The Celebrity Monarch: Empress Elisabeth and the Modern Female Portrait

By Olivia Gruber Florek

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898), wife of Habsburg Emperor Francis Joseph I, was celebrated as the most beautiful woman in Europe. Glamorous painted portraits by Franz Xaver Winterhalter and widely collected photographs spread news of her beauty, and the twentieth-century German-language film trilogy Sissi (1955-57) cemented this legacy. Despite the enduring fascination with the empress, art historians have never considered Elisabeth’s role in producing her public portraiture or the influence of her creation. The Celebrity Monarch reveals how portraits of Elisabeth transformed monarchs from divinely appointed sovereigns to public personalities whose daily lives were consumed by spectators. With resources ranging from the paintings of Gustav Klimt and Elisabeth’s private collection of celebrity photography to twenty-first century collages and films by T. J. Wilcox, this book positions Elisabeth herself as the primary engineer of her public image and argues for the widespread influence of her construction on both modern art and the emerging phenomenon of celebrity.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Delaware Press
• Release date: Nov 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781644532874

Book preview

THE CELEBRITY MONARCH

PERFORMING CELEBRITY

SERIES EDITOR

Laura Engel, Duquesne University

SERIES ADVISORY BOARD

Steph Burt, Harvard University

Elaine McGirr, University of Bristol

Judith Pascoe, Florida State University

Joseph Roach, Yale University

Emily Rutter, Ball State University

David Francis Taylor, University of Warwick

Mary Trull, St. Olaf College

TITLES

Olivia Gruber Florek

The Celebrity Monarch: Empress Elisabeth and the Modern Female Portrait

Nora Nachumi and Kristina Straub, eds.

Making Stars: Biography and Celebrity in Eighteenth-Century Britain

Heather Ladd and Leslie Ritchie, eds.

English Theatrical Anecdotes, 1660–1800

Chelsea Phillips · Carrying All Before Her:

Celebrity Pregnancy and the London Stage, 1689–1800

Emily Ruth Rutter · Black Celebrity:

Contemporary Representations of Postbellum Athletes and Artists

Anaïs Pédron and Clare Siviter, eds.

Celebrity Across the Channel, 1750–1850

THE CELEBRITY MONARCH

EMPRESS ELISABETH AND THE MODERN FEMALE PORTRAIT

OLIVIA GRUBER FLOREK

NEWARK, DELAWARE

ISBN 978-1-64453-286-7 (cloth)

ISBN 978-1-64453-285-0 (paper)

ISBN 978-1-64453-287-4 (epub)

ISBN 978-1-64453-298-8 (web PDF)

Cataloging-in-Publication data is available from the Library of Congress.

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2023 by Olivia Gruber Florek

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. Please contact University of Delaware Press, 200a Morris Library, 181 S. College Ave., Newark, DE 19717. The only exception to this prohibition is fair use as defined by U.S. copyright law.

References to internet websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the authors nor University of Delaware Press are responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscripts were prepared.

The paper used in this publication meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.

Composed in Schneidler Oldstyle (designed by F. H. Ernst Schneidler, 1936) Book design by Robert L. Wiser, Silver Spring, MD

udpress.udel.edu

Distributed worldwide by Rutgers University Press

Manufactured in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1: STAGING THE STATE PORTRAIT

CHAPTER 2: STYLING AUTHENTICITY: THE BOUNDLESS HAIR OF THE CELEBRITY MONARCH

CHAPTER 3: THE IMAGINARY EMPRESS: PHOTOMONTAGE AND THE SIMULATION OF INTIMACY

CHAPTER 4: ELISABETH AND THE MODERNIST IMAGINATION OF ANTON ROMAKO

CHAPTER 5: SISSI IN NEW YORK: T. J. WILCOX AND ELISABETH’S DESCENDANTS IN THE UNITED STATES

ENDNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIGURE 0.1. Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, c. 1862–64 (cover). Cologne, Museum Ludwig, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0786/01–96. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 0.2. Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, c. 1862 (cover). Cologne, Museum Ludwig, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/01–17. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 0.3. Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, c. 1862 (cover). Cologne, Museum Ludwig, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/001–200. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 0.4. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Emperor Francis Joseph I of Austria, 1864–65, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 0.5. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1864–65, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 0.6. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria with Unbound Hair, 1864–65, oil on canvas, Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 0.7. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Elisabeth of Austria with Interlacing Hair, 1864–65, oil on canvas. Private Collection.

