Empress Elisabeth, Part IV

[Rani]

it takes a loooot of patience to do collage. i dont like to do it but they re nice to see them

A sad illustration of Elisabeth and her late son Rudolph

http://i41.tinypic.com/14no8dz.jpg

The dead man is Ferenc Deák. An Hungarian politician and friend of Elisabeth.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I always thought that the man was Rudolph but I heard that was other person, thanks for the info Rani. And glad you liked them Therry ;-)

[Carolath Habsburg]

Thanks for the info, Rani! i always thought it was Rudolph

Here an illustration about rudolphs death

[timfromengland]

  We read that Sissy  went on long walks, and her entourage could hardly keep up with her.
 She rode at hunts all day and exhausted many of her male companions.
It seems she was obsessed with keeping her figure and keeping slim.
( a little like  Lady Di )

Corsets were a quick way to get slim and  Sissy seems to have been a devotee of the corset...
Perhaps back then it was a relatively new aid to female beauty..... and new
corsets ( whalebone ? )  were appearing in the shops every week !



This subject obviously needs a lot of research !

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I've never seen before that verssion of Rudolph's death, thank very much for posting it!
Yes, Sissi was obsessed at doing a lot of excercise for keeping herself slender and also making a diet of starving. She wasn't the only one who was devotee of corsets (a common underwear on the victorian age) but was one of the ladies of her time with the tiniest waists with only 50 cetimeters, that she could keep all her life

[Carolath Habsburg]

A nice portrait of Elisabeth

[timfromengland]

Eliz of  Austria
24 December 1837 – 10 September 1898

Princess Alexandra
 December 1844 – 20 November 1925

Elizabeth was just 7 years older than Alexandra....
so they could easily have been sisters.
 I think they were the two outstanding
Royal beauties of the time..... both endlessly painted in oils
Both enthusiastically cheered by crowds whenever they appeared in public.
 No doubt Elizabeth.. like  Alexandra was endlessly depicted   in magazine illustrations...
in the  70s  80s and  90s .....often  copperplate engraving of a drawing or  cartoon.
Basically  both women  lived through the second half of the 19th century.

They were exciting times  with all kinds of new  inventions and novelties
including the bicycle craze of the  1880s ...
(though I ve yet to see a print of either Eliz or Alix pedalling along the country lanes !)



.

[Clelia]

A bronze cast of Sisi's left hand.
It belonged to Marie Valerie, who gave it as a present to her cousin Louise d'Orleans, princess Alfons of Bavaria, after Elisabeth's death.
It was auctioned few years ago.

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I didn't know anything about it. I have a pair of questions: When was it made? And Who made it?

[Éole]

A bronze cast of Sisi's left hand.
It belonged to Marie Valerie, who gave it as a present to her cousin Louise d'Orleans, princess Alfons of Bavaria, after Elisabeth's death.

What an odd present!

[Cambria_Coheed]

it most definately is odd! i've heard about bronze masks or sculptures of the head...but this is the first hand ive seen!

[Yelena Aleksandrovna]

I agree totally with you that its a really odd present for someone :-S Really not common

[timfromengland]

I  think that it is a wonderful artifact and memento... obviously carried
out by a highly  skilled craftsman.
.
 Sissy was worshiped and venerated in her lifetime right across Europe...
 her picture forever  in the  papers and the  weekly magazines...
she   was a superstar.

  Imagine  if  Diana  had  sat for a similar cast.... or a  live mask ...
such items would be worth a king's ransome today.

[aor]

Not odd....Victorian.....
Queen Victoria had a cast of the arm of Edward VII (as a baby) made.

[Carolath Habsburg]

I think this is made by Koppay