Virginia Oldoini (1837-1899), was born into an aristocratic family from La Spezia, and nicknamed "Nicchia" within her family. At a young age she married Count Francesco Verasis di Castiglione and was widely considered to be the most beautiful woman of her day. The countess was sent to Paris in 1856 under the instruction of her cousin the minister Count Camillo Benso di Cavour, to gain French military help for Italy and plead the cause of Italian unification with Napoleon III. Her charm and beauty caused a sensation in the French court and the countess was soon the mistress of the French emperor. During her brief affair with Napoleon II the countess mixed in the highest echelons of European royalty and began to cultivate her reputation as a woman of mystery and 'divine beauty'. In 1856 she made her first visit to the photographic studio of Mayer & Pierson which led to several hundred portraits of the countess during a collaboration with Pierre-Louis Pierson that was to last until the 1890s. By 1857 the relationship with the emperor was over and the countess, separated from her husband, retreated to Italy. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed four years later and conceivably this was in part due to the influence that the countess had exerted on Napoleon III. In 1861 she returned to Paris and continued to build her image as a mysterious femme fatale, the photographic portraits of the time depict her in various imaginary visions from The Queen of Hearts as the personification of love, to The Queen of Etruria or a solemn white garbed nun. After the fall of the Second Empire in 1870 the countess led an increasingly reclusive life and her dreams of a retrospective exhibition of her photographic portraits were not to come to fruition. However her reputation was kept alive by Robert de Montesquiou who published her biography, La Divine Comtesse in 1913 and assembled a large collection of her portraits some of which were acquired by the Metropolitan Museum in 1975 and also by the 1955 French film, La Castiglione starring Yvonne de Carlo.

The pink topaz parure was left by the Countess Verasis di Castiglione to Countess Martini di Cigala, the niece of General Enrico Martini di Cigala, personal aide to King Emanuel II and thence by descent.

Exhibited: Palazzo Cavour, Turin, 2000, La Contessa di Castiglioni e il suo tempo