#Grand Duke Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt

[epoque-victorienne]

[ykzzr]

Ernst Louis and his son Georg Donatus in 1907❤️.

[thepastisalreadywritten]

BORN ON THIS DAY:

Alexandra Feodorovna (6 June [O.S. 25 May] 1872 – 17 July 1918), Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine at birth, was the last Empress of Russia as the consort of Emperor Nicholas II from their marriage on 26 November [O.S. 14 November] 1894 until his forced abdication on 15 March [O.S. 2 March] 1917.

She was the sixth child and fourth daughter among the seven children of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his first wife, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, Prince Consort.

[colorizedhistory]

[princesselisabethofhesse]

1896

THE GENTLEWOMAN. October 3 & 17

Darmstadt, October 3

The Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse intend to move with their Court from the Jagdschloss Wolfsgarten to the New Palace at Darmstadt, on Tuesday, the 6th int., in order to be there at the arrival of the Tsar and Tsaretsa.

The Grand Duke and Duchess Serge of Russia arrived at Darmstadt from Venice last Wednesday, and went immediately to Wolfsgarten.

The Princess Louis of Battenberg is now at Heiligenberg with their children, and pays frequent visits to the Grand Duke and Duchess.

Little Princess Elizabeth is already talking about her cousin, Grand Duchess Olga, and is delighted that she is soon to have a little companion to play with. Her Grand Ducal Highness is a very pretty, clever child, and remarkably lively.

Darmstadt, October 17

The little Princess Elizabeth of Hesse is delighted with her still smaller cousin, Grand Duchess Olga, and to see the babies playing together is an unfailing source of delight to the two young mothers. Both are very pretty children, and are extremely forward for their age.

(...)

On Tuesday last the Grand Duke and Duchess drove with their Imperial guests to Heiligenberg, where they had tea with the Princess Louis of Battenberg; and the next afternoon was spent at Jagdschloss Wolfsgarten, where they also had tea, and returned in the evening to Darmstadt.

source: the British Newspaper Archive

image: Hessian State Archives, Elisabeth and Olga sit on their mothers' laps and pose in a group picture taken in June 1896.

[royalty-nobility]

The Family of the Grand Duke of Hesse

Artist: Heinrich von Angeli (Austrian, 1840-1925)

Date: 1879

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, United Kingdom

Description

Louis, the Grand Duke of Hesse is seated, surrounded by his family. He wears a General Officer's greatcoat with the badge 'Pour La Mérite' and the Iron Cross, and holds a riding crop. His wife Alice (the Grand Duchess, Queen Victoria's second daughter) stands behind him, resting her left arm on the shoulder of Prince Ernest. Princess Elizabeth stands behind her father; Princess Alix stands on the left, leaning on the arm of the chair. The couple's eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, was pronounced 'too big' to be included in the picture. The children and their mother are in day dress.

The picture was painted for Queen Victoria, who paid Von Angeli £1260 for it on 3 December 1879. It was hoped that the artist would go to Darmstadt in 1877 to begin the picture, but he was unable to escape work commitments until the following year. On 9 April 1878 Princess Alice wrote to her mother that Von Angeli had arrived and would start work at once on preparatory studies of the heads. Princess Alice died on 14 December 1878, presumably before completion of the picture, and her likeness is close to the three-quarter-length study which Von Angeli had painted earlier in the year. The picture was brought over to Osborne House on 21 January 1879, where it provided comfort for the Queen in the months following her daughter's death. To Princess Victoria of Hesse the Queen wrote: 'The dear family picture is a great delight & comfort to me & so wonderfully – splendidly painted & grouped – so very like. I think Ella's expression is just hers & Ernie's an expression he very often has.'

