Ernie and Onor - portraits of the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse by de László, 1907

Unfinished variant of the above portrait; the line around the figure suggests that there was thought to reshape the canvas into an oval format.

The very artistic Grand Duke got up in a fancy-dress turban.

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In 1894 Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine had been fairly railroaded into marriage with his first cousin Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha by their mutual grandmother Queen Victoria. The union was a disaster almost from the start, and the couple divorced in 1901 on grounds of "invincible mutual antipathy." Four years later, Victoria Melita married another first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich while, that same year, Ernst Ludwig married Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. Called Ernie and Onor in the family, the pair's first son, Georg Donatus, was born in 1906 and their second, Louis, two years later. The grand ducal couple endured war and political turmoil - and perhaps Ernst Ludwig's homosexual affairs - but lived very happily together until the Grand Duke's death in October of 1937. Only a month later, the dowager Grand Duchess was killed in a horrific plane crash that also claimed the lives of her eldest son, his pregnant wife Cecile - sister of the present Duke of Edinburgh - and their two young sons, Ludwig and Alexander.