Countess of Castiglione and Costigliole

[veu]

We are fans of the wonderful Virginia Verasis Oldoini, the popular countess of Castiglione!

Virginia Oldoni, countess of Castiglione, called Nicchia by the friends, spent in few but intense years all the sense of her existence. From 1855 to 1858 she was the triumphant at the Tuileries, the queen of beauty and elegance, the lady ( for little time) of the heart and senses of the fickle emperor Napoleon III.  
 
They were the years when she fools herself to have a special role, contributing, with her beauty and her mind, to the creation of that Italy for which Vittorio Emanuele and Cavour tried to have the help of France. The high finance, the politic, the Court, all the great personages of the time had relationships with this queen of the hearts who, as D’annunzio wrote, “… took her beauty as an immortality”.  

She was a great woman, she was the most popular italian woman in 1800 and she was the beautiful woman of all time!!!!

[Marc]

[Eric_Lowe]

Nice portrait...However I once saw an etire book dedicated to the countress and the photos she took.

She looks like the ultimate Femme Fatale to me.

[amedeo]

[amedeo]

The castle of Costigliole, the castle of the family of Francesco Verasis Count of Castiglione and Costigliole (the husband of Virginia Oldoini).

[amedeo]

[amedeo]

The wonderful neogothic façade.

[amedeo]

[amedeo]

The green drawing room of the Countess of Castiglione.

[amedeo]

[amedeo]

The simplr bedroom of the Countess of Castiglione.

[crotalo]

She said:"When God was created me, he was for a moment absent minded and so the result". She commandeed a painter to portray her absolutely nude on a black satin toile. She loved too to have her feet portrayed. I have this feet pics. These are, however, more like greek classic statues, or like strong feet of Gauguin tahitians than like actual canons. Her nose was
...unique, absolutely perfect, long, but so straight that seems no natural.

       When she went to the Tuileries balls she caused sensation. Once she commanded to sew a red heart on her costume (it was a bal masqué) just in a delicate part of the anatomy. One lady said to her : "madame, you have put your heart too low"


    " To those ladies who criticise me, i say that, by birth
and name, I equal them, so by intelligence and culture.
And I depass all them by beauty"

[veu]

She was nicknamed "La Divine Comtesse" or simply "La Divine"!
She was also nicknamed "The Queen of Hearts"

[crotalo]

Veu. Don't you have a pic of her in profile, entire body?
this is a Nadar photo. It is with difference, the more spectacular pic i have ever seen. She wears "la mode spectrale".In the sixties of the XIXe c. the admiration of romantic look produced this passenger look: to appear like a ghost. she doesn't look human there, and VOGUE
didn't exist however!!Ove this, she shows an incredible
white highlight in her hair, i don't know if powdered or decolorated, for she ued not perruques. Her hair was also impressive, as Sissi's hair was.

 This book of photographs. How I would like to buy. Can you post here the name, the author etc.? I don't find it.  

[grandduchessella]

There are 2 pictures of her in Geoffrey Munn's great book Tiaras. Apparently after a really bad spat with her husband she went to a ball dressed as Vengeance I think it was. It was quite the costume.