Teenage Kicks

The graphic novel based on Rudolf and Mary's affair is called 'Angel's Coffin'. Mary is an innocent village maiden and Rudolf is her nasty aristo demon-lover, obsessed with skulls and guns. Ok, I can see the obvious attraction between them in that case.
 I have been musing a bit about what exactly attracted Mary to Rudolf. His face appeared on all the souvenir postcards throughout the Empire, he had the cachet of a pop star and young girls would pin-up the latest pics of the dashing Crown Prince on their bedroom walls. To start with, as a gauche, shy, (clean-shaven) teenager, he did have a certain brooding charm (his eyes are very like Sisi's.) However, Rudolf seems to age (rather rapidly) from his mid-20s onwards, especially after his marriage. His eyes somehow get smaller in the surrounding puffy flesh and sadder in expression. You do get the feeling that the various photographic studios (after 1883) had a lot of retouching work to do on on his Imperial mug. Yes, the full 'handlebar' moustache, as worn by Rudolf in his later years, came in handy for hiding a multitude of sins.
It is hard to believe he was just 30 yrs old when he died. The body of Rudolf lying in state during the (final) public showing looks 45 at the very least. They changed his uniform at least once during these sessions, almost in parody of his many pin-up representations in different dress uniforms over his lifetime.
Mary's looks also possess an uncanny maturity for her years. She was an like an exotic 'early bloomer' from the Imperial hothouse. According to the (modern) forensic reports, her height was 5ft 4 inches. She was, for those times, considered to be tall, 'with delicately modelled hands and feet'. She looks about 22 yrs old in a family group photo at the pyramids in Egypt, when in actual fact, she can be barely more than 16 yrs old. There were rumours of course, that she had already had at least one lover and a string of 'gentlemen admirers' by this tender age.
The picture below shows a "brazen" Mary-type in playful kittenish pose, attempting to seduce an older man (not necessarily Rudolf in this instance-- it could almost be the Count from Schnitzler's Reigen?)
Anyway, I got the idea from a particularly low-slung armchair that was a Mayerling furniture exhibit at the Hofmobiliendepot's  Kronprinz Rudolf Lebensspuren in 2008/9. Ahem, it got me thinking! Again, I've given her a very modest length of undergarment, though.

Antony and Cleopatra?

Yes, this is my pre 'Naughty Nineties' tribute. I like to think that the drawing of the girl has a touch of Lewis Baumer about it (the cartoonist was shortly about to embark on his Punch career in the early 1890's and is most famous for his 'flapper girls' of the early Twenties.)
Mary was certainly risking more than her reputation by wanting to become Rudolf's lover. 
Condoms, or prophylactics as they were known, were banned by Imperial decree throughout the (Roman Catholic) Empire...but could be purchased surreptitiously by those in the know, of course. For instance, the classified columns of Wiener Caricaturen, a fairly racy publication with an exclusively male readership, are scattered with small ads for 'womens' health aids' using the curious term 'gummi'(as in 'rubber'?) 

"Something for the weekend, Sir?"

Perhaps Rudolf should have shelled out on a few 'gummis' in his lifetime, but alas, he was obviously far too arrogant and princely and not that much of a revolutionary visionary after all. There were rumours of illegitimate children born after Rudolf's various illicit liaisons and many think that Mary became pregnant too. However, it can be said that for want of a 'gummi' poor Mary's sexual/reproductive health was most probably irretrievably damaged. Venereal diseases could not be completely cured until the discovery of penicillin and the introduction of antibiotics more than half a century later. Let's not forget poor Stephanie, stricken with pelvic inflammatory disease (courtesy of Rudolf) having only managed to produce a daughter. 
Did Mary, in her all consuming passion for the Crown Prince, covertly fantasise about bearing Rudolf a male child? More to trump Stephanie, I feel, than any serious bid to provide an heir for the Hapsburgs-- a very long shot indeed!
However, in the new year of 1889, in a very cynical move (or desperate last-ditch attempt) Rudolf tries to get Emperor Franz Joseph to persuade the Vatican to agree to a marriage annulment-- on the grounds that Stephanie is sterile and is therefore incapable of producing further offspring. Of course, the old man refuses to oblige and is extremely angry, telling Rudolf to dump Mary and patch up his marriage. This is a heated exchange by all accounts during which the Emperor may, at one stage, have threatened to 'disinherit' Rudolf if he didn't comply with his wishes. 