[gabrielferaud]

Glaux Verlag Christine Jäger [German publishing house that was based in Jena at the time these were made] Napoleonic Playing Cards

♣️: Marshal Lannes, Empress Josephine, Napoleon

♠️: Prince Louis-Ferdinand of Prussia, Queen Louise, Frederick-William III

♥️: Marshal Kutuzov, Tsarina Elizabeth-Alexeievna, Tsar Alexander I

♦️: Prince Frederick-Louis of Hohenlohe, Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, Duke Karl August Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

[duchesssoflennox]

BEAUTIFUL PORTRAIT OF PRINCESS ALICE, GRAND DUCHESS OF HESSE 🩷💗

Princess Alice's Portrait on the right is a copy by Hartmann after a portrait-type, which originated with Von Angeli’s portrait of Princess Alice with her husband and children. Hartmann was paid £50 3s 8d for the copy on 31 August 1880, and it was placed in the Queen’s Sitting-Room at Osborne. The copy is probably the one which the Queen had been given by the Grand Duke on 31 March 1880, during her visit to Darmstadt: ‘an admirable copy (only the head) of Angeli’s picture of darling Alice’. The frame is by Thomas.

On the left side, there's a photo of Princess Alice, which was most likely taken by the painter Hartmann during the drawing of the portrait in 1880...🥰

Princess Alice (1843-78) was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Known for her sweet nature, she often took on the role of peacekeeper in the royal household. The marriage of her older sister, Princess Victoria, in 1858, left Alice as the eldest daughter at home, and the Queen and Prince Albert both turned to her for company. In a popular edition of Alice's letters to the Queen, published in 1885, Princess Helena, her sister, described her as ‘loving Daughter and Sister, the devoted Wife and Mother, and a perfect, true Woman’. In 1862, she married Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse...❤️‍🩹🌅

[the-last-tsar]

"As she grew into a teenager, the best that the beautiful but poor Princess Alix of Hesse could have hoped for to relieve her from the unchallenging tedium of Darmstadt provincialism was marriage to a minor European princeling. But everything changed when on her first visit to Russia in 1884 (for the marriage of her sister Ella to Grand Duke Sergey Alexandrovich), Alix's third cousin, Nicholas Alexandrovich, heir to the Russian throne, had taken a shine to her. He was sixteen and she was only twelve, but thereafter Nicky, as she would always call him, remained besotted. Five years later, when Grand Duke Louis took Alix back to Russia on a six-week visit, Nicky was still stubbornly determined to win her as his wife. The shy schoolgirl had become a slender, ethereally beautiful young woman and Nicky was deeply in love. But by now — 1889 — Alix had been confirmed in the Lutheran faith prior to coming out, and she made clear to Nicky that despite her deep feelings for him, marriage was out of the question. Virtue prevailed. She could not and would not change her religion, but she did agree to write to him in secret, their letters being sent via Ella as intermediary. The royal marriage stakes at that time were unforgiving to girls who did not grasp a golden opportunity when it presented itself; as one contemporary newspaper observed, 'Love in royal circles is not an epidemic affection'." It seemed that Alix's inflexibility was going to deprive her of the one thing so many of her young royal contemporaries craved — a marriage based on love and not expediency. To a forlorn Nicky there seemed an insurmountable gulf between them and he allowed himself to be temporarily distracted by other pretty faces. For her own part, Alix was enjoying a degree of status back home, as a big fish in the very small Hesse pond."

The Romanov Sisters | Helen Rappaport.

[graceofromanovs]

How the last Russian dynasty were related to European Monarchies (current and former):

The Royal House of Greece (House of Glücksburg-Greece, branch of the Danish House of Glücksburg) and the House of Holstein-Gottorp-Romanov (Imperial Dynasty of Russia) were related, their common ancestors were Landgrave Louis VIII of Hesse-Darmstadt, Duke Charles Louis Frederick of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Charles Frederick , Grand Duke of Baden and many others.

[foreverinthepagesofhistory]

Happy 153rd Birthday to Prince Friedrich “Frittie” of Hesse and By Rhine, October 7th 1870 ✨🖤

Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Hesse and By Rhine was born on October 7th 1870 in Darmstadt, Hesse. He was the 5th child and 2nd son of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and Princess Alice of Great Britain and Ireland. He was the brother of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna.

