Alexandra

ALEXANDRA OF BAVARIA ~ The Glass Princess

.

Alexandra was born on 26th August 1826 and was the daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his wife, Therese.

Alexandra only wore white clothes, and had a fixation with cleanliness.

When she was in her twenties, her family noticed she was acting strange.

She had started walking sideways, and being very careful with how she moved.

Her family asked her what she was doing, and her answer was a very unusual one....

She said that, as a child, she’d swallowed a glass piano whole, and if she wasn’t careful, it would shatter, as it was still fully intact. This was known as “the glass delusion”.

One famous case was Charles the Mad, King of France during the Hundred Years’ War, who sometimes believed he was made of glass.

The delusion was common among nobles, though it would become much rarer after Alexandra.

As a girl, her portrait was painted by Joseph Karl Stieler, for The Gallery Of Beauties.

Alexandra never married, but didn’t spend every moment thinking she was made of glass.

She wrote many books of stories throughout the rest of her life. Alexandra died on 21 September 1875 at the age of forty-nine.

She is buried in the Wittelsbach crypt in Munich.

.

https://theroyalwomen.com/2022/01/02/alexandra-of-bavaria/

.

https://ko-fi.com/thetudorintruders

.

Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler for the Gallery of Beauties 1845