The path to Mayerling is now set...

Mary Vetsera's Boa

Probably the most fascinating and macabre feature of the official cover-up of the double suicide at Mayerling is the curious journey of Mary's fully-clothed corpse, in a carriage, propped up between two of her uncles and bound for a hasty burial at the cemetery at Heiligensee.

Mary's last journey flanked by her uncles...Note the "snaking" boa...!

Ah, the uncles, who also had the grisly task of dressing her half-naked body ready for the trip. It was rumoured that a broomstick handle was used to support her spine (attached inside her clothing) so that she could sit up straight. I'm not sure how this would have worked in reality but I guess Mary's favourite trademark boa might have come in useful here, wrapped tightly round her chin and keeping her head aloft, so that her fashionably tall highwayman's hat didn't slide off. In life, the fluffy boa had come in handy for hiding her face when flitting incognito, to and from the Hofburg, in Bratfisch's black cab, along with her chaperone, Marie Larisch, also boa'd for the occasion.

Fur or Feathers? 
Hmm, a difficult one! One inclines towards feathers for Mary and also there's the exotic fetish aspect of this slightly decadent accessory, just coming into fashion, which makes it an irresistible choice-- but alas, having perused a photo of Marie Larisch and Mary in their matching boas, one can only assume that it was most probably fur, (the sensible option after all.) In the same photo (perhaps the very last picture taken before her death) Mary is supposed to be wearing the dark olive green 'skating' dress with black trim that she ended up being buried in. The scientific institute that examined the dress from the Vetsera grave also noted some disintegrating remains of what they thought could have been a fur muff but were undecided. Hmm, but what became of the boa? Never mind, in my Vetsera Fantasia, Mary will get to flaunt a black feather boa (whilst posing for the painter Toulouse-Lautrec-- so there!)

The uncles: Alexander Baltazzi (who I've put on the left) and Otto Graf* von Stockau (on the right). Another of the Baltazzi brothers, Mary's uncle Heinrich, who was the model for the character of the Count in Arthur Schnitzler's play Reigen, is sometimes mistakenly substituted.
Yes, I had trouble with their hats of course. I've given Alexander a Prince of Wales 'Derby' style bowler (as he was probably the racehorse owner) and Stockau is wearing a poor approximation of a Tyrolean-style hunting hat and looking a bit like Lenin in exile (lol!)
An old black and white post-war German-language film about Mayerling shows one of the uncles on this journey wearing one of those tall top hats with the satin finish usually won to the opera, which given the circumstances, might have proved rather impractical. Still, they were probably summoned for this task at very short notice-- and a top hat was probably the default choice for gentlemen of rank.

At this juncture, even Mary's mother didn't know what had happened, which is quite shocking when you think about it. Poor Helene Vetsera was repeatedly begging the police for information about her missing daughter. She was finally informed, a few days later, in a very brief face-to-face interview (or should that be face-off?) with the Empress Elizabeth, who wasn't very charitable towards the poor woman at all. Hmm, Sissi wasn't showing any of her "fine sentiments" on that occasion was she?!

*Note: Sometimes referred to, rather inaccurately, as Georg ("George") von Stockau...I believe there has been confusion over "Graf" and "George" in most of the (English language) reports about Mayerling. After consulting a collection of Baltazzi family photos and info online, I am certain that our 2nd "Man from Uncle" (!) is Otto Graf von Stockau (the second husband of Helene Vetsera's sister, Marie Virginie.) Otto was about 54 yrs old in 1889 and actually dies the following year, in March. Perhaps the trauma of being a bit-player in this grotesque coda to the Mayerling incident adversely affected his health.

"Turf Angel" or "Cleopatra"?

