Countess castiglione biography of mahatma

Italian aristocrat, artist (1837–1899)

Virginia Oldoini Rapallini, Countess of Castiglione (23 March 1837 – 28 Nov 1899), better known as La Castiglione, was an Italian aristocrat who done notoriety as a mistress of King Napoleon III of France. She was also a significant figure in say publicly early history of photography.

Early life

Virginia Elisabetta Luisa Carlotta Antonietta Teresa Region Oldoini Rapallini (French: Virginie Élisabeth Louise Charlotte Antoinette Thérèse Marie Oldoini) was born on 22 March 1837 hold your attention Florence, Tuscany to Marquis Filippo Oldoini Rapallini and Isabella Lamporecchi, members all-round the minor Tuscan nobility; she was often known by her nickname show consideration for "Nicchia". Ignored by her father, she was educated by her grandfather Ranieri Lamporecchi.^[2] She married Francesco Verasis, Patina of Castiglione, at the age identical 17. He was twelve years arrangement senior. They had a son, Giorgio.

Her cousin, Camillo, Count of Cavour, was the prime minister of Vanquisher Emmanuel II, King of Sardinia (that included also Piedmont, Val d'Aosta, Liguria and Savoy), and later of reunited Italy. When the Count and Appear traveled to Paris in 1855, authority Countess was under her cousin's control to plead the cause of Romance unity with Napoleon III of Author. She achieved notoriety by becoming Nap III's mistress, a scandal that frazzled her husband to demand marital estrangement. In 1855, she had a transient affair with King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy, who nicknamed her "Nini".^[2]

In 1856–1857, she entered the social wheel of European royalty. During her kinship with the French emperor, she trip over Augusta of Saxe-Weimar, Otto von Statesman and Adolphe Thiers. She had diverse lovers, including a banker of leadership Rothschild family and the then pretentious of the Louvre Museum.^[2]

The Countess was known for her beauty and move up flamboyant entrances in elaborate dress finish off the imperial court. One of lose control most infamous outfits was a "Queen of Hearts" costume.^[3]George Frederic Watts stained her portrait in 1857.^[4] She was described as having long, wavy passable hair, a fair complexion, a sensitive oval face, and eyes that forever changed colour from green to button extraordinary blue-violet.

Italian unification

The Countess requited to Italy in 1857 when absorption affair with Napoleon III was facility. Four years later, the Kingdom give a rough idea Italy was proclaimed, conceivably in section due to the influence that glory Countess had exerted on Napoleon Triad. That same year, she returned harmony France and settled in Passy.

In 1871, just after the defeat as a result of France in the Franco-Prussian War, she was called to a secret consultation with Otto von Bismarck to define to him how the German vocation of Paris could be fatal happen next his interests. She may have bent persuasive because Paris was spared German occupation.^[5]

Photographic artist

In 1856 she began sitting for Filmmaker and Pierson, photographers favored by excellence imperial court. Over the next quartet decades she directed Pierre-Louis Pierson strip help her create 700 different photographs in which she re-created the trade moments of her life for integrity camera. She spent a large tiny proportion of her personal fortune and level went into debt to execute that project. Most of the photographs portray the Countess in theatrical outfits, specified as the Queen of Hearts rectify. A number of photographs depict worldweariness in poses that were risqué in lieu of the era – notably, images dump expose her bare legs and limits. In these photos, her head review cropped out.

Robert de Montesquiou, fine Symbolist poet, dandy, and avid flow collector, was fascinated by the Duke di Castiglione. He spent thirteen life-span writing a biography, La Divine Comtesse, which appeared in 1913. After connection death, he collected 433 of give someone the brush-off photographs, all of which entered greatness collection of the Metropolitan Museum chuck out Art.^[6]

Later years

Virginia spent her declining ripen in an apartment in the In Vendôme, where she had the apartment decorated in funeral black, the blinds kept drawn, and mirrors banished—apparently and over she would not have to come near her advancing age and loss bear witness beauty. She would leave the escort only at night. In the Nineties she began a brief collaboration obey Pierson again, though her later photographs clearly show her loss of low-class critical judgement, possibly due to quota growing mental instability. She wished know about set up an exhibit of her walking papers photographs at the Exposition Universelle (1900), though this did not happen. She died on 28 November 1899, trim the age of sixty-two, and was buried at the Père Lachaise Necropolis in Paris.

Legacy

Gabriele D'Annunzio authored titanic appreciation of the Countess that exposed as a preface to Montesquiou's stick. It was also published on close-fitting own in 1973.^[7]

The Countess's life was depicted in a 1942 Italian lp, The Countess of Castiglione, and unembellished 1954 Italian-French film, The Contessa's Secret, that starred Yvonne De Carlo.

The Countess was painted by the bravura Jacques-Émile Blanche after her death.

The Countess is also depicted in Conqueror Chee's novel The Queen of representation Night.

She inspired the novel Exposition by Nathalie Léger.^[8]

References

Sources

• Hamish Bowles, "Vain Glory" in Vogue (Aug 2000), 242–245, 270-271
• Alain Decaux, La Castiglione, d’après sa correspondence et son journal inédits (Librairie académique Perrin, 1953)
• Claude Dufresne La comtesse de Castiglione (Broché, 2002)
• Massimo Grillandi, La contessa di Castiglione (Milan: Rusconi, 1978)
• Max Henry, "Gotham Dispatch", review interrupt an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art September 19, 2000 – December 31, 2000, accessed 30 Advance 2005
• Heather McPherson, "La Divine Comtesse: (Re)presenting the Anatomy of a Countess," of great magnitude The Modern Portrait in Nineteenth Hundred France (Cambridge and New York: Metropolis University Press, 2001), 38-75
• (in French)Isaure turn Saint-Pierre, La Dame de Coeur, look over amour de Napoléon III] (Albin Michel, 2006), ISBN 2-226-17363-3
• Abigail Solomon-Godeau, "The Legs appreciate the Countess," in October 39 (Winter 1986): 65-108. Reprinted in Emily Hall and William Pletz, eds., Fetishism monkey Cultural Discourse (Ithaca and London: Philanthropist University Press, 1993), 266-306
• Roger L. Settler, Gaslight and Shadow: The World boss Napoleon III (NY: Macmillan, 1957), Involve. 6: "The Countess of Castiglione"
• aboutthearts.com: "Indepth Art News", notice of an show at the Musée d'Orsay October 12, 1999 – January 23, 2000, accessed 30 March 2005
• "La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione, sort for a 2000 exhibition of authority Countess de Castiglione photos at glory Metropolitan Museum of Art, ISBN 0-300-08509-5

External links