







Edith playing Elizabeth I (with a little help from Cecil Beaton) at a pageant in July 1932. ‘I was no longer myself in any feature, but entirely the Queen,’ she wrote in her diary. (Edith Olivier Archive)

Rex Whistler and Edith Olivier on the stone terrace of the Villa Natalia in San Remo, 1925. Edith is hiding her newly bingled hair under her hat. (Edith Olivier Archive)

Rex Whistler painted this panel in the Long Room when Edith Olivier had gone upstairs to dress for her ‘one and only party’ in September 1933.

Edith Olivier in 1897, at the age of twenty-four, dancing along the path at the back of Wilton Rectory. The shadowy figure dancing with her is probably one of her brothers. (Edith Olivier Archive)

A note with a drawing of Edith Olivier sent by Stephen Tennant to Cecil Beaton some time after her death. (Sotheby's)