Franz Xaver Winterhalter

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Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashi

Winterhalter in 1865

Leonilla Bariatinskaia Princess of Sayn Wittgenstein Sayn (1843), J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Winterhalter contrasted sumptuous fabrics and vivid colors against creamy flesh to heighten the sensuality of the pose, the model, and the luxuriant setting.

Portrait of Countess Potocka (1854), National Museum, Warsaw. Countess Potocka sat for this portrait in Paris, where she went after returning from a trip to the Holy Land. Róża Krasińska, who with her mother went to Paris, wrote that she was "a few times in the Winterhalter's studio, while the mother posed for her portraits".

Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855), Château de Compiègne. Taking its inspiration from 18th-century bucolic scenes, this monumental composition sets Empress Eugénie and her entourage against the backdrop of a shady clearing in a forest. However, the composition is very artificial and formal. The Empress, slightly to the left of center, is encircled by and dominates the group.

Empress Elisabeth of Austria

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Elisabeth, nicknamed Sisi, was Empress of Austria and Queen of Hungary from her marriage to Franz Joseph I on 24 April 1854 until her assassination in 1898.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter

…court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865). Franz Xaver Winterhalter was born in the small village of Menzenschwand (now part of Sankt Blasien), in Germany's Black Forest, on 20 April…

Formal portrait, 1867

Equestrian portrait of Elisabeth at Possenhofen Castle, age 15 (1853)

The young Elisabeth shortly after becoming Austrian Empress, by Amanda Bergstedt [sv] (1855)

Portrait of Empress Elisabeth, 1857 aged 19