FIGURE 0.8. Anton Romako, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1883, oil on panel. © Belvedere, Wien.

FIGURE 0.9. T. J. Wilcox, Tragedy (Sissi at the Sala Terrena), 2007, archival inkjet print on watercolor paper with watercolor and collage, 79-1/2 × 59-1/2 in. (202 × 151 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

FIGURE 1.1. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by Her Ladies-in-Waiting, 1855, oil on canvas. Musée National du Château de Compiègne. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 1.2. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Eugénie, 1854, oil on canvas. The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Museum purchase funded by the Agnes Cullen Arnold Endowment Fund, 2010.19.

FIGURE 1.3. Attributed to Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Queen Maria Sophia of Naples, c. 1860, oil on canvas. Private Collection. Photo courtesy of Sotheby’s New York.

FIGURE 1.4. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Adelina Patti, 1863, oil on canvas. Private Collection, United Kingdom.

FIGURE 1.5. After Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Emperor Napoléon III, 1855, oil on canvas. Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 1.6. After Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Empress Eugénie, 1855, oil on canvas. Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 1.7. Carle Van Loo, Portrait of Marie Leszczinska, 1747, oil on canvas. Versailles: Musée du Château. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 1.8. Leopold Fertbauer, Portrait of the Imperial Family around the Duke of Reichstadt, 1826, oil on canvas. © Wien Museum/Photo: Birgit and Peter Kainz.

FIGURE 1.9. Friedrich von Amerling, Emperor Franz I in His Coronation Robes, 1832, oil on canvas. Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, Picture Gallery. © KHM-Museumsverband.

FIGURE 1.10. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Queen Victoria, 1843, oil on canvas. Royal Collection Trust/© Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

FIGURE 1.11. Page 1 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Miethke & Wawra, Reproduction of Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s Empress Eugénie with Her Ladies-in-Waiting (1855), c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/01, and unknown photographer, Reproduction of Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s Florinda (1853), c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/02. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.12. Page 7 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Alexandre Ken, Armande, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/13, and Ulric Grob, Henriette Zou-Zou [?], c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/14. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.13. Page 24 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including (clockwise from upper left) Karl Mahlknecht, Auguste Wilbrandt-Baudius, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/093; Karl Mahlknecht, Helene Weinberger, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/094; Karl Mahlknecht, Helene Weinberger, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/095; Ludwig Angerer, Anna Kratz, 1860, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/096. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.14. Page 25 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including (clockwise from upper left) Moritz Ludwig Winter, Friederike Bognár, 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/097; André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Nelly, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/098; Fratelli D’Alessandri, Queen Maria Sophia of Naples, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/099; Fratelli D’Alessandri, Queen Maria Sophia of Naples, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0771/100. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.15. Page 8 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Ulric Grob, Olympe Morin, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/15, and Ulric Grob, Unknown person (labeled Lauters), c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/16. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.16. Page 4 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Ulric Grob, The Singer Marie Garnier, Paris, 1858, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/07, and Radoult, Vaury & Cie., Nathalie, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0787/08. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 1.17. George Romney, Lady Hamilton, 1791, oil on canvas. Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, Bequest of Jack G. Taylor, 1991.

FIGURE 1.18. Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Queen Caroline Murat, 1814, oil on canvas. Private collection.

FIGURE 1.19. Édouard Manet, Olympia, 1863, oil on canvas. Paris, Musée d’Orsay, Paris. © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 1.20. Emil Rabending, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1866, cabinet card. ANL/Vienna, Pf 6639 E 59/3.

FIGURE 1.21. Emil Rabending, Elisabeth in Hungarian Coronation Robes, 1866, cabinet card. ANL/Vienna, Pf 6639 E 45/1.

FIGURE 1.22. Hermann Klee, Charlotte Wolter as "Eglantine," carte de visite, Theatermuseum, Vienna. © KHM-Museumsverband.

FIGURE 1.23. Emil Rabending, Charlotte Wolter as "Donna Diana," 1866, cabinet card, Theatermuseum, Vienna. © KHM-Museumsverband.

FIGURE 1.24. Josef Matthäus Aigner, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, oil on canvas, originally displayed in the Künstlerhaus. © Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur- und Betriebsges.m.b.H. Photo: Alexander Eugen Koller.

