Princess "Daisy" of Pless,
née Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West
(1873-1943)

as the Queen of Sheba

Along with Queen Marie of Romania, Daisy of Pless (who married the Silesian Prince Hans Heinrich XV in 1891) was considered one of the most beautiful royal women in Europe.

Her beauty was later to be immortalised on canvas by the celebrated portrait painters John Singer Sargent and Philip de László as well as at many photographic sessions at the fashionable London studios, including that of Lafayette, in a variety of fanciful poses emphasising her semi-sensuous conception of royalty as well as embodying Schlegel's maxim: "Look to the Orient for all that is romantic!"

In addition to her increasingly difficult life as an unassimilated Englishwoman in Germany in the years leading up to, and during, the First World War, the loss of her husband's estates to the new country of Poland after 1918 brought about an estrangement between the couple and the later years of her life ended in divorce, separation from her family, poverty, debilitating illness and a lonely death in Germany during the Second World War.

In the reclining portrait, Princess Daisy holds an enormous palm-leaf pankha and wears a dress of purple and gold shot gauze. The train is a mass of red, purple, green, blue and white jewels, thickly encrusting medallions of raised gold. The dress is also set with turquoise ovals with engraved hieroglyphics. Over this she wears a sash of cloth of gold also heavily bejewelled and a massive pearl and diamond sautoir. The costume is topped off with an Assyrian headdress studded with turquoises, emeralds and pearls, with jewels over either ear. The ensemble was described by the press as "a costume of the utmost magnificence."

Princess Daisy was considered the more beautiful of the two Queens of Sheba at the Ball with four black slaves carrying her train. Her outfit, one of many designed by Mrs Mason of London, "must have cost several hundred pounds" - according to one American newspaper, which also declared that "anything more beautiful than Princess Pless's dress has never been seen."

Other objects, creating an oriental ambience, can be seen in the photograph - such as the fur throw and a backdrop in a style of the Dutch classicist and orientalist painter, Alma Tadema who was active in England. Although the Devonshire House Ball had taken place on the night of the 2 July 1897, this photograph was made over six months later and was printed in the Album.

In the standing image from the same photographic session, Princess Daisy is seen with an ostrich feather fan. Very unusually for the Princess, her loosely fitting dress and stance fail to highlight her minute waist.

The extant four negatives show clearly how a sitter, even in a fancy dress, might go through a variety of poses and use various studio props in an effort to add some dynamism to a photographic study. As Princess Daisy was a well known performer on stage for society and charitable events, it might be surmised that she, and not the photographer, was directing the shoot.