2-888-430 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Viscountess Palmerston's Assembly - The Saloon, 1850. London gathering hosted by the wife of Lord Palmerston, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. 'Amongst the varied attractions of the fashionable season in London, the Viscountess Palmerston's Saturday evening assemblies are acknowledged to stand unrivalled...The festivities of the evening commenced as usual with a banquet...the guests were more numerous than usual, and the brilliancy of the assembly much heightened by the varied costumes of many members of the House of Commons...nearly the whole of the corps diplomatique resident at the Court of St. James's, and nearly 300 members of the fashionable world. The Duke of Wellington came from the Speaker's levee attired in the uniform of a field-marshal, and remained the guest of the noble Viscount and Viscountess nearly two hours'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.