This is an image of Clarence Mackay (US1797) and his second wife, Anna Case (US1797spouse2) along with their two dogs, Brownie and Duke.
The photograph is inscribed as follows:
To Mr. and Mrs. Lee Murtagh.
With our best wishes Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Mackay.
July 20th, 1937.
To the left of that inscription we find this: Brownie and Duke of Roslyn.
The note associated with this image reads as follows:
1937: Reduced, in financial terms, by catastrophic losses suffered during the Great Depression, to but a shadow of his former self, Clarence Mackay still managed to retain Harbor Hill and a few of the art works he prized most. When his cancer reoccurred, Anna Mackay provided essential care and support that helped to sustain him. With the necessity of giving up Harbor Hill imminent, his death in 1938, might be looked on as somewhat merciful
Anna Case was a lyric soprano who sang with the Metropolitan Opera and as a concert soloist. Encountering her at musical events from time to time, taken with her beauty and the quality of her voice, around 1916, Mackay engaged her to perform at a musical he held at home. She so pleased him, that he had sent a railroad carload load of flowers to her at her next Carnegie Hall recital, enclosing a small diamond band with an enamel bluebird in the center, emblematic of the happiness he felt in her company.
See Harbor Hill, Clarence Hungerford Mackay's Mansion.
