Virginia Castiglione

Castiglione, Virginia, Countess de (née Oldoini; 1837-99). Born into an aristocratic Florentine family, she married, aged 16, Count Francesco Verasis de Castiglione. Sent to Paris in 1855 by her cousin Count Cavour, the Piedmontese Prime Minister, to encourage Napoleon III to promote Italian unity, she achieved notoriety by having an affair with him. In 1856 she began an extraordinary creative partnership with Pierre-Louis Pierson of the photographic studio Mayer & Pierson, and together, until 1898, they created over 400 photographs of the countess. She contributed costumes, poses, ideas, and, above all, her sense of herself, and Pierson made the images. The resulting tableaux, often captioned and hand coloured by Castiglione, were either inspired by sources like contemporary operas, or re-enacted scenes from her own life.

Castiglione was an innovator, visualizing herself as muse, seductress, or deity. The photographs, for which she functioned as director and heroine, demonstrate a precocious grasp of images, disguises, role-play, and poses as expressions of the self.

— Jan-Erik Lundström

Bibliography

• Apraxine, P. (ed.), La Divine Comtesse: Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione (2000)