The Monument to Empress Elisabeth

Hidden monument to the Empress of Hearts

The monument to Elisabeth of Austria, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, unveiled in 1907, lies hidden in the Volksgarten. If you are looking from Ringstraße it is in the back left corner. It is the last monument to a Hapsburg to be erected in Vienna.

Emperor Franz Joseph I is said to have personally selected the location for the monument to his wife, who is murdered in 1898. And the portrait which provides the template for the seated figure of the Empress.

Elisabeth, who is crowned Queen of Hungary but never Empress, is portrayed without ruler attributes. A book, roses and 2 dogs left and right of her feet symbolise the private persona of Elisabeth behind the famed Hapsburg known as “Sisi”.

Which by all accounts is historically accurate. After the birth of her third son, the long-awaited heir to the throne Rudolf, in 1858, Elisabeth withdraws from suffocating court life by taking long vacations until her death.