Proust's Muse, The Countess Greffulhe at The Museum at FIT

"Proust’s Muse, The Countess Greffulhe features extraordinary fashions from the legendary wardrobe of Élisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, the Countess Greffulhe (1860–1952). A famous beauty celebrated for her “aristocratic and artistic elegance,” the countess was a fashion icon comparable to Daphne Guinness today."

 "The countess fascinated her contemporaries, including Marcel Proust who told her cousin, Robert de Montesquiou, "I have never seen a woman so beautiful." When Proust wrote his great novel In Search of Lost Time (À la recherche du temps perdu), the Countess Greffulhe was one of the primary inspirations for his immortal fictional character, Oriane, the Duchess de Guermantes, of whom he wrote, "Each of her dresses seemed like... the projection of a particular aspect of her soul."

from the FIT website

from the FIT website 2