title: La Divine Comtesse: Photographs of the Countess de Castiglione (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)
author: Mr. Pierre Apraxine et al.
description: Symbol of the Second Empire, that dazzling and artificial epoch, the mysterious Countess de Castiglione dedicated her life to a cult of personal beauty and made sensational appearances at various stages of her life, great moments that she recreated for the camera. These photographs contributed to her legend during her lifetime and were prized by collectors after her death. This book presents an extraordinary collection of the most remarkable of these photographs.The portraits, which number around 400 and are now scattered in public and private collections around the world, are here itemized and analyzed for the first time. The authors take great care to place them in their social and cultural context.This unique book is the catalogue for an exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from 18 September to 31 December 2000.
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  The Sweetheart Of M. Briseux
  
  
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  # The Sweetheart Of M. Briseux
  
  
  ### By Henry James
  
  
  This page copyright © 2003 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com  
    
  
      
  
  Etext by Ian Hillman
  
  
  
  
  
  THE LITTLE PICTURE gallery at M——is a typical musee de province
  
  
  ——cold, musty, unvisited, and enriched chiefly with miniature works by
  
  
  painters whose maturity was not to be powerful. The floors are tiled in
  
  
  brick, and the windows draped in faded moreen; the very light seems
  
  
  pale and neutral, as if the dismal lack-lustre atmosphere of the
  
  
  pictures were contagious. The subjects represented are of course of the
  
  
  familiar academic sort——the Wisdom of Solomon and the Fureurs
  
  
  d'Oreste; together with a few elegant landscapes exhibiting the last
  
  
  century view of nature, and half a dozen neat portraits of French
  
  
  gentlefolks of that period, in the act, as one may say, of taking the
  
  
  