FIGURE 1.25. Anonymous, Group Picture Tableau with Eight Luminaries of the Viennese State Theater, 1868, lithograph. ANL/Vienna, PORT_00067707_01.

FIGURE 2.1. Unknown lithographer, The Emperor Receives Elisabeth’s Lady-in-Waiting, Irma Countess Sztáray, in Whose Arms the Empress Died, 1898. ANL/Vienna, 261658-B.

FIGURE 2.2. Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Madame Rimsky-Korsakov, 1864, oil on canvas. Musée d’Orsay, Paris, on permanent loan from the Louvre. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.3. Page 12 from Album No. 132 of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Serge Levitsky, Madame Timascheff, c. 1860–65, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0782/034; Serge Levitsky, Lucie Karlovna Naryshkina, c. 1860–65, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0782/035; unknown photographer, Barbara Dmitrievna Rimksy-Korsakov, c. 1860–65, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0782/036. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 2.4. Robert Williams, after Sir Godfrey Kneller, Thomas Betterton, mezzotint, c. 1680–1704 (1690s). © National Portrait Gallery, London.

FIGURE 2.5. John Ogborne, after George Romney, Mrs. Jordan in the Character of the Country Girl, stipple engraving, published June 24, 1788. © National Portrait Gallery, London.

FIGURE 2.6. Page 21 from Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including (clockwise from upper left) Karl Mahlknecht, Charlotte Wolter, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0786/081; Emil Rabending, Charlotte Wolter as Adrienne Lecouvreur, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0786/082; Miethke & Wawra, Caroline von Gomperz-Bettelheim, c. 1862, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0786/083; Miethke & Wawra, Caroline von Gomperz-Bettelheim, c. 1862 inv. no. ML/F/SL 0786/084. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 2.7. Nicolas Colombel, Portrait of Agnès Berthelot de Pléneuf long designated as Adrienne Lecouvreur, c. 1725, oil on canvas. Inventory number 861.1.156, Charles Picot’s previous collection. © Musées de Châlons-en-Champagne, photo Hervé Maillot.

FIGURE 2.8. Félix Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt, 1864, carte de visite. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France. © BnF, Dist. RMF-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.9. Félix Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt, 1864, salt paper print. © RMF-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.10. Félix Nadar, Sarah Bernhardt, 1864, carte de visite. Photo: HIP/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.11. Aleksander Augustynowicz, Salon Patocki with Hans Makart’s Portrait of Klementina Potocka, 1883, watercolor. Museum-Castle in Łańcut, photo by M. Szczewczuk and M. Kosior.

FIGURE 2.12. Atelier Adèle, Baroness Mary Vetsera, 1886, photograph. © Wien Museum.

FIGURE 2.13. Georges Clairin, Sarah Bernhardt, 1876, oil on canvas. Paris, Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris. © RMF-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.14. Gustav Klimt, Fish Blood, 1898. Private collection, courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York.

FIGURE 2.15. Gustav Klimt, Water Snakes II, 1904–7, oil on canvas. Private Collection.

FIGURE 2.16. Gustav Klimt, Nymphs (Silverfish), 1899, oil on canvas. Zentralsparkasse der Gemeinde Wien. Photo: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 2.17. Gustav Klimt, Judith II (Salome), 1909, oil on canvas. Musei Civici Veneziani, Venice. Photo: Cameraphoto Arte, Venice/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 3.1. Ludwig Angerer, Emperor Francis Joseph with Archduchess Gisela and Crown Prince Rudolf, c. 1861, carte de visite. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 335.

FIGURE 3.2. Ludwig Angerer, The Imperial Family, 1860, carte de visite. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 332c.

FIGURE 3.3. Anonymous, The Imperial Family, 1861, photomontage. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 337.

FIGURE 3.4. Ludwig Angerer, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, 1860, carte de visite. ANL/Vienna, 6639 E 27a/2.

FIGURE 3.5. Emil Rabending, Arthur Schnitzler and His Parents, 1862, carte de visite. ANL/Vienna, AS 69 C.

FIGURE 3.6. Anonymous, The Imperial Family, c. 1863, photomontage. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 344.

FIGURE 3.7. Friedrich von Amerling, Rudolf von Arthaber and His Children Rudolf, Emilie, and Gustav, 1837, oil on canvas. © Belvedere, Wien.

