Countess de Castiglione (1837–99) was a famous beauty and a significant figure in the early history of photography as a model and a collaborator of photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson.

Born Virginia Oldoini in 1837 in Florence, Tuscany, she married the Count Francisco Verasis de Castiglione at a young age. They had a son named Giorgio.

Her cousin, Count di Cavour, was a minister to Victor Emmanuel II, king of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia. When the Castigliones traveled to Paris in 1855, the Countess was under her cousin's instructions to plead the cause of Italian unity with Napoleon III of France. She achieved notoriety by becoming Napoleon III's mistress, a scandal that led her husband to demand a marital separation.

The Countess was known for her "divine beauty" and flamboyant entrances in elaborate dress at the imperial court. One of her most infamous outfits was a Queen of Hearts costume [1].

In 1856 she began sitting for Mayer and Pierson, the favored photographers of the imperial court. Over the next four decades she would collaborate with Pierre-Louis Pierson on over 400 photographs in which she re-created the signature moments of her life for the camera. Most of the photographs depicted the Countess in her theatrical outfits, such as the Queen of Hearts dress. A number of photographs depicted the Countess in ways that were undoubtedly risqué for the era -- notably, images that expose her bare legs or feet [2]. In these photos, her head has been cropped out.

By 1857 the brief affair with Napoleon III was over, and she returned to Italy.

In 1861 the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, perhaps partly due to the influence that the Countess had exerted on Napoleon III. That same year, she returned to France, moving to Passy.

In the last years of her life she lived in an apartment on the Place Vendôme, where she had the rooms decorated in funereal black, the blinds kept drawn, and mirrors banished -- apparently so she would not have to confront her advancing age and loss of beauty. She would only leave the apartment at night. In 1899, she died in Paris at the age of sixty-two.

Robert de Montesquiou , the Symbolist writer and poet, and avid art collector, was fascinated by the Countess de Castiglione. He spent thirteen years writing her biography, La Divine Comtesse, published in 1913. After her death, he collected the majority of her photographs, of which 275 were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1975.

La Divine Comtesse : Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione [3] by Pierre Apraxine, is a catalog for a 2000 exhibition of the Countess de Castiglione photos at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

A portrait of the Countess [4] was painted by George Frederic Watts in 1857.

The Countess's life was depicted in a 1955 French film, La Contessa di Castiglione [5], that starred Yvonne de Carlo.

References

• Bowles, Hamish (Aug 2000). "Vain Glory". Vogue, pp. 242-45, 270-71.

• Henry, Max. Gotham Dispatch. Retrieved Mar. 30, 2005.

• Indepth Art News. Retrieved Mar. 30, 2005.

External Links

• Metropolitan Museum of Art: "La Divine Comtesse" (with sample photos)

• Short article in Artnet about the Countess de Castiglione (with sample photos)

• Review of "La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione (book review)

• Virginia Countess Castiglione: A Professional Beauty (essay)

• Five Countess de Castiglione photos can be found here (scroll down to the middle)