Violet Trefusis

Violet Keppel was the daughter of Alice Keppel, who was the favourite mistress of King Edward VII from 1898 until his death; she grew up in London society. At the age of ten she met Vita Sackville-West, two years her senior. At 14 she confessed her love to Vita and gave her a ring.

In 1918 the two women renewed and intensified their relationship, although Vita was by then married to the diplomat Harold Nicolson and had two sons. Under pressure from her mother, Violet married the officer Denys Trefusis in 1919, on condition that the marriage remain unconsummated. Soon afterwards she and Vita fled together to France; their husbands flew after them and brought them back. The affair ended around 1921. Both women wrote novels about it – Vita “Challenge”, Violet the French roman à clef “Broderie anglaise” – and Virginia Woolf immortalised Violet as the Russian princess Sasha in “Orlando” (1928).

Violet Trefusis lived from the 1920s mainly in France. For many years she was the lover of the American heiress and patron Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac. She wrote novels in English and French, and during the Second World War she took part in the broadcasts of Free France from London, for which she was later awarded the Legion of Honour.

From 1947 she lived in the Villa L’Ombrellino above Florence, which her mother had bought. She died there in 1972, aged 77.