"Like Antony and Cleopatra, Rudolf and Mary (Vetsera) kissed away kingdoms"

(quote from the New York Tribune, Feb 8th, 1889)

Just pondering a few more themes to do with the real Mary Vetsera, before I launch the 'Fantasia'. Below is my pencil copy of a rather charming spot caricature of Mary as a perky little cherubim aka, 'Turf Angel'. Mary was a regular at the fashionable race meetings at Freudenau. Her Baltazzi uncles were keen horsemen and bred their own racehorses, including a number of winners. Yes, the Baltazzi/Vetsera tribe were considered a bit 'racy' by those circulating in the snootier inner Hofburg court circle, naturally.
However, this lot certainly didn't lack the funds to buy their way into the smarter gatherings. Young Mary, influenced by her maternal uncles, was a keen race-goer and very much enjoyed the spectacle of this 'sport of kings'. There is also the story about Mary being first spotted by another Prince (Edward, Prince of Wales, no less). He picked her out from the throng in the VIP enclosure as a fanciable young filly and then duly mentioned her to Rudolf-- as an odds-on favourite? 

After her death, Mary will be memorialised as a proper angel in a stained glass window near the altar at the Mayerling Chapel. However, she won't be wearing a chic little hat with her hair pinned up. She will be depicted kneeling n prayer, her legendary long brunette hair cascading down her back and looking not unlike a creation of Burne-Jones, the English Pre-Raphaelite artist.

                                Mary as "Turf Engerl" possibly from Wiener Caricaturen, c1888 
                               "Engerl" means "little angel" 


The quote about Antony and Cleopatra is from a gossipy article from the New York Tribune of 1889, filed by "E.C." from the Paris office, which I happened to come across (as a newspaper clipping) on a Maori-language website called PapersPast, a newspaper archive for the Wanganui Chronicle of New Zealand.
It is obviously a follow-up piece to the brief news report of the Mayerling incident and speculation-wise, pulls no punches. One can imagine such a grossly padded-out piece of piffle appearing in the Daily Mail today, in fact.
Mary is depicted as the unwitting (virginal) sacrifice, an innocent casualty of Rudolf's 'freakish' disposition. It reports that he 'shot her in the back and covered her with flowers'. Mary is certainly on the way to being 'eulogised' here:

"Mary Vetsera's whole soul-such as it was-showed itself in it's eyes, she had lovely features. One only thought of her blue-grey variable and eloquent eyes when gazing on her."

The writer is reliably informed by one (rather gushing) Mme. P. Clemenceau*, 'a Viennese lady whose father used to regularly entertain the Crown Prince.'
 
*Note: Hmm, a Viennese who has married into the Clemenceau clan by the looks of it (maybe she's a double-agent?) Empress Zita would think so. Her pet 'assassination' theory revolved around a planned coup, engineered by the French Prime Minister, Georges Clemenceau, which would see the aging Emperor Franz-Joseph deposed and the Francophile Rudolf handed the crown (leaving Germany without an ally.) Of course, Rudolf refused to take part and was killed by foreign agents in order to hush things up. There is, of course, no mention of Mary's role in this political plot.


Anyway, back to some 'cheap shots' from the NY Tribune aimed at Crown Princess Stephanie:

"Rudolf had a passionate admiration for fine eyes. Stephanie has little pig eyes."

Oh dear, poor Stephanie seems to get it in the neck here. The blame for Mayerling is squarely laid at her door as she was obviously such a rubbish consort to Rudolf in the first place. Stephanie is accused of being 'too prosaic' and 'utterly incapable of inspiring sympathy' so unlike the clearly divine Mary! 
However, at the conclusion, the highest praise is reserved for the Empress Elizabeth:

"She has given proof since the Mayerling tragedy, of sublime elevation of sentiment"

(Whatever that means!) So Sisi has won The New York Tribune 'Admiration' stakes, by a head, I reckon.

Born in Cairo, Mary Vetsera did have an exotic pedigree and a dash of Greek/Levantine heritage was somewhere in the 'good Imperial mixture' ("eine gut Kaisermischung".Which does make her sound like an exotic packet of tea.
This article seems to want to link her origins to the Isle of Chios, almost as if she had emerged from a sea-shell there, like a 19thc version of the goddess Aphrodite.
So I suppose Mary as a (juvenile) Cleopatra sort of fits. Rudolf is almost the right age for Antony, (and a general of course)-- but that is about it, really. I'm sure Mary would have been thrilled to be compared to Cleopatra. A fashionably exotic subject at that time for painters like Alma-Tadema and John William Waterhouse. A year after Mayerling, the celebrated tragedienne, Sarah Bernhardt, would tread the boards as Cleopatra in Sardou's play of the same name.
Already the romantic myth-machine is grinding away regardless...

