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...