FIGURE 3.8. Anonymous, Elisabeth in Venice, 1862, photomontage. ANL/Vienna, Pf 6639 E 35/2.

FIGURE 3.9. Emil von Hartitzsch, Elisabeth and Francis Joseph in Schönbrunn, 1868, photomontage. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 317.

FIGURE 3.10. Anonymous, Elisabeth and Francis Joseph, c. 1863, photomontage. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 314.

FIGURE 3.11. Page 31 from Album No. 134 of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, including Ludwig Angerer, Eleonore von Liechtenstein, c. 1860, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0784/010; André Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, Pauline von Metternich and Richard Klemens von Metternich, c. 1860–65, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0784/011; Ludwig Angerer, Ida Maria von Liechtenstein, c. 1860–65, inv. no. ML/F/SL 0784/012. Cologne, Museum Ludwig. Photo: © Rheinisches Bildarchiv Köln.

FIGURE 3.12. Johann Knižek, Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, with His Family, 1876, cabinet card. ANL/Vienna, Pf 19000 E 350.

FIGURE 4.1. Anton Romako, Portrait of Empress Elisabeth, 1881. Private collection, courtesy Kallir Research Institute, New York.

FIGURE 4.2. Anton Romako, Elisabeth von Nast-Kolb, 1874, oil on panel. © Belvedere, Wien.

FIGURE 4.3. Anton Romako, Isabella Reisser, 1885, oil on canvas. Leopold Museum, Vienna. Photo Credit: HIP/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 4.4. Anonymous, Der Besuch der Kaiserin in der Irrenanstalt in Das interessante Blatt 5, nr. 45 (November 11, 1886), wood engraving, 1886. Österreichische Nationalbibliothek/ANNO.

FIGURE 4.5. Oskar Kokoschka, Adolf Loos, 1909, oil on canvas. Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. © 2021 Fondation Oskar Kokoschka/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ProLitteris, Zürich. Photo: bpk Bildagentur/Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin/Roman März/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 4.6. Paul-Marie-Léon Regnard, Onset of the Attack: The Cry, photogravure from Iconographie photographique de la Salpêtrière, vol. II, 1878. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

FIGURE 4.7. Gustav Klimt, Fritza Riedler, 1906, oil on canvas. © Belvedere, Wien.

FIGURE 4.8. Gustav Klimt, Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907, oil, silver, and gold leaf on canvas. Acquired through the generosity of Ronald S. Lauder, the heirs of the Estates of Ferdinand and Adele Bloch-Bauer, and the Estée Lauder Fund, Neue Galerie, New York City. Photo: Neue Galerie New York/Art Resource, NY.

FIGURE 5.1. Installation view with The Jerry Hall Story from A Fair Tale (Extended Mix) (left), and Rapture (Jerry in Profile II) and Rapture (Jerry, Cherries in the Snow) (at right, top and bottom), from T. J. Wilcox, Metro Pictures, September 7–October 13, 2007, New York City. Courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.

FIGURE 5.2. Gallery Plan, from T. J. Wilcox, Metro Pictures, September 7–October 13, 2007, New York City. Courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York.

FIGURE 5.3. T. J. Wilcox, Tragedy (Sissi at the Spanish Riding School II), 2007. Archival inkjet print on watercolor paper with watercolor and collage, 60 × 94-1/4 in. (152.4 × 239.4 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

FIGURE 5.4. T. J. Wilcox, Tragedy (Sissi at the Great Gallery), 2007. Archival inkjet print on watercolor paper with watercolor and collage, 68 × 60-3/4 in. (172.7 × 154.3 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

FIGURE 5.5. T. J. Wilcox, Apparition (Indian Dancer III), 2007. Archival inkjet print on watercolor paper with watercolor and collage, 102 × 65 in. (259 × 165 cm). Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery, New York and Brussels.

FIGURE 5.6. Sissi, 1955, poster. © Archives du 7e Art-Erma-Film/Photo12/agefotostock.

