"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...