Virginia Oldoini

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The Countess in a photo by Pierre-Louise Pierson (c. 1863/66)

Virginia Oldoini, Countess de Castiglione (1837–1899), better known as La Castiglione, was an Italian courtesan who achieved notoriety as a mistress of Emperor Napoleon III of France. She was also a significant figure in the early history of photography as a model and collaborator of photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson.

1 Biography
2 Memory
3 Books & References
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Born Virginia Oldoini in 1837 in Florence, Tuscany, she married Count Francesco Verasis de Castiglione at a young age. They had a son, 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. During her two years relationship with the French emperor (1856-1857), she was invited inside the very close circle of European royalty. Among others she met Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Otto von Bismarck and Adolphe Thiers.

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. A portrait of the Countess was painted by George Frederic Watts in 1857. 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 . In these photos, her head has been cropped out.

The Legs of the Countess de Castiglione (c. 1861/67)

By 1857 the brief affair with Napoleon III was over, inducing her to return to Italy. Four years later, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed, conceivably in part due to the influence that the Countess had exerted on Napoleon III. That same year, she returned to France and settled in Passy.

Just after the defeat of France during the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, she has been called by France to meet, in secret, Otto von Bismarck to explain to him how fatal could be the German occupation of Paris. She may have succeded, as Paris stayed free of Prussian occupation.^[1]

Virginia spent her declining years 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 passed away at age sixty two, and was buried at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

[edit] Memory

Robert de Montesquiou, a Symbolist 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.

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

[edit] Books & References

^ (French) "Historia nb 656 (Aug 2001) " (French serious historical magazine, 4 complete pages on the Countess de Castiglione )

(French) Biography - La Dame de Coeur, un amour de Napoléon III, by Isaure de Saint-Pierre, collection Albin Michel (2006), ISBN 2-226-17363-3
Bowles, Hamish (Aug 2000). "Vain Glory". Vogue, pp. 242-245, 270-271.
Henry, Max. Gotham Dispatch. Retrieved 30 March 2005.
Indepth Art News. Retrieved 30 March 2005.
Abigail Solomon-Godeau, "The Legs of the Countess." October 39 (Winter 1986): 65-108. Reprinted in Fetishism as Cultural Discourse, Emily Apter and William Pletz, eds. (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1993):266-306.
Heather McPherson, "La Divine Comtesse: (Re)presenting the Anatomy of a Countess," in The Modern Portrait in Nineteenth Century France (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001): 38-75.
La Divine Comtesse : Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione (ISBN 0-300-08509-5) by Pierre Apraxine is a catalog for a 2000 exhibition of the Countess de Castiglione photos at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.