The Countess of Westmoreland as Hebe

On 2 July 1897 the Duchess of Devonshire (1832-1911) held a ball for the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Victoria. Two hundred of the guests were photographed in the grounds of Devonshire House, a huge mansion located off Piccadilly by the photographer, James Lauder of Lafayette Co, and his assistants. They set up a tent in the gardens and brought a variety of backdrops and props from the studio.

The theme of the party was court life and guests had been instructed to dress around this theme either mythological or temporal. Some guests dressed around subjects in paintings. The photographs were published in 1899.

Sybil Fane, Countess of Westmoreland (1871-1910), was a renowned beauty dressed as Hebe, goddess of youth, carrying a gold cup in her hand, with an enormous stuffed eagle strapped to her shoulders, in imitation of a painting by Joshua Reynolds. 'She wore perhaps the most poetic dress of the evening as Hebe, which showed faint hues of pink, blue, and silver, and was gracefully draped to the figure and finished by an enormous eagle on the shoulder, with wings spread out behind the fair, young face,’ wrote the Pall Mall Gazette, 3rd July 1897.