KOO, MADAME

Neg. No: (GP) L 8712

Neg. Size: 15"x12"

Neg. Date: 07-07-1921

Sitter: Madame Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo, née Oei Hui-Lan (1899-1992).

Madame Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo, née Oei Hui-Lan (1899-1992), the wife of the Chinese Minster to London is photographed here in connection with her attendance at a State Ball at Buckingham Palace on 7 July 1921.

The highly elegant and poised twenty-two year old Madame Koo, wife of the Chinese Minister in London, is seen here in a pose from a series of four extant negatives of her and her husband.

Born in Java to an overseas Chinese sugar baron, Oei Tiong-ham, Madame Koo claimed that, when she was little more than a baby, her mother hung an 80-carat diamond around her neck. Although she had no formal schooling, Madame Koo was reported to be an accomplished linguist, a fine musician and “very well known in London Society” and “is probably one of the best-dressed ladies in London — that is when she follows the western mode.”

She was also a collector of fine Chinese jade and in her later years, according to her autobiography, was considered “the most beautiful and bejewelled woman in the world.”

Dressed for the State Ball held at Buckingham Palace, Madame Koo wears a gown of cream brocaded velvet, with a narrow train edged with trails of flame-coloured tulle. Her closely fitting draped corsage of gold tissue is ornamented with diamanté trimming. The fur wrap upon which her left hand rests would have been discarded before entering the Court as regulations permitted no cloaks, shawls, capes or wraps of any kind. She wears a very fashionable diamonte bandeau and two ropes of pearls, and carries a dyed (probably green) ostrich feather waterfall fan.

Two weeks after this photographic session, a seated pose from the series was reproduced as the front page of The Queen, an illustrated newspaper of the time. A standing pose, which Madame Koo commissioned to be recreated as a portrait in oils, compares very favourably with a much less flattering image by the rival firm of Bassano which was published in The Lady at the end of August 1921. Over the next two decades Madame Koo was also photographed by the greatest photographers of the day including Bertram Park, Horst P. Horst, H. Walter Barnett and E.O. Hoppé.

There was also a hint in the press of some rivaly between another Chinese diplomat’s wife, Mrs Sze [cousin of Madame Koo], who wears “the costume of her native land” and Madame Koo who “wears Paris gowns, hats and wraps of the latest mode.”

Madame Vi Kyuin Wellington Koo, née Oei Hui-Lan (1899-1992), the wife of the Chinese Minster to London is photographed here in connection with her attendance at a State Ball at Buckingham Palace on 7 July 1921.

The highly elegant and poised twenty-two year old Madame Koo, wife of the Chinese Minister in London, is seen here in a pose from a series of four extant negatives of her and her husband.

Born in Java to an overseas Chinese sugar baron, Oei Tiong-ham, Madame Koo claimed that, when she was little more than a baby, her mother hung an 80-carat diamond around her neck. Although she had no formal schooling, Madame Koo was reported to be an accomplished linguist, a fine musician and “very well known in London Society” and “is probably one of the best-dressed ladies in London — that is when she follows the western mode.”

She was also a collector of fine Chinese jade and in her later years, according to her autobiography, was considered “the most beautiful and bejewelled woman in the world.”

Dressed for the State Ball held at Buckingham Palace, Madame Koo wears a gown of cream brocaded velvet, with a narrow train edged with trails of flame-coloured tulle. Her closely fitting draped corsage of gold tissue is ornamented with diamanté trimming. The fur wrap upon which her left hand rests would have been discarded before entering the Court as regulations permitted no cloaks, shawls, capes or wraps of any kind. She wears a very fashionable diamonte bandeau and two ropes of pearls, and carries a dyed (probably green) ostrich feather waterfall fan.

Two weeks after this photographic session, a seated pose from the series was reproduced as the front page of The Queen, an illustrated newspaper of the time. A standing pose, which Madame Koo commissioned to be recreated as a portrait in oils, compares very favourably with a much less flattering image by the rival firm of Bassano which was published in The Lady at the end of August 1921. Over the next two decades Madame Koo was also photographed by the greatest photographers of the day including Bertram Park, Horst P. Horst, H. Walter Barnett and E.O. Hoppé.

There was also a hint in the press of some rivaly between another Chinese diplomat’s wife, Mrs Sze [cousin of Madame Koo], who wears “the costume of her native land” and Madame Koo who “wears Paris gowns, hats and wraps of the latest mode.”

Image published in Cool, published by The Fan Museum, Greenwich

References:

Biog: Madame Wellington Koo with Isabella Taves, No Feast Lasts Forever, Quadrangle, New York, 1975

Occasion: The Times, 8 July 1921, p 14a.

Costume: The Times, 8 July 1921, p 14e; The Queen, 20 August 1921, front page.

Costume Designer: -

Costume Supplier: -

Jewellery: -

Reproduced: The Queen, 20 August 1921, front page.

Additional Information: -

Acknowledgements: Freddy Tan