The cryptic Surrealist paintings of the mid-twentieth-century Belgian artist Paul Delvaux—a flock of young women in pale turn-of-the century gowns walking away from the viewer—together with portraits of Marie Antoinette when she was a young Austrian princess; stills from the opulent 1938 MGM blockbuster that cast Norma Shearer as the grown-up version of the ill-fated French queen; and Deborah Turbeville’s mysterious photographs were among the poetic inspirations for the exquisite couture collection created by Valentino’s gifted designers Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli.