Gallery of Beauties


The Gallery of Beauties is a collection of 36 portraits of the most beautiful women from the nobility and middle classes of Munich, Germany, painted between 1827 and 1850 and gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in the south pavilion of his Nymphenburg Palace in Munich. Two additional ones were created by Friedrich Dürck. Its best-known works are the portraits of the shoemaker's daughter Helene Sedlmayr, the actress Charlotte von Hagn and the king's Irish mistresses Eliza Gilbert and Marianna Marquesa Florenzi. They include a Briton, a Greek, a Scot and an Israelite, along with relations of Ludwig's - the wife and daughter of Ludwig of Oettingen-Wallerstein were both painted, as was Ludwig I's daughter Princess Alexandra of Bavaria.
The collection was a late example of a fashion for such series, which includes an earlier one in Munich of beauties of the French court brought back from Versailles by Maximilian II. Emanuel who had spent a period there. In England there are the Windsor Beauties, eleven of the King's mistresses painted by Sir Peter Lely in the 1660s, and the Hampton Court Beauties, a later set by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

List

A list of the portraits follows:
NameLifeHusbandDimensionsYearImage
Auguste StroblAnton Hilber, forester 72,5 x 59,2 cm1827
Maximiliane BorzagaJoseph Krämer, doctor in Kreuth 72 x 58 cm1827
Isabella von Trauffkirchen-EngelbergCount Hektor von Kwilecky auf Kwilcz 72 x 59,8 cm1828
Amalie von LerchenfeldFreiherr Alexander von Krüdener
Count Nikolai Wladimirowitsch Adlerberg 		72,2 x 59 cm1828
Antonietta Cornelia VetterleinReichsfreiherr Franz Ludwig Friedrich von Künsberg auf Hain-Schmeilsdorf 72,5 x 59,2 cm1828
Charlotte von HagnAlexander von Oven, Gutsbesitzer 73,2 x 59,5 cm1828
Nanette KaullaSalomon Heine, banker 72,2 x 59 cm1829
Anna Hillmayer71,7 x 58,4 cm1829
Regina DaxenbergerHeinrich Fahrenbacher 70 x 58,9 cm1829
Jane Elizabeth DigbyEdward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough

Freiherr Karl von Veningen-Ulner

Count Spyridon Theotoky

Scheich Medjuel el Mezrab 		72 x 58 cm1831
Marianna Marquesa FlorenziEttore Marchese Florenzi
Charles Waddington
71,6 x 58,4 cm1831
Amalie von SchintlingFritz von Schintling 72 x 58,5 cm1831
Helene SedlmayrKammerlakei Miller 71,4 x 58,2 cm1831
Irene von PallaviciniCount Alois Nikolaus von Arco auf Steppberg, later divorced72 x 58,2 cm1834
Caroline von HolnsteinCount Theodor von Holnstein aus Bayern
Freiherr Wilhelm von Künsberg von Fronberg 		71,5 x 58 cm1834
Jane ErskineJames Henry Callander, Esquire of Craigforth 72 x 57,9 cm1837
Theresa Spence72 x 57,8 cm1837
Mathilde von JordanFreiherr Friedrich Ferdinand von Beust 72 x 59 cm1837
Wilhelmine SulzerKarl Schneider, registrar 72 x 59 cm1838
Luise von NeubeckAbbess of the Heilig-Geist-Spitals * Missing since 19361839
Antonie WallingerFriedrich von Ott, regierungsrat72,3 x 58,8 cm1840
Rosalie Julie von BonarFreiherr Ernst von Bonar etc.72 x 58,2 cm1840
Sophie Friederike von BayernArchduke Franz Karl of Austria 72 x 59 cm1841
Katharina BotsarisPrince Georg Karadja 72,4 x 59 cm1841
Caroline Lizius71 x 59,4 cm1842
Elise ListGustav Pacher, from Vienna 70,3 x 59,2 cm1842
Marie Friederike of PrussiaCrown Prince Maximilian II of Bavaria 71,7 x 58 cm1843
Friederike von GumppenbergLudwig Freiherr von Gumppenberg, her cousin 70 x 59,4 cm1843
Caroline von Oettingen-WallersteinCount Hugo Philipp von Waldbott-Bassenheim 71 x 59,5 cm1843
Emily MilbankeSir John Milbanke, British envoy in Munich 71 x 59 cm1844
Josepha ContiAnton Conti 71,5 x 58,5 cm1844
Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria70,5 x 59,2 cm1845
Auguste Ferdinande von ÖsterreichPrince Luitpold von Bayern 70,2 x 59 cm1845
Lola MontezThomas James, army officer
3 others		72 x 58,6 cm1847
Maria DietschGeorg Sprecher, Chefredakteur der Augsburger Abendzeitung 73 x 59 cm1850
Anna von GreinerEmil von Greiner 1861
Carlotta von Breidbach-BürresheimCount Philipp Boos zu Waldeck vor 1863