Who was Sisi?
An Austrian empress assassinated;
a charming princess;
an unlikely namesake of the current Egyptian president.
The tragic soul mate of Romy Schneider, perhaps too?
The image that remains today of the sovereign is that of a woman of great beauty, set in gold dresses spangled with diamonds and muslins with pearly pearls.
But, according to the Vienna tourist office, this was not Sissi.
An initiative thus flourished on the occasion of International Women's Rights Day, March 8: to set right the simplistic prejudices that surround this historic personality… by removing her from a few paintings exhibited in Vienna.
For their demonstration, the Vienna Tourist Office and the Sissi Museum have set their sights on the portrait of the Empress painted in 1865 by Franz Xaver Winterhalter.
The empress, her real name Elisabeth, appears sideways, her bare shoulders, adorned in a sumptuous, milky dress, all in satin, tulle, jewels and a crinoline.
On March 7, the original of this painting kept in the Sisi Museum, in a wing of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Vienna, was masked by a panel adorned with a free poem, a “minimalist portrait” in words,
titled
Sisi
's New Portrait
("The new portrait of Sissi").
Deconstruct Sisi
The portrait in question "
deconstructs the memory of Empress Elisabeth of Austria to focus on the facts rather than her appearance
", indicates on its social networks the German agency Jung von Matt, which developed this installation. .
We read, in English, references to her taste for learning, for the autonomy of peoples and for what she still brings to refugees today.
Sissi had indeed wanted the royalties from his newspaper to be used to help them.
Read alsoThe Little Mermaid vandalized in Copenhagen, a Russian flag painted on its base
"
For the young Sissi, the notion of beauty did not even exist,"
the curator of the Sissi museum, Michael Wohlfart, said in a statement on Tuesday
.
His appearance was instrumentalized
”.
“
Sissi was ahead of her time in many ways.
She was a very strategically intelligent woman – and even though her voice didn't officially count, she knew exactly what effect her gestures had on the public,” added
Elfriede Iby, head of the scientific department of the Schönbrunn Group, which administers the former imperial domains on behalf of the Austrian state.
The two copies of the painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter kept in the Imperial Furniture Museum and the Hotel Imperial were also masked by this “new portrait”.
These three installations will be presented in place of the works until March 31.
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