THE MYSTERY OF MELANIA: The first foreign-born supermodel to occupy the White House has much in common with Europe’s first supermodel, Emma Hamilton.

Tracy Quan:

Emma’s fame is due, in part, to a seven-year relationship with admiral Horatio Nelson, who died after winning the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. But Emma was already a celebrity when she met Nelson.

Ten years before she became Lady Hamilton, Emma Hart was discovered by the British painter George Romney, who depicted her as Circe, St. Cecilia, and Shakespeare’s Miranda. On rare occasions, she appeared as herself. Together they produced more than 60 paintings, attracting other painters such as Joshua Reynolds, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (famous for her portrait of Marie-Antoinette), and Angelica Kauffman. Romney missed her terribly when she left London for Naples.

More than a new face for painters of the 1780s, she was a new kind of persona, never a passive model, something of a gossip-magnet. Indeed, she was the supermodel prototype — harbinger of Kate Moss, Amber Valleta, and Melania Knauss.

In Italy, Emma shared a household with two men: her husband Sir William Hamilton and her lover Admiral Nelson. After Hamilton’s death, Emma lived with Nelson as his unofficial wife and conceived their daughter Horatia. Biographers have honored her with titles like England’s Mistress (2006) and Patriotic Lady (1936) by Marjorie Bowen, the genre novelist whose publishing debut turned young Graham Greene into an aspiring writer.

Both Melania and Emma have changed our idea of what’s possible for a woman in public life.

Fascinating history, and well worth your time.