Austrian Vienna cold painted bronze woman riding habit

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This is a 6" Austrian cold painted bronze of an upper-class woman in a fox-hunting or riding outfit typical of the mid-to-late 19th century. It has some chips to the paint, but is in otherwise good condition.It may have once sat upon a piece of marble, as there is a tiny mounting screw on the bottom. All reasonable offers will be considered - so don't be shy! This "foxy" aristocrat sports a cane, top hat and a monacle and the skirt of her outfit is tied-up in typical side-saddle fashion. I believe it to be a depiction of Elizabeth of Austria (see photo above) who was known for her tight-laced fashion and equestianship. A description of her is listed below.... The Empress Elizabeth of Austria "she looked like an angel and rode like the devil" Elisabeth was born in 1837 of the eccentric Bavarian Wittelsbach royal line, and married the young Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary when she was sixteen. After the relative freedom of her Bavarian childhood, she found herself thrust into Europe's most ossified court. Her sense of personal dignity and independence as well as her very real democratic and humanitarian instincts continuously offended against the role into which she was cast. Her first ''political'' duty was to breed. She had three children in quick succession, after which, despite her excellent health and natural fertility, she refused to have any more (although she was later to have a fourth child), and encouraged her husband to take a mistress and develop a ménage � trois rather than suffer his sexual attentions. This sexual rejection was all the more publicly scandalous and personally painful in that the Emperor was known to be (or have been) infatuated with his wife. The result was that the Empire, after the suicide of their only son, the Crown Prince Rudolph, was left without a male heir. In the oppressively rigid Habsburg court, and under the constant interference of her mother-in-law, the Archduchess Sophie, which prevented her from breast-feeding her children and developing a natural relationship with them, she became reputed sexually frigid (she had been virtually raped on her wedding-night), and unmaternal, as she herself confessed, ''loath(ing) the whole business of child-bearing'' (Haslip, p. 87; Paléologue, p. 17).Her sexuality was sublimated in her attachment to her younger daughter Valerie, large animals (especially horses), and the cultivation of her own body. She was famous for her equestrianship - haute école, circus-style stunt riding, and hunting. At 44 years ''she looked like an angel and rode like the devil'' (Haslip p. 325). When she finally gave up riding in 1882, she devoted herself to marathon solitary hikes, swimming, gymnastics and fencing. The Empress' fear of pregnancy, her mania for sport and violent exercise, her preoccupation with her physique, her peculiar diet, her attitude to dress - all had one common denominator: the preservation of a figure which was naturally very slender, small-boned and muscular. She was tall (172cm, five feet eight inches), and never weighed over 50 kilos (111 pounds) all her adult life. Her legendary beauty and charm brought her oppressive adulation wherever she went in Europe. She preserved her youthful appearance in the face of what press and medical opinion viewed as bizarre, not to say improper, excesses in sport, diet and slimming. She hated to have to sit down to eat. She abominated banquets. For long periods she lived on a daily diet of raw steak and a glass of milk or orange-juice. She struck people as hyperactive, and astonishingly hardy. Her illnesses were all evidently psychosomatic, and her neurotic crises always cleared up when she was away from court, and was free to travel and ride, free of the gaze of courtiers and public, which she experienced as physically painful - as a visual rape.Her diary, alas, was destroyed by the police after her death. But further study of archival material, of medical and newspaper reports, might reveal much more of the precise circumstances surrounding her youthful r eputat... read more

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