Coming Soon! The Vetsera Fantasia...

Mary becomes a tight-rope walker at the Cirque Bratfisch in Paris. She meets up with her blonde 'copine', Elvira Madigan, bare-back/trick rider and they become a famous double act. Both appear in the celebrated posters of Toulouse-Lautrec and become the toast of  'la vie boheme' in Paris and Vienna. So the two girls, two potential casualties of tragic suicide-pacts from history are saved in one 'coup de theatre'-- what's not to love?

Mary earning the ropes at a gentlemen's club-- watched by Bratfisch.

The Naked Vetsera

In the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna there is a naked portrait of Mary Vetsera, in a standing pose, back to the viewer, by an unknown artist, dating from 1888. Curiously, the head is an exact replica of one of the carte de visite profile shots made of Mary during the same year. One could almost say that the painting is a bit of a 'cut and paste job'. 
The artist may have added her likeness at the last minute because she was the most talked about woman in Vienna and he is trying to cash in on the notoriety of the young Baroness. It looks very like a life study of a studio model with Mary's head attached. Perhaps Marie Larisch was behind this commission, in her capacity as Mary's confidante and PR woman. Larisch did 'plant' Mary directly in Rudolf's path in order to wring favours (ie: money hand-outs) from the Crown Prince (her ex-lover) who was himself heavily in debt most of the time.
The Hofmobiliendepot is a bit coy about the provenance of this canvas and exactly when it was acquired for the collection. However, one has doubts as to whether Rudolf would have had the brass neck to acquire such a large painting as this and hang it in his private apartments at the Hofburg. The following sketch is my spin on it. In the original, there is no setting, just a dark void and Mary has some kind of diaphanous drape covering most of her left forearm. One suspects the unknown artist was not very good at painting hands. Also, the lower legs and the feet are painted rather clumsily, as if the artist had got a little bored once he'd reached those extremities. Anyway, in my version, as well as much better calves and feet, I've given her a boudoir setting. She is holding a feathered fan and has an Olympia-style* bangle on her left arm and I've put in her favourite crescent hair decoration. Anyway, I don't want to attract too many dirty old men in gaberdene macs to this blog (ahem, but I don't mind the odd one, as I'd like some readers, lol.) Anyhow, I have a feeling that Mary has been a magnet for gents of a certain age throughout the decades of her posthumous fame, so it's all grist to the mill. This image does deserve attention as a rather intriguing 'puzzle' picture, rarely exhibited (but it is on Google images if you look hard enough.)
Mary as a fully formed Mittel-European 'pin-up' of the day, leaving very little to the imagination!

"Err, it's a bit bum-sexy, isn't it?" (with apologies to Armstrong and Miller!)

There was a lot of  comment made at the time about Mary's physical type and how well-endowed she was for a teenager. However I feel that the unknown artist may have exaggerated her 'embonpoint' somewhat.

I recently came across a photo of Mila Kunis. Will someone please cast her as Mary Vetsera before it's too late?! She has the look; no doubt about that. The British actress Zoe Tapper could run as her second, but Mila is the No 1 girl for the job in my book. There have been some pretty inept castings of MV in the past (including a blonde Catherine Deneuve for gawd sakes!)

In photographs, Mary's 'little French bulldog' features stare out at me and I wonder why she was deemed to be so attractive. The body may have been mature, but in the face betrays the gaucheness of the child. I think Mila would meld these characteristics so well, she'd be dynamite; but please don't ask me who should be cast as her Rudolf!


*I refer of course, to Olympia in Manet's painting of the same name...

The Deadly Game

Just a few more drawings that link into the last chapter and some added just for the hell of it. Did Mary feel any quaver of doubt towards the end, I wonder? What was she actually doing, letting Rudolf pull the trigger. Was she actually calling the shots in those last desperate minutes, so to speak?
Loschek, who had a small room adjacent to Rudolf's, heard them arguing loudly at one point. Was the loyal valet sorely tempted to put a glass tumbler to the wall to find out what was going on? What about Mary's peculiar mind-set did she really think that this was 'it' and that Rudolf was the great love of her life and he was worth dying with/for? 
A prematurely balding, diseased, frustrated, embittered Crown Prince from a dysfunctional family who loathed his wife, but adored his only child and was also clearly in the habit of making full use of that circle of loose/giddy women (both titled and untitled) that made themselves available to him?

