Saturday, December 5, 2015

La Divine Comtesse III

Pierre-Louis Pierson
La Marquise Mathilde
1861-66
Metropolitan Museum

This is the final group of 19th-century albumen-silver photographs made by Pierre-Louis Pierson whose camera was for many years committed to the service of Virginia Oldoini, Countess of Castiglione (1837-1899). She and her extraordinary wardrobe are the true subjects of all these pictures, but filtered through the representation of artfully selected characters from romance and history.

Pierre-Louis Pierson
La Reine d'Étrurie
1863-67
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Cauchoise
1860s
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Les épaules tombantes
1860s
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Livetta
1863-66
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Scherzo di Follia
1863-66
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Scherzo di Follia close-up
1863-66
Metropolitan Museum

During the 1870s and 1880s La Castiglione grew reclusive, we are told, and only ventured out swathed in veils after dark. Then  in the mid-1890s near the end of her life  she summoned the obliging Pierson again and they created a concluding sequence of representations.

Pierre-Louis Pierson
Rachel
1893
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
The Ermine Cape
1895
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
from Série des Roses
1895
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
from Série des Roses
1895
Metropolitan Museum

Pierre-Louis Pierson
from Série des Roses
1895
Metropolitan Museum