The elaborate masks, robes, and decorations on display at the 1972 Rothschild Surrealist Ball are unsettling enough on their own even before you consider the people behind it. Wild conspiracy theories have swirled around the Rothschilds for centuries with believers claiming that this German banking family does everything from control the world’s wealth to instigate wars for their own gain.
Whether or not any such rumors are true, Baroness Marie-Hélène de Rothschild’s Surrealist Ball at Chateau de Ferrières in France has only stoked outsiders’ imaginations about what goes on behind closed doors at parties attended by the rich, powerful, and famous.
In this case, attendees included Salvador Dalí and Audrey Hepburn while dessert was a life-sized naked woman made of sugar.
