France will seek support from other European Union countries for a minimum price on flights in Europe, in a bid to reduce the aviation sector’s contribution to climate change, Transport Minister Clement Beaune has said.
31.08.2023 - 20:08 / atlasobscura.com
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. Her rebellious nature has been depicted in films like Corsage and the chart-topping Netflix series The Empress. Yet, despite her popularity, Empress Sisi’s wedding dress has been veiled in secrecy for almost 200 years. Now, thanks to a series of clues, Austrian researcher Dr. Monica Kurzel-Runtscheiner may have solved the ancient sartorial puzzle.
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 archives in search of answers, but without much luck.
Then, in 2021, a breakthrough arrived. Dr. Kurzel-Runtscheiner 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
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