Page - 81 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

The Absent Empress 81 father’s lap and Gisela leans upon his chair. The emperor’s arms extend around both children in a protective embrace. Compared to typical family carte de visite portraits, this photograph also suggests a lack: the missing mother. Franz Joseph’s wife, Empress Elisabeth (Fig. 2), was physically absent from Vienna in 1861, treating her “affected lungs” on the remote island of Madeira.3 This vague diagnosis and the choice of a destination so distant as to prevent visits from her husband fueled rumors within the Viennese court about the imperial couple’s marital strife and Elisabeth’s inability to perform her duties as empress. Court member Archduchess Maria Theresa Anna wrote, “One cannot get to the bottom of whether there is much or little wrong with her, since so many versions of Dr. Skoda’s pronouncements are told.”4 The diaries of Elisabeth’s mother-in-law, Archduchess Sophie, record her outrage with the empress, who, in Sophie’s opinion, “was unmindful of her obligations and […] was only sham- ming illness in order to escape winter and […] pursue her peculiar habits without Figure 1: Ludwig Angerer, Emperor Franz Joseph with Archduchess Gisela and Crown Prince Rudolf, c. 1861, carte de visite. Figure 2: Ludwig Angerer, Empress Elisabeth, 1860, carte de visite.