Pierre-Louis Pierson. Comtesse de Castiglione 1860s

Pierre-Louis Pierson. Comtesse de Castiglione 1860s.

Born into the Italian aristocracy, the Countess of Castiglione experienced the hustle and bustle of imperial festivities and the splendor of the Tuileries court, where she was, for a few seasons, one of the most dazzling and boisterous meteors.
Halfway between the world of aristocracy and that of gallantry, she was both idolized and reviled, a socialite and a recluse, the object of all eyes and the secret photographer of her life.
Like in a fairy tale, Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione, arrived in Paris on Christmas Eve 1855, at just 18 years old.
She left behind the court of Turin and a rather conventional milieu for a cosmopolitan Paris, the capital of fashion and pleasure. On the instructions of her cousin Camillo Cavour, minister to the King of Piedmont, Victor Emmanuel, she was sent to plead the cause of Italian unity with Napoleon III, who was sensitive to the eloquence of feminine charms. Keeping in mind the letter Cavour had sent her: « Succeed, my cousin, by whatever means you please, but succeed, » she was ready to launch herself into the glittering whirlwind of the Second Empire.