Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1895–1903)
Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine was a German Hessian and Rhenish child princess, the only daughter of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and his first wife, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She was named after her paternal great-grandmother, Princess Elisabeth of Prussia. Her paternal aunt had the same name, and both the young princess and her aunt were nicknamed Ella.
Princess Elisabeth in 1903
Princess Elisabeth in 1896.
Princess Elisabeth’s death deeply devastated her father, who viewed her as "the sunshine of his life."
A 1901 portrait by the French Symbolist painter Lucien-Victor Guirand de Scévola of Princess Elisabeth with her mother, Victoria Melita.
Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
Ernest Louis was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918.
Photograph by Jacob Hilsdorf, 1905
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.
