son, alleging "revelation of secrets" - which, depending on gravity, can be punished by fines and prison time in Spain. (See pictures of the Louvre, France's iconic museum...
Whatever her financial motivations may be, some observers attribute a motive more primal than economic to Tita's legal wranglings. "This is all about Borja trying to seek independence from his mother, and Tita not wanting to give it," says David Litchfield, British author of The Thyssen Art Macabre. "He was always her little prince, but ever since he married Blanca, Tita has been fighting to keep him at her side...
...After first opposing his engagement to the 37-year-old Blanca Cuesta, and publicly suggesting in the gossip rags that her son's intended was a gold digger, the former Miss Spain turned baroness refused to attend the wedding. When the couple's son was born in 2008, Tita required the newborn to be DNA tested - five times - before accepting him as her legitimate grandson...