Diana (1910-2003) was one of the celebrated Mitford girls (sister Nancy was a writer; sister Deborah became the Duchess of Devonshire; sister Jessica moved to the USA and championed the civil rights movement; sister Unity was an admirer of Hitler). She married Bryan Guinness, Lord Moyne, in 1929; the marriage was short lived as she eloped with Oswald Mosley, British political leader and founder of the British Union of Fascists.

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.

Madame Yevonde Be Original or Die, The British Council 1998