A Surrealist sixty years before the movement, the The Countess de Castiglione was considered the most beautiful woman of the Second Empire, mistress to Napoleon III and a constant fixture of society portrait photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson’s work. The Countess was enraptured by her own beauty, taking great delight in being photographed by Pierson, and often having parts of her body photographed in an isolated, disembodied manner. In one of her most well-known photographs, Scherzo di Follia, the Countess holds an empty picture frame to her eye with a commanding gaze. In the May 1, 1951 issue of Vogue, photographer Richard Rutledge payed homage to the Countess with his image of model Carmen Dell’Orefice peering through a similar, oval-shaped picture frame.