The Countess de Castiglione and Pierre-Louis Pierson, Scherzo di Follia (Games of Madness), 1863-66, Albumen silver print, Private Collection.

"La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione. Exhibition Catalogue by Pierre Apraxine and Xavier Demange, with the collaboration of François Heilbrun and Michele Falzone Del Barbarò. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, in association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. ISBN 0-300-08509-5; $24.95.

Unfortunately, exhibitions of art by women are still few and far between. During the recent winter intercession, I sought out such exhibitions for my students to visit in conjunction with my Women in the Fine Arts course. Luckily this spring the Metropolitan is hosting the wonderful exhibition of the works of Artemisia Gentileschi and those of her father, Orazio. Last year when I taught this course, I sent many of my students to view the Metropolitan's "La Divine Comtesse": Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione, a marvelous, although small, exhibition of approximately one-hundred photographs in the museum's Howard Gilman Gallery.

If there ever really was a face that launched a thousand ships, hers was the one, at least during Second Empire Paris. Born Virginia Oldoini (1837-99) to an aristocratic Florentine family, she was married at the age of sixteen to Francesco Verasis, Count di Castiglione (1826-1867). Their only son, Giorgio, was born a year later. Upon their arrival in Paris at the end of 1855, the Countess had been sent to meet with Napoleon III to promote Italian unity and independence from Austria. She became notorious for her affair with the Emperor, which continued until 1857. The Countess was a wild, free-spirited woman who did whatever she pleased, and so her marriage to the Count was doomed; the Count demanded a divorce soon afterwards. Through her exquisite beauty and her relationship with the Emperor, she held quite a bit of political clout at mid-century. The Countess inspired numerous artists and writers, and although almost every man in Paris desired her, she did not find much favor with women, who were often jealous of her beauty and status. She became legendary, and in 1955 Warner Brothers released the film La Castiglione, with Yvonne de Carlo in the title role. Arguably the Countess was the model for cinematic vixens from the very beginning.

The exhibition at the Metropolitan was devoted to images of the Countess spanning almost forty-five years of her life. In 1856, the Countess visited the photographic studio of Mayer and Pierson and met Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822-1913), who would become her closest collaborator and, at the end of her life, one of her few true friends. Although the Countess was the model and Pierson the photographer, most of the photographs were actually taken under her direction. In the exhibition, the curators were careful not to diminish either person's artistic contribution, and yet certainly by today's standards there is no question that the Countess was truly the artist, and Pierson simply the technician. In the same way that sculptors crafted an object in clay or wax and then turned it over to a foundry for production in a more permanent media, the Countess brought her costumes, poses, and perfectly developed sense of self to Pierson's studio. Pierson seems no more the artist of the photographs than does Alexis Rudier of Rodin's sculptures. The collaboration of Castiglione and Pierson produced over four-hundred photographs from 1856 to 1898.

One cannot help but think of the Countess as the Cindy Sherman of the nineteenth century, and the comparison to Sherman and Claude Cahun has been noted in many reviews. And it should be; all of the same elements are present, such as the Countess's posing in the costumes inspired by contemporary operas (which seem equivalent to Sherman's film stills) and role-playing (the Countess as The Hermit of Passy and the Queen of Etruria remind one of many of Sherman's photographs from the 1980's and 90's). Many of the works were given titles by the Countess herself, and in many cases she personally hand-colored the photos. On many of the works, she wrote instructions for changes or elaborations on the source of the pose to Pierson (and to painters using the photographs to create related images). During the exhibition one might get the feeling, however, that her truly avant-garde ideas were being misattributed to Pierson. It must be remembered that she not only directed the poses, but used the still-nascent medium of photography to produce and promote images of herself in various guises, much like a contemporary artist might do today. (I cannot help but recall Robert Morris' untitled 1974 poster for The Voice, in which the artist is dressed up in sadomasochistic gear.) The Countess de Castiglione was the predecessor of not only Sherman, but also of Orlan, of Matthew Barney, and countless other contemporary artists considered cutting-edge for their more recent representations of self and beauty, and the use of distortion, performance and disguise. The Countess had done all of this over 150 years earlier.

The catalogue is better at advancing the Countess's personal contribution to the images. The text is beautifully illustrated and includes essays by the curators, although I prefer the title of the French edition La comtesse de Castiglione par elle-même (The Countess de Castiglione by Herself). The essays, although scholarly in every respect, are as readable as any novel of the period. Although some minor errors may exist within the text (for example the sculptor Marcello may or may not have used the Countess's visage for her sculpture of Bianca Capello, which Apraxine asserts on page 51 but which I could not confirm with the Fondation Marcello), overall the essays within are full of enlightening information about the Second Empire and its cast of characters. Do not skip over the footnotes; in some cases they are as intriguing as the text.

As in the greatest novels of the period, the heroine's beauty was fleeting. Sadly, Castiglione died alone, a little mad, devoted to her dog and to her illustrious past. The Countess's later pictures again remind us of recent work, such as the deeply emotional images by Hanna Wilke. Both artists created extraordinary final works, vanitas images par excellence. Although her greatness and powerful beauty were evidently lost, the Countess continued having herself photographed throughout the 1890's with Pierson at the tripod. Yet now she donned dower black garments, as if in mourning for her own youth. She continued, to the end, marking the images with her corrections and instructions for changes, adding papers to the images to make herself appear slimmer, and hand-painting the photographs. Rarely sold during her lifetime, the images were instead given to her friends in elaborately organized albums that she organized. These images were, unquestionably, her art works, regardless of who actually released the shutter. The catalogue is a fitting testament to one woman's quest for power through beauty, self-identity, and art.

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