Royal Wedding Dress

 Unveiling the Mystery of a Royal Wedding Dress Lost for 179 Years. After Austrian Empress Elisabeth married Emperor Franz Joseph in Vienna in 1854, her wedding dress disappeared. Commonly known as Sisi, the Empress has long been quite the celebrity in Europe. Knowledge of this dress has always been hidden. That’s because journalists, illustrators, or anyone who could chronicle the event were banned from the Imperial wedding. With no confirmed images or detailed descriptions of the gown, the dress became a mystery. One trace remained: a lavish dress train, believed to have been attached to the Empress’ wedding gown. This train is on display in Vienna’s Imperial Carriage Museum, of which Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner is the director.

Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner has been called the “huntress of the lost treasure,” and it’s a nickname she’s taken to. She’s investigated this particular case for years, trawling library 200 years. Now, thanks to a series of clues,may have solved the ancient sartorial puzzle.

In 2021, she received a tantalizing message. She was contacted by a stranger, Spanish freelance researcher Silvia Santibañez, who told her she’d found an obscure 1857 portrait of Elisabeth at the Silesian Museum in Opava, Czech Republic. In this painting, Sisi is wearing a wedding dress, including the train from the museum in Vienna. “I was thrilled,” says Dr Kurzel-Runtscheiner. “I finally had proof, other than family tradition, that Sisi actually wore our train at the time of her wedding. Moreover, it showed what the accompanying dress looked like, which previously could only be speculated on.”

Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner spent months decoding this painting, seeking confirmation it truly portrayed Sisi’s vanished dress. The 1857 portrait was unusual for two key reasons. Firstly, it was painted three years after the wedding. Secondly, it was not done by an Imperial court artist, as was tradition, but by a painter named Joseph Neugebauer. This could lead some people to believe the painting was not authentic. “But he shows the dress in such detail that he must have seen it—there is no other [painting, description, or] representation of the dress he could have used,” Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner says.But Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner didn’t end there—she wanted to make sure everyone could see the dress. So she put together a team.

First, she traveled to the Silesian Museum with photographers, who captured high-resolution images of the 1857 portrait. Then graphic designers at her Vienna museum used those photos, as well as the original dress train, to create a pattern repeat of Sisi’s gown.

“This enabled us to link the pattern visible in the painting to the embroidered structure of the preserved train,” Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner explains.

After months, her team then located someone who could print the pattern onto fabric: a man in Bavaria, Germany, who ran a small printing shop. They sent samples back and forth between Vienna and Bavaria until the fabric print was almost perfect.

Next, they took the fabric to a restorer in Vienna, who made—by hand—a full-sized replica of the dress.The recreated dress, along with the original 1857 portrait of Sisi wearing the dress, are on display at the Imperial Carriage Museum in Vienna

Source : Ronan O'Connell ,Atlasobscura,ICCOM