The Eye of Countess of Castiglione, 1837

Virginia Oldoini, the Countess of Castiglione, was born in 1837 into an aristocratic Italian family and became one of the most enigmatic figures of 19th-century Europe. She was married at a young age to Count Francesco Verasis di Castiglione, but it was in Paris that she cemented her legacy, not as a wife but as a courtesan, political player, and later, an artist of self-representation. Sent by her cousin, Camillo Cavour, to the court of Napoleon III, she was tasked with using her beauty and charm to influence the emperor in favor of Italian unification. She quickly became his mistress, captivating the Parisian elite with her ethereal looks, extravagant fashion, and an almost theatrical sense of self-presentation.

Her love affair with Napoleon III ended, but her fascination with her own image did not. She became obsessed with photography, collaborating with Pierre-Louis Pierson for decades, staging elaborate portraits that blurred the line between vanity and artistic vision. These images, often surreal and symbolic, depicted her as mythical heroines, queens, and even as a fragmented, disembodied presence—most notably in L’Œil de la Comtesse, where only her eye, gazing from a piece of jewelry, remains. As her youth faded, so did her public life. She withdrew into near-total seclusion, surrounding herself with mirrors that she later ordered removed so she wouldn’t have to face the passage of time.

By the time of her death in 1899, she was more legend than woman, a figure spoken of in hushed tones, remembered as both a scandalous beauty and a woman ahead of her time. Her photographs remain, a haunting testament to her obsession with image and identity, prefiguring the way modern figures craft and control their public personas. The Countess of Castiglione understood something few of her time did: beauty fades, but a carefully constructed vision of oneself can outlast even the most powerful of empires.