Princess Marie Auguste of Anhalt (10 June 1898, Ballenstedt – 22 May 1983, Essen), Princess Joachim of Prussia, later Baroness von Loën, daughter of Eduard, Duke of Anhalt and his wife Princess Louise Charlotte of Saxe-Altenburg. In 1916 she married Prince Joachim of Prussia, the youngest son of German Emperor William II, and they had one child, Prince Karl Franz. After the end of World War I and his father's abdication, Prince Joachim struggled to adjust to his altered status, and in 1920 the couple filed for divorce. In July of that same year, plagued by depression, he committed suicide. At his death, his brother Eitel Friedrich, took custody of his three-year-old nephew, claiming it as his right, as the legal head of the House of Hohenzollern. He accused Marie Auguste of being unfit, but the German courts returned Karl Franz to her full custody in 1921.
She remarried in 1926 to Johannes-Michael, Baron von Loën, a childhood friend, but they divorced in 1935. In her last years, she had financial difficulties, and "adopted" several adults, giving them a claim to her royal style in exchange for money. The best known of these adoptees, was Hans Robert Lichtenberg, who took the name of Frédéric, Prinz von Anhalt, and later married Zsa Zsa Gabor.
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All the documentation that I've been able to access identifies the sitter in these four photographs as Marie August of Anhalt. But honestly, as a portrait painter and a very adept "identifier of faces", I see little or no resemblance to earlier, verified photographs of Marie Auguste. It's possible that with the advent of the streamlined Twenties, she thought a good deal of slimming was in order; the woman in the images above does look like she may have been heavier at one time. Still, I do hope I haven't muffed it...!
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| Around the time of her marriage. |
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| With her son, Karl Franz. |
The chin, the mouth, cheekbones....I think you nailed it. What a great research project.
ReplyDeleteIt's a different Princess Joachim of Prussia--the morganatic wife of Princess Joachim ALBRECHT of Prussia. Because the Albrecht is usally left off, the photo is frequently identified as Princess Joachim (Anhalt). Prince Joachim Albrecht was a member of a subsidiary line of the Prussian royal family.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the information, KoriLaw!
DeleteSo would this be the wife of Wilhelm Friedrich Karl Ernst Joachim Albrecht of Prussia, 1876-1939? (Who was, apparently, a musician and composer.) He was married twice - perhaps both times moganatically? First, Marie von Blich-Sulzer (1872-1919) and, second, Karoline Kornelia Stockhammer (1891-1952), with whom he had four children. Would this be his second wife, then?
We must keep all this sort of thing straight! ; )