'Before I Sleep...' does Mary notice that receding hairline at all?

The style of the above sketch is a bit 'Bunty', but I like the way Mary is clinging to Rudolf as there is something almost childlike about it.

Mary in Rudolf's suite at Mayerling, putting pen to paper on a wintry afternoon.

I can't imagine Mary being much of a letter-writer in her ordinary day to day life. I think her preferred form was the 'billet doux'. After all, she had first got Rudolf's attention by sending him a flirty 'fan' letter. However, that afternoon at Mayerling proved to be another exception. Again this sketch is a bit on the 'Bunty' side. Not sure that I don't prefer an earlier sketch that makes her look like Tatiana from Onegin (lol!) Here:

Yes, while we're about it, Mary was right-handed and couldn't possibly have pulled the trigger herself as she was shot in the left temple. Yet, according to an official autopsy report made c1955 (at the time her remains were decanted into a makeshift tin coffin, after the original copper casket had been damaged by Russian soldiers during WWII) an 'area of trauma' on her skull was identified but there was no actual evidence of a bullet wound per se. So was she bludgeoned to death instead? Is that why the witnesses (Loschek et al) claim only to have heard a single shot? The mind boggles! A later forensic report initiated by the nutty body-snatching Flatzelsteiner (c1991) came to a similar conclusion.


Also, on a less macabre note, would she have used a dressing table as a writing desk at Mayerling? I will have more to say on that subject later on.

Flashback: Mary wants to look her best for Rudolf...

I quite like her expression in this sketch it reminds me of a (warped) Jennifer Aniston. All very 'Me, Me, Me it's all about Me!' (Note the crescent moon hair decoration) I think Mary spent a lot of time admiring herself in the mirror.

A much earlier sketch (with speech bubbles) Mary calling the shots (!)

I prefer rough storyboard style drawings/vignettes. I also think that speech bubbles are cumbersome, tricky to position and just get in the way of the drawing, but that's just me. I'm kind of using this blog as a sketchbook for ideas and it's going to be very organic and not at all linear. Think curling tendrils of an Art Nouveau climbing plant, with new branches shooting out in all directions (you have been warned!)

    





 

The Night of the Hunted...

Well, that title is a bit over the top, but never mind. I'm back to the real tale and thinking of Rudolf and Mary at Mayerling on that fateful night. They have written all the farewell notes they need to write, what now? Mary is restless, having been secretly cooped up all day in the bedroom. 
Indeed so bored did Mary get while Rudolf was away entertaining Hoyos and Coburg Esq, that she idly scratched her initials (with the date) on the bottom of one of Rudolf's metal ashtrays. However, once the gentlemen guests have withdrawn, Mary is released, like a famished cat and is given a 'scratch' supper in the dining room. (There are also accounts of Bratfisch playing the bagpipes at this point but that sounds a bit too ludicrous to be believed!)
Anyway, much later (in my scenario) the doomed pair decide to take a last promenade together through the darkened schloss. Loschek is fast asleep and Rudolf's guest(s)* are snoring away in their respective gastzimmers. Daringly, Mary takes a swig of brandy from the decanter in the billiard room (like the naughty teenager she is) and perhaps Rudolf lights up a final cigar. 
In the hallway, Mary takes off her wrap and skips about (almost naked in a flimsy undershirt) in the silvery light of the moon that creeps across the floor from a high window. However, the nooks and crannies of the schloss are once more full of gloomy shadows as they wend their way back to the bedroom. Rudolf's steps increase in heaviness and he almost needs support from the young girl, letting her lead the way. It is now or never. 
The atmosphere in Rudolf's suite has become oppressive, to say the least, despite it being fairly spacious. It's as if the walls are slowing closing in on them during the last act. Rudolf always the keen hunter, has been responsible for an awful lot of "kills" in the field in his lifetime and now he's about to bag a more unusual trophy. However, she won't have a neat, carefully handwritten label tied to her feet like that dead blackbird (Ringdrossel) from Rudolf's ornithological archive. It is not the intention for this particular gamine specimen to be preserved by the taxidermist's art, either.

