American actress Ethel Knight-Mollison arrived in Sydney in 1903 and married wealthy businessman Thomas Herbert Kelly six months later. She loved to stage elaborate fancy dress balls, dragooning her friends into fundraising functions.

In aid of Italy Day 1918, the irrepressible Mrs T H Kelly organised 68 socialites into tableaux vivants enacting paintings by old masters at the Palace Theatre. Miss Langtree, Helen Laidley and Janet Knox were posed as Carpaccio's Angel Musicians.

Some tableaux were less successful. As one critic of the matinee pointed out, "Sydney does not grow the Botticelli face. Or the slender Botticelli figure."