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La Frayeur

Aquilin Schad Austrian
Person in Photograph Person in photograph Countess Virginia Oldoini Verasis di Castiglione
1861–64
Not on view
In 1856 Virginia Oldoini (1837-1899), Countess of Castiglione, was sent to France in order to persuade Emperor Napoleon III to champion the cause of Italian unification by any means necessary. The unrivaled beauty quickly became notorious not only as his mistress but also for her flamboyant self-presentation. Between 1856 and 1867, and then again toward the end of her life, she collaborated with the photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson to produce some 400 photographs, many of which were enlarged and painted according to her specific directions. Momentous scenes from her life (some merely imagined) were mixed with episodes drawn from the theater, opera, and literature in service of a carefully choreographed personal mythology that is a fixture of today’s selfie-saturated social media but that was unprecedented in the nineteenth century. In La Frayeur, she instructed the painter Schad to embellish her portrait in the guise of a fancifully dressed ball guest who flees a conflagration. The exact source of the scene remains unknown, but it provides the perfect setting for a precocious fashionista to envision herself as a mysterious femme fatale.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: La Frayeur
  • Artist: Pierre-Louis Pierson (French, 1822–1913)
  • Artist: Aquilin Schad (Austrian, 1817–1866)
  • Person in Photograph: Person in photograph Countess Virginia Oldoini Verasis di Castiglione (1835–1899)
  • Date: 1861–64
  • Medium: Salted paper print from glass negative with applied color
  • Dimensions: Image: 22 7/16 × 17 5/16 in. (57 × 44 cm)
    Mat: 29 1/2 × 23 5/16 in. (75 × 59.2 cm)
  • Classifications: Photographs, Paintings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, The Camille M. Lownds Fund, Joyce F. Menschel Gift, Louis V. Bell and 2012 Benefit Funds, and C. Jay Moorhead Foundation Gift, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.395
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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La Frayeur, Pierre-Louis Pierson French, Albumen silver print from glass negative
La Frayeur
Pierre-Louis Pierson
1860s
La Frayeur, Pierre-Louis Pierson French, Salted paper print from glass negative with applied color
La Frayeur
Multiple artists/makers
1861–67
La Frayeur, Pierre-Louis Pierson French, Salted paper print from glass negative with applied color
La Frayeur
Pierre-Louis Pierson
1861–67
Mathilde, Pierre-Louis Pierson French, Albumen silver print from glass negative
Mathilde
Pierre-Louis Pierson
1860s
La Chemise, Pierre-Louis Pierson French, Salted paper print from glass negative
La Chemise
Pierre-Louis Pierson
1860s

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