In mid-1878 Isabella Singer announced her decision to move herself and her children back to the Continent. She returned to Paris with her children just as the city was preparing for the 1878 World's Fair. A long-awaited attraction was the head of the Statue of Liberty, recently completed by sculptor Frédéric Bartholdi and installed on 28 June in the Champs de Mars. Crowds thronged to view the face of the illustrious woman, whose features evoked both classicism and tragedy. Rumors flew as to the identity of Bartholdi's model, a secret never disclosed by the sculptor. Was it Bartholdi's mother, his wife … or Isabella Boyer Singer?

That Isabella inspired the features of Lady Liberty is now firmly ensconced in Singer family mythology. Bartholdi may have met her while the Singers lived at Boulevard Malesherbes in the late 1860s, or possibly in New York in 1876, when Isabella was settling Isaac's will, and when Bartholdi was making his first studies for the statue. As Bartholdi's biographers point out, a “proper” woman of the 1870s would never have posed for a sculptor, except for a project resulting in a bust that could sit unobtrusively in the parlor. Whatever Isabella’s—and Isaac’s—sense of propriety, it probably would not have been enough to stand in the way of a project that paid such tribute to her vanity. What is remarkable is the resemblance between Miss Liberty and the young Winnaretta Singer.

As she approached her fortieth year, Isabella had every expectation of rising to an estimable social level in the wealthy bourgeoisie. A photograph of her taken around 1880 reveals her to be a beautiful, albeit haughtylooking woman. Endowed with good looks, charm, and a multimilliondollar legacy, the Widow Singer had probably been pursued by potential suitors from the moment that her official mourning period ended.

She made her choice too soon, and not wisely. Victor-Nicolas Reubsaet was a handsome violinist and tenor, born on 26 April 1843 near Maastricht, Holland, the son of a Dutch shoemaker. He was said to have made something of a concert career in Brussels and Antwerp.