Gallery of Beauties

The Gallery of Beauties (German: Schönheitengalerie) is a collection of 38 portraits of the most beautiful women from the nobility and bourgeoisie of Munich, Germany, gathered by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in the south pavilion of his Nymphenburg Palace. All but two were painted between 1827 and 1850 by Joseph Karl Stieler (appointed court painter in 1820), the others by Friedrich Dürck, a student of his.

Some of the collection's best-known works are the portraits Helene Sedlmayr, a shoemaker's daughter, actress Charlotte von Hagn, Italian noblewoman Marianna Florenzi, and Eliza Gilbert, the King's Irish mistress (better known as Lola Montez). It also includes paintings of a Briton, a Greek, a Scot, and a Jew, as well as relations of Ludwig's including the wife and daughter of Ludwig of Oettingen-Wallerstein, and the king's own daughter, Princess Alexandra of Bavaria.

All 38 models were rewarded by Ludwig I. He took over their dowry, paid them an allowance or found them a job at court. He remained in active correspondence with some of them for years, while others only briefly crossed his life.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.