Née Margaret Sheila Chisholm, Australian born, first married Lord Loughborough whom she divorced in 1926. Married Sir John Milbanke (10th Baronet Milbanke) in 1928, in later life she married for the third time, the Russian Prince Dimtri, grandson of Tsar Alexander III.

References to classical and contemporary Surrealism pervade The Goddesses series of society beauties transformed into Green and Roman Goddesses, which Yevonde began in 1935. Whilst claiming in her autobiography, In Camera, that her inspiration for the series derived solely from the 18th century painters’ idea of depicting beauties as Greek Goddess, it would appear that the its immediate impetus came from the ‘‘Olympian Ball’’ held at Claridges hotel in London in March 1935.