He was a very lively baby and loved playing with his siblings, especially his brother Ernst Louis who he was especially close with. When he was around 1 year old he was diagnosed with Hemophilia because of a fall. Hemophilia is a genetic blood disorder that doesn’t allow the blood to clot which means that any bump or bruise could cause a fatal hemorrhage.

When he was almost 3 years old in 1873 he was playing with his brother Ernie and his mother Alice in her bedroom. Ernie ran into the adjoining room and looked out of the window to wave to Frittie, and Alice went to fetch him to bring him back into the room. Unsupervised Frittie looked out of the open window to try to find his brother which resulted in him falling 20 feet. The fall turned out to be fatal and he died of a brain hemorrhage. He would have survived the fall if not for his Hemophilia.

Fly high Frittie ✨🕊️❤️‍🩹

[ykzzr]

Grand Duchess Eleonore of Hesse and by Rhine, Prince Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his wife, Hereditary Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine and Prince Louis of Hesse and by Rhine at the Bayreuth Festival in 1932.

[loiladadiani]

Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse (1868 - 1937)

Ernst Ludwig was the elder son of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He grew up with his four sisters (to whom he was very close) in Darmstadt. His only brother died in 1873 at the age of 3. One of his sisters was Alexandra, Empress of Russia.

He married his cousin Victoria Melita, Princess of Saxe Coburg and Gotha; they had two children, one stillborn boy and a beautiful girl, Elizabeth (Ella), who died of typhoid fever. The couple divorced after her death, and Ernest then married Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (nicknamed Onor by the family). The union produced two children: Louis, Prince of Hesse and By Rhine, and George Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine. George Donatus married Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark, and older sister of Prince Phillip (sometimes all roads seem to lead to our dear Prince Phillip.)

Photographs: 1. Ernst Ludwig, Onor, and their two children, George Donatus and Louis; 2. An older Ernst Ludwig, with his grandson.

[venicepearl]

Princess and Landgravine Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt (30 January 1757 – 14 February 1830) was a German princess. She was the daughter of Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. On 3 October 1775 she married duke (later grand-duke) Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and as such a member of the court sphere of Weimar Classicism. She was held to be serious and introverted but also compassionate and sympathetic, in the aftermath of the Battle of Jena which guaranteed her part in the later "myth of Weimar" ("Weimarmythos").

[princessvictoriamelita]

Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse and by Rhine on his wedding day, 19 April 1894.

[royalty-nobility]

Princess Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt (1761–1829)

Artist: Johann Friedrich Dryander (German, 1756–1812

Date: 1783

Medium: Pastel on paper

Collection: Schlossmuseum Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

Princess Louise Henriette

Princess Louise Henriette Karoline of Hesse-Darmstadt (15 February 1761 – 24 October 1829), was the first Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine by marriage.

Louise was a daughter of Prince George William of Hesse-Darmstadt (1722–1782) from his marriage to Countess Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Falkenburg (1729–1818), daughter of Count Christian Karl Reinhard of Leiningen-Dachsburg-Falkenburg-Heidesheim.

The princess was in 1770 in the entourage of Marie Antoinette, as they traveled to France for her marriage. Louise exchanged letters with the French queen until 1792.

Louise married on 19 February 1777 in Darmstadt, her cousin the then hereditary prince Louis I of Hesse-Darmstadt (1753–1830). Her husband ruled Hesse-Darmstadt from 1790 as Landgrave Louis X and from 1806 as Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Hesse and the Rhine.

Louise spent the summer months since 1783 in the State Park Fürstenlager, and died there in 1829. Here provided charity to the population Auerbach. The Grand Duchess was described as amiable and revered by the nation. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe stayed at her court and Friedrich Schiller read from his Don Carlos in her salon. It was said that Napoleon Bonaparte promised the beautiful Louise, whom he believed to be one of the cleverest women of her time, that he would give her a crown.