In the sketch below, I have shown Rudolf and Mary on their last stroll through Mayerling. Soon after their deaths the hunting lodge which has become synonymous with their doomed affair will be razed to the ground (on the orders of Emperor Franz Joseph) and a chapel built in it's place. On the site of their joint deathbed will stand an altar and nuns will pray daily for the repose of Rudolf's soul (but not Mary's?)

They are in effect a 'dead couple walking'

Note on the drawing: Mary is holding a small lamp which lights her features from below and isn't particularly flattering. Perhaps it has just dawned on her that this isn't just a splendid romantic game any longer and that the journey to paradise might prove to be a bit of a bumpy ride. Rudolf just looks weary. 
In the background I've placed a painting of a (blonde) Madonna with Christ child and a carved statuette of an eagle perched with folded wings. These artefacts actually exist and were once part of the furnishings at Mayerling. Both were displayed in the Kronprinz Rudolf Lebenspurren exhibition at the Hofmobiliendepot Museum in Vienna in 2008/9.
The Madonna picture in the background provides a bitter counterpoint. According to some (secret police) accounts, Mary Vetsera is actually in the early stages of pregnancy (and also venereal disease.) I doubt the pregnancy somehow, but the VD infection is most likely. In her last letters, she seems to cleave to the idea that there will be an afterlife-- no wonder!

Rudolf and Mary at Mayerling

"It is all mystery, mystery, mystery..."  British Ambassador (Sir Augustus Paget) to PM Lord Salisbury...(re the Crown Prince Rudolf's death, from letter dated Feb 15th, 1889)

 *A brief note on Hoyos and Coburg:

They sound like a firm of international lawyers but their double-act as witnesses in the Mayerling incident is a bit of an intriguing puzzle in itself. They were definitely close pals of Rudolf and hardly likely to be a brand of courtier/spy like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern-- lol!) Rudolf trusted them. They were invited as 'cover' for the impending double suicide and if the Crown Prince was going to blow his brains out then he may as well do it with close friends in the vicinity who could be relied on to deal sensitively with the aftermath. According to the official account, only Graf Josef Hoyos stayed the night at Mayerling. Coburg departed for Vienna and returned (early) the next morning.

Phillip, Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha was Rudolf's brother-in-law (he was married to Stephanie's elder sister, Louise) and the marriage may have been an unhappy one (the couple divorced in 1906)--  so perhaps he had a lot in common with Rudolf. Anyway, for whatever reason, or misgivings, Coburg didn't fancy spending the night in that schloss and preferred the idea of trundling back to Vienna instead. A floorplan of Mayerling shows two gastzimmers adjacent to Rudolf's ground floor suite, just off the billiard room and ideal for unaccompanied gentlemen guests, on a brief overnight stay (one would have thought.)

It is believed that Hoyos was given a room in another wing of the schloss. There was certainly a separate annexe for Erzsi (Elizabeth, Rudolf's daughter) when she came to stay. Stephanie, his wife, had her own apartment on the first floor. So I'm not quite sure where Hoyos actually lodged, frankly. However, perhaps for reasons of privacy, Rudolf must have requested that those particular gastzimmers near his bedroom remain unoccupied.

Anyway, Loschek cannot rouse the Crown Prince (after shot(s?) have been heard) and the door is firmly locked. H and C,(who may have been breakfasting together at that point?) are duly informed.
Of course, neither gentlemen were aware that Mary was in-situ, until they are informed by the panicky valet (rather reluctantly.) Both men of the world, they may have feigned surprise at the idea of Rudolf hiding a young Baroness away in his private suite.

Part of the panel of Rudolf's bedroom door is then smashed in by Loschek (who has asked permission to do so) and from this improvised spyhole (which seems to afford a conveniently wide-angle panorama of the whole room) the bodies of Rudolf and Mary can clearly be seen lying on the bed.

From then on Hoyos seems to take the initiative for getting word to the Hofburg (travelling via carriage and express steam train.) Meanwhile, the higher-ranking Prince Coburg seems to become a bit of a blubbering wreck. Traumatised by the event and unable to assist in any practical way, he bows out of the story.