Countess Cowley

A carte-de-visite portrait of a sitter identified in the Silvy daybooks as 'Lady Cowley.'

Presumably the wife of Earl Cowley, the British ambassador to the Emperor of the French. Born Olivia Cecilia Fitzgerald in 1807, she was the daughter of Charlotte, Baroness of Ros. On 23 October 1833 she married Henry Richard Charles Wellesley, who succeeded his father as 2nd Baron Cowley in 1847 and was created Viscount Dangan and Earl Cowley on 4 April 1857. Lady Cowley died on 21 April 1885.

Photographed by Camille Silvy of London on 11 July 1861.