Inside chilling ball with royal guests, decapitated dolls and diamond encrusted animals
Inside chilling ball with royal guests, decapitated dolls and diamond encrusted animals
Emilia RandallFri, July 10, 2026 at 6:00 AM UTC
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Guests in surrealist costume at the ball hosted by Marie-Hélène de Rothschild (Image: Wikipedia)
A prominent British banking family with what is considered the largest private fortune in history hosted an eerie and surrealist ball which reportedly served as inspiration for Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.
The grand Château de Ferrières served as the venue for this extravagant and luxurious ball, orchestrated by Salvador Dali. The unsettling theme featured a headless broken baby doll, nude mannequins and live animal masks adorned with diamonds, creating one of the most disturbing evenings ever conceived.
Audrey Hepburn made an appearance wearing a birdcage hat, while guests navigated an interactive maze filled with butlers masquerading as cats, according to The Rake.
The château's facade was illuminated in red lighting to create the illusion of flames engulfing the building. Staff members dressed as felines, pawing and frolicking with one another or feigning sleep.
Upon arrival, attendees found themselves immersed in a labyrinth of cobwebs where they could summon a cat servant to "help" you, reports the Express.
Château de Ferrières, venue of the 1972 Surrealist Ball (Image: Wikipedia)
The evening evolved into a legendary night of excess, with Yves Saint Laurent, Brigitte Bardot and Grace Kelly among the distinguished guests. Mysterious invitations requested attendees wear "black tie, long dresses & surrealist heads".
The catch was that instructions appeared in reverse, requiring invitees to decipher them using a mirror.
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A feline butler would escort you to dinner, where fur-covered plates awaited, tables displayed taxidermied tortoises, and food was presented atop a mannequin corpse resting on a bed of roses. The menu featured "sir-loin" here, "extra-lucid" soup and goat's cheese roasted in "post-coital sadness".
Marie-Hélène herself wore an enormous stag's head adorned with diamond teardrops. Baron Alexis de Redé sported a quadruple-layered four-masks-in-one creation decorated with scarab beetles, an Egyptian interpretation of Titian's Allegory of Prudence.
Marie-Hélène at her wedding to Count François de Nicolay (Image: Nationaal Archief)
Salvador Dalí created several of the outfits, though he didn't wear one himself. Perfumer Hélène Rochas balanced a gramophone atop her head.
In 1957, following a short first marriage, the elaborately titled Baroness Marie-Hélène Naila Stephanie Josina van Zuylen van Nyevelt van de Haar wed her third cousin Guy de Rothschild.
Guy was breaking from family custom by not marrying a Jewish woman and was forced to step down from his presidency of the Jewish community in France, while Catholic Marie-Hélène had to obtain special permission from the pope.
Their home, Chateau de Ferrières, is dubbed the most opulent nineteenth century chateau in France. Upon viewing his cousin's striking Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire, Guy's ancestor Baron James de Rothschild instructed its architect Joseph Paxton: "Build me a Mentmore, but twice the size".
It boasts a staggering 80 bedrooms, extensive forest grounds and a 120-foot main hall featuring elaborate columns and sculptures crafted by Charles Cordier, along with a library containing over eight thousand volumes and a neo-Renaissance Italian garden.
Three years following their one-of-a-kind Surrealist Ball, the Rothschilds gifted the chateau to the chancellery of the universities of Paris.
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
