While there is no doubt that this was a costly undertaking (“Lúcia wanted something, with no expense spared,” Holland attests), it is anything but flashy. “In today’s world, people tend to want to make more noise with their money,” he adds. “But this is a very quiet, elegant way of showing affection for one’s friends. It will give them a great deal of pleasure for a long time.”
In her final years, Moreira Salles became increasingly reclusive, avoiding the press and rarely attending social events. But attention will no doubt come to her posthumously this fall, when portions of her estate are auctioned off at Sotheby’s in New York. The lots are expected to include her extraordinary collection of jewels, among them a 28-carat cabochon emerald that formerly belonged to King Farouk of Egypt and was mounted for her by JAR. Some of the proceeds may go to the Synergos Institute, which helps the poor in Rio de Janeiro’s most dangerous slums, among other places. A longtime supporter of the charity, Moreira Salles had no biological children but four stepsons with her late husband, including The Motorcycle Diaries director Walter Salles.
As her health worsened last year, Moreira Salles spent several months at New York Presbyterian Hospital. The Wilde project, says Holland, seemed to lend her strength. Five hundred twenty-five loose pages, one destined for each book, were shipped to New York, where Moreira Salles and Holland signed them and then decided upon their recipients. Moreira Salles’s list also includes Deeda Blair, Marisa Berenson, Lee Radziwill, Susan Gutfreund and Gwyneth Paltrow (whom she met through Valentino). She asked Holland to send copies to any institution or scholar he thought should have one.
In December, as Moreira Salles lay in the hospital in São Paulo, Queiroz wanted to make sure she had a chance to see the fruits of her work. Stamperia Valdonega agreed to have two copies of A Portrait of Oscar Wilde bound by hand and couriered to Brazil. Just days before his dear friend’s death, Queiroz presented her with copy No. 1 in her hospital room. “We went through it page by page,” he says. “It was a very emotional moment. It was really her creation.”
