Love's marbles lost

BY SUSAN NAGEL

John Wiley, 16.99

THE OLYMPICS RETURNED TO Athens, but the sculptures, prised from the Parthenon by the seventh Earl of Elgin more than 200 years ago, are still in exile. According to Susan Nagel’s biography, the "stones" might still decorate the Acropolis, had it not been for the financial and diplomatic savvy of Lord Elgin’s 21-year-old wife, Mary Nisbet - a woman with "charm, wit and her own money" who had the friezes removed and persuaded two British naval captains to flout Nelson’s orders and transport the cases back home.

Nagel’s book is a refreshingly succinct account of the eventful life of Mary Nisbet - a portrait which concentrates on her nine-year marriage to Lord Elgin and their four years in Greece and Constantinople as ambassadors to the Ottoman Empire.

Like her future husband, she grew up with a strong sense of entitlement. The daughter of one of Scotland’s richest landowners, her early years at the family seat near Dirleton, East Lothian, passed in an idyllic round of horse-riding, "Foot Ball" (a newly fashionable sport) and country capers. Mary married for love. Elgin was an ambitious diplomat, 12 years her senior, with a soft spot for married women and cash-rich friends.

Throughout her life Mary was to be a witty and prolific letter-writer, and Nagel makes good use of her correspondence, particularly to convey the glitzy excitements of her early twenties. She became Countess of Elgin on March 11, 1799, and shortly after set sail from Portsmouth, avoiding Napoleonic skirmishes en route, but falling foul of Emma Hamilton.

Newly arrived in Constantinople, the Elgins found themselves the new best friends of Selim III. Much to the chagrin of other embassy wives, Mary caught the sultan’s eye and became the only western woman to be invited to the Seraglio and Topkapi palace. A giddy diary entry records how she enjoyed a front-seat view of the sultan’s mother’s "thumper" diamonds - it was not long before she was presented with a "dashy" necklace of her own.

Nagel’s narrative of the couple’s early married life is beguiling. Their time in Constantinople was marked by sexual passion, exotic field trips, and spousely concern: both Mary and her "Eggy" suffered from asthma , and Elgin from severe migraines. Within a couple of years his nose was eaten away by infection - a condition not caused by syphilis, says Nagel, but the debilitating effects of medicinal mercury.

In the spring of 1802, Lord Elgin arrived in Athens where, thanks to Mary’s influence with the sultan, they were allowed to remove sculptures from the Parthenon. Nagel points out that Elgin wasn’t the only cultural-appropriator on the scene. Napoleon, along with half the crowned heads of Europe, regularly sent agents to Athens to acquire statues and bas-reliefs.

Athens marked the end of the Elgins’ extended folie deux. On their way back to Scotland, Elgin was taken prisoner in France. Mary was pregnant with their fourth child, and spent much of her time in the company of the free thinker Robert Ferguson. Two years later Lord Elgin’s divorce required two scandalous trials and an act of parliament. Mary lost custody of her beloved "Bratts", and Elgin lost access to his wife’s fortune, forcing him to sell the marbles at a cut-price rate to the British government.

While there are pickings enough here for at least two volumes of biography, in the interests of good storytelling, American academic Nagel has successfully distilled large tracts of political and social history, putting her heroine’s personal story firmly to the fore. Mary Nisbet may have secured the marbles for her husband, but when the time came, wisely surrendered them without a whimper.