FIGURE 5.7. Ron Galella, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at the Costume Institute Gala Presents "Fashions of the Hapsburg Era," 1979, photograph. Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

MANY INDIVIDUALS and institutions have supported the research and writing of this book. It began as my doctoral dissertation at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and my gratitude goes to Susan Sidlauskas for the wide-ranging vision she helped me cast for this research from its earliest days. I am thankful for Performing Celebrity series editor Laura Engel’s enthusiasm for the project, the support of Julia Oestreich at the University of Delaware Press, and the thought-provoking feedback from the outside readers. I am also indebted to Mike Begnal for his copyediting expertise. Material support for the research and writing of this book came from a number of grants, including a Social Science Research Council Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship and a Fulbright Fellowship to Austria. The completion of the manuscript was supported by a Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellowship.

Research for this book would not have been possible without access to several libraries and archives. In Vienna, the Bildarchiv of the Austrian National Library, the Josephinum Collections of the Medical University of Vienna, and the Theatermuseum supported the development of this project at multiple stages. I am indebted to the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, particularly the generosity of Miriam Szwast, Morgaine Schäfer, and the late Bodo von Dewitz, who granted access to Empress Elisabeth’s personal albums. I thank T. J. Wilcox and his representation at Gladstone Gallery, particularly Andy Rosenwald. At Swarthmore College, I am grateful for Linda Hunt at McCabe Library, as well as Hansjakob Werlen and Elke Plaxton, who first introduced me to the Sissi films as an undergraduate German language student. I acknowledge Helga Kessler Aurisch, Megan Brandow-Faller, Maura Hametz, Pieter Judson, Richard Ormond, Patricia Reilly, Heidi Schlipphacke, Werner Telesko, and Michael Yonan for their support of this project. My excellent colleagues at Delaware County Community College, including Terri Amlong, Caitlin Flaherty, Bertha Steinhardt Gutman, Robert Jones, Matthew Sepielli, Jaime Treadwell, and David Yox, provided both encouragement and sounding boards. The perseverance of my students inspired me while I completed the manuscript during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Many friends and family have lived with this project, and I wish to recognize their support: Éva Blau, Gretchen Burch, Sara Czubaroff, Jenevieve DeLosSantos, Brigitte Eicher, Susannah Fisher, Anne Flannery, the late CarolAnn Florek, Kristi Florek, Margaret Florek, Matt Florek, Randy Florek, Sarah Frohardt-Lane, the late Hanna Bernthaler Garzuly, József Garzuly, Katherine Jorgensen Gray, Nori Heikkinen, Elizabeth Koenig, Catherine Kupiec, Michael Lehr, Morgen Lehr, Kitri McGuire, Krista Mueller, Heidi Patton, Kim Sels, Karen Simoni, Elizabeth Smith, and Per Svenson. Charlie Florek and our children Audrey and Edward have lovingly encouraged me in more ways than I can name. I dedicate this book to my parents, Curt and Trish Gruber, in gratitude for their sustained faith in me and support for my pursuit of this project.

A section of Chapter 1 appeared in Empress Elisabeth and the Painting of Modern Life, in Sissi’s World: The Empress Elisabeth in Memory and Myth, edited by Maura Hametz and Heidi Schlippacke (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018), 131–54, and is reprinted here with permission from Bloomsbury Academic. Sections of Chapter 2 were published in my article I Am a Slave to My Hair: Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Hair Fetishism, and Nineteenth-Century Austrian Sexuality, Journal of Austrian Studies (formerly Modern Austrian Literature) 42, no. 2 (2009): 1–15. An earlier version of Chapter 3 appeared as The Absent Empress: Photomontage, the Habsburg Monarchy, and Celebrity in the Nineteenth Century, in Representing the Habsburg-Lorraine Dynasty in Music, Visual Media and Architecture, 1618–1918, edited by Werner Telesko (Wien: Böhlau, 2017), 80–94, and is reprinted here with permission from Böhlau.

THE CELEBRITY MONARCH

INTRODUCTION

FIGURE 0.1. Album of Beauty of Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, c. 1862–64 (cover).

ON APRIL 24, 1854, Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria, married the Habsburg Emperor Francis Joseph, who, according to legend, had fallen in love at first sight with his sixteen-year-old cousin.¹ The bride did not make as good a first impression on her new subjects. She burst into tears during the imperial audiences following the wedding ceremony, earning the scorn of the Viennese public. Who would believe that this awkward teenager would, within a decade, be acknowledged as the most beautiful woman in Europe?

The same year also witnessed the invention of a technology that would play a critical role in Elisabeth’s transformation: carte-de-visite photography. Patented in Paris on November 27, 1854, by André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri, the process