Ernest Louis was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918. A grandson of Queen Victoria, he was known as a patron of the arts and founded the Darmstadt Artists' Colony.
Ernest Louis wearing the collar of the Order of the Garter
Ernest in 1879 with his grandmother Queen Victoria and sisters Victoria, Elizabeth, Irene and Alix two months after the deaths of their mother and youngest sister. All are wearing mourning clothes.
Ernest was still devastated by the memory of his daughter's death thirty years later. "My little Elisabeth," he wrote in his memoirs, "was the sunshine of my life."
Ernest Louis in 1917, as officer during the First World War.
Princess Alice was Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine from 13 June 1877 until her death in 1878 as the wife of Grand Duke Louis IV. She was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and P
Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
…born on 25 November 1868 at the New Palace, Darmstadt, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse, the elder son of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was named Louis after his father. His nickname was "Ernie". One of seven…
Photograph by Franz Backofen, 1871
Painting of baby Princess Alice by Edwin Landseer, 1843. Prince Albert ordered this painting as a surprise gift to his wife.
Alice (right) and her sister Victoria in the 1850s
Alice in her wedding dress, 1862