Beautiful and celebrated Empress Elisabeth has long since become a cult figure. The Sisi Museum in the Imperial Apartments of the Imperial Palace compares the myth and the facts. Among the highlights are numerous personal objects once owned by Elisabeth as well as the most famous portraits of the beautiful empress.

Elisabeth's private life is at the center of the exhibition: her rebellion agains court ceremony, her escape into a beauty cult, her obsession with being slim, athletic performance, and effusive poetry. From the carefree time as a young girl in Bavaria to the surprising engagement with the Austrian emperor to her 1898 assassination in Geneva, the museum shows the restless life of the legendary empress.

And does so using numerous objects: On view are some of the few remaining summer dresses, the reconstruction of the dress worn by the young bride on the evening before her wedding as well as the Hungarian coronation dress, famous portraits, a 23-piece travel toiletries set, a miniature secretaire with envelopes pained in Elisabeth's own hand, Sisi's watercolor painting box, a 63-piece first-aid kid and an accessible reconstruction of Sisi's luxurious imperial saloon car. Items on display from her childhood include her harp, which she brought with her from Bavaria, and a reconstruction of a child's dress.

Sisi's 6-piece mourning jewelry in onyz and jet, which she wore on her mourning dress following the death of her son Crowne Prince Rudolph, is also on display here in its entirety. The black coat with egret feathers, which covered Sisi after her assassination on Lake Geneva and in which she was taken to the Hotel Beau Rivage, reminds one of the tragic incident as much as the death mask of the murdered empress.

In the Imperial Apartments and the Silver Collection you get a good impression of the daily life of the empire. And at the Hofburg Café you can pamper yourself with culinary delights.

© WienTourismus