Born into Bavarian royalty, Elisabeth (“Sisi”) enjoyed an informal upbringing before marrying Franz Joseph at the age of sixteen. The marriage thrust her into the much more formal Habsburg court life, for which she was ill-prepared and which she found uncongenial. Early in the marriage she was at odds with her mother-in-law, Princess Sophie, who took over the rearing of Elisabeth’s daughters, one of whom, Sophie, died in infancy. By creating these photo albums, empress Elisabeth "created a segment of society that was to her taste, and surrounded herself with people in the pictures that interested her," explains Szwast. She also used the collection to emphasize her own beauty, which was both a delight and a curse. The song "SiSi" by the Scottish band Washington Irving is inspired by Elisabeth's life. [78] Architecture [ edit ] Accompanied by her lady-in-waiting, the empress left the Hotel Beau Rivage, located directly on the shore of the lake. She met her killer on the lake promenade. He bumped into her, stabbing her with a sharpened needle file, and she fell. A coachman helped her up. "It's nothing," she said. "We have to hurry or we'll miss the boat."

Jennifer Bowers Bahney: Stealing Sisi's Star: How a master thief nearly got away with Austria's most famous jewel, (McFarland & Co., 2015 ( ISBN 078649722X) The heart-warming films starring a young Romy Schneider were exactly what viewers needed in battered postwar Germany. Who was the real Sisi?Sisi was already doing things 150 years ago that are considered normal today," Duve explains. "For example, keeping fit with weight lifting, doing everything to preserve her own beauty for as long as possible, even putting her own health at risk to uphold the illusion of eternal youth." Sisa, Stephan, The Spirit of Hungary: A Panorama of Hungarian History and Culture, Vista Court Books, 1995, p. 171

Corsets of the time were split- busk types, fastening up the front with hooks and eyes, but Elisabeth had more rigid, solid-front ones made in Paris out of leather, "like those of Parisian courtesans", probably to hold up under the stress of such strenuous lacing, "a proceeding which sometimes took quite an hour". The fact that "she only wore them for a few weeks" may indicate that even leather proved inadequate for her needs. [22] Elisabeth's defiant flaunting of this exaggerated dimension angered her mother-in-law. [ citation needed] Empress Elisabeth with her two children and a portrait of the late Archduchess Sophie Friederike (1858) Matteo Tuveri: "Elizabeth of Austria: A Beauvoirian perspective", Simone de Beauvoir Studies, Volume 24, 2007–2008, Published by the Simone de Beauvoir Society (California) Matthews, Mimi (5 October 2015). "The Beauty Rituals of 19th Century Empress Elisabeth of Austria" . Retrieved 10 October 2022.Stefan Haderer: Im Schatten Homers. Kaiserin Elisabeth in Griechenland. (NeoPubli: 2021) ( ISBN 978-3754157008) Born Elisabeth Amalie Eugenie on 24 December 1837 in the Herzog-Max-Palais in Munich, Bavaria, she was the third child and second daughter of Duke Maximilian Joseph in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria, the half-sister of King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Maximilian was considered to be rather peculiar; he had a love of circuses and traveled the Bavarian countryside to escape his duties. The family's homes were the Herzog-Max-Palais in Munich during winter and Possenhofen Castle in the summer months, far from the protocols of court. "Sisi" and her siblings grew up in a very unrestrained and unstructured environment; she often skipped her lessons to go riding about the countryside. [2] Author Allison Pataki wrote a historical fiction novel about Elisabeth and her marriage to Emperor Franz Joseph entitled The Accidental Empress, [69] in February 2015. Its sequel, Sisi, Empress on Her Own, was published in March 2016. Journalist Jennifer Bowers Bahney wrote the non-fiction narrative of the theft of the Koechert diamond and pearl jewel titled Stealing Sisi's Star: How a Master Thief Nearly Got Away with Austria's Most Famous Jewel, [70] published by McFarland & Co., June 2015. Dutch singer Petra Berger's album Eternal Woman includes "If I Had a Wish", a song about Elisabeth.

The rebellious princess also had an anchor tattooed on her shoulder in 1888, meant to symbolize her great love for the sea. Drawing on Christomanos's diaries and so far unpublished sources from Greece's national archives, Austrian anthropologist and journalist Stefan Haderer published his book Under the Spell of a Myth: Empress Sisi in Greece in 2022. [67] His book is both an accurate historical account of Elisabeth's travels to Greece and a very personal portrait of her character and her special relationship with the Greek people. A companion novel to the six-episode Netflix series The Empress, also titled The Empress, and written by Gigi Griffis, was published in 2022. As a coronation gift, Hungary presented the royal couple with a country residence in Gödöllő, 32 kilometres (20mi) east of Budapest. In the next year, Elisabeth lived primarily there, leaving her neglected and resentful Austrian subjects to trade rumors that if the infant she was expecting were a son, she would name him Stephen, after the patron saint and first king of Hungary. The issue was avoided when she gave birth to a daughter, Marie Valerie Mathilde Amalie (1868–1924). Dubbed the "Hungarian child", she was born in Buda ten months after her parents' coronation and baptised there in April. [13] Determined to bring this last child up by herself, Elisabeth finally had her way. She poured all her repressed maternal feelings on her youngest daughter to the point of nearly smothering her. Sophie's influence over Elisabeth's children and the court faded, and she died in 1872. [ citation needed] Marriage [ edit ] Engraving depicting the Hungarian royal family at Gödöllő Palace ( c. 1870) Sisi was accompanied in Ireland by her favourite rider Bay Middleton. Empress Elisabeth returned in 1880 but the land agitation was such that the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph would not let Sisi make a third visit. He did not wish to upset the British government during the Turkish crisis.Ava Gardner played Empress Elisabeth in the 1968 film Mayerling, in which Omar Sharif starred as Crown Prince Rudolf.