Queen Olga of Württemberg (Winterhalter)

Queen Olga
	Franz Xaver Winterhalter , 19th century
	Oil on canvas

The portrait of Queen Olga of Württemberg is a painting by Franz Xaver Winterhalter , whose whereabouts after a theft is unknown.

history

Winterhalter portrayed Queen Olga , the sovereign of Württemberg , several times. Among other things, he created two each about 1.50 meters tall paintings that Olga and her husband Charles I showed. The Queen's portrait originally hung in a Catherine pen. Press reports equated this monastery with the Queen Katharina Monastery in Stuttgart , but it was probably the Katharinenstift in Bad Wildbad, which was rebuilt in 1870 under King Karl and demolished in 1968 . After this demolition, the picture, together with the portrait of Karl, was stored in the attic of the Eberhardsbad in Wildbad and finally transferred to a storage room of the New Eberhardsbad. The paintings were apparently forgotten until it was discovered in 1986 that only the original frames were still stored in the storage room, from which the canvas had been expertly removed.

In 2006 it became known that a hitherto unknown Winterhalter portrait of the queen was going to be auctioned at Christie's . Hopes that it was the painting that was stolen in Wildbad were immediately dashed, however, as it was a picture that Olga showed in a private atmosphere, whereas the portrait that had once hung in the Katharinenstift was apparently more representative Purposes had been painted. In addition, the origin of the painting to be auctioned - it came from the House of Baden - could be completely proven and it was obviously also significantly more valuable than the missing painting: While Christie's in 2006 planned to set a starting price of 1 to 1.5 million pounds, that was missing Winterhalter from Wildbad in the 1980s was only estimated at around 20,000 DM.

Winterhalter portraits of Queen Olga

Web links

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Individual evidence

↑ Olga remains missing , in: Pforzheimer Zeitung, April 8, 2006. The demolition of the building in 1968 is mentioned in the text. This doesn't go with the Stuttgart Katharinenstift, but it does with the one in Wildbad. It is also more likely that the picture was transferred from the broken pen in Wildbad to the neighboring bath than from the state capital in the Black Forest.

[1] Olga remains missing , in: Pforzheimer Zeitung, April 8, 2006. The demolition of the building in 1968 is mentioned in the text. This doesn't go with the Stuttgart Katharinenstift, but it does with the one in Wildbad. It is also more likely that the picture was transferred from the broken pen in Wildbad to the neighboring bath than from the state capital in the Black Forest.