Daisy, Princess of Pless, by Boleslaw von Szankowski, circa 1917

The internet dates this portrait to 1917. I wonder. Seems odd that a British-born German would take the time to pose right in the middle of World War I.

Daisy, Princess of Pless (Mary Theresa Olivia; née Cornwallis-West; 28 June 1873, Denbighshire, Wales - 29 June 1943,Waldenburg, Silesia - today Wałbrzych, Poland), noted society beauty of the Edwardian period and, by marriage, a member of one of Europe's wealthiest noble families. At eighteen she married Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, Count of Hochberg, Baron of Fürstenstein (1861–1938), the owner of large estates and coal mines in Silesia. The couple had three sons. (A daughter, their first child, died at a month old.) Daisy was a fixture at both the British and German courts prior to World War I, known for her style and extravagant lifestyle and much written about by the international press. By the end of the war and the fall of the German Empire, though, the family was heavily in debt, much of their wealth squandered. Her husband having divorced her in 1922, Daisy went on to publish a series of rather indiscreet memoirs between 1929 and 1936. The books were quite popular, but she died in relative poverty at the age of sixty.

Partly obscured by her gauzy red wrap, the Princess is wearing a gold-colored Fortuny Delphos.

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Both her birth family, the Cornwallis-Wests, and the family she made with the Prince of Pless were known for their "marital irregularities." Her brother George Cornwallis-West married Jennie Churchill, the mother of Winston Churchill, as her second - twenty years her junior - husband, and only five days after their divorce in 1914, he married the actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell. Daisy's sister, Constance, married Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster, and a month after their divorce in 1919 - it was very amicable and he provided a record-setting alimony - she married her considerably younger private secretary and agent, James FitzPatrick Lewes.

Three years after divorcing Daisy, Hans Heinrich married a Spanish noblewoman and had two more children. The marriage was annulled in 1934 after it was discovered that Daisy and Hans Heinrich's youngest son, Bolko, had been seduced by his step-mother. Bolko and his ex-step-mother went on to marry that same year and had two children together - Daisy and Hans Heinrich's only grandchildren, as it turned out - but Bolko died only two months after the birth of his namesake son; he was just twenty-five.

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And then the marriage that didn't happen. In the summer of 1929, Daisy and the Dowager Queen Marie of Romania, friends in the pre-war days, became reacquainted after Marie received a copy of Daisy's newly published memoirs. Marie invited Daisy to visit and the latter took her middle son, Alexander - "Lexel" - with her. There, Lexel met Queen Marie's youngest daughter, Ileana, and the two promptly fell in love and were soon secretly engaged. Both mothers were happily supportive of the idea. But news of the engagement had gotten out, and the Romanian public and press felt differently, not thinking that the middle son of a minor German prince good enough for their popular young princess. Plans for the wedding were already underway, when the government intervened and instigated an investigation into Lexel's personal life. Quickly enough it was discovered that he'd been at the center of a homosexual scandal. It seems that he'd had relationships with several other young men. This had become known, and criminal charges had been brought. But the chief witness against him committed suicide in prison, and Lexel had been acquitted. Daisy tried to pass this all off as no more than a "boyish prank", but this was news the Queen of Romania couldn't ignore, and so she took her daughter and left the country, taking the royal yacht for a cruise to Egypt. The Romanian press had a field day when the reason for the rupture leaked out. Even so, both Lexel and Ileana made statements to the press that the wedding was still on. But soon enough, under pressure from the Romanian Foreign Office, came the statement from Lexel that he had "consented" to the breaking of the engagement.

Princess Ileana married Archduke Anton of Austria-Tuscany the following year. They had six children, were exiled more than once, and divorced in 1954. The next month, she married again - and divorced again eleven years later. In the meantime, she'd become an Orthodox nun and later founded her own monastery in Pennsylvania. She died at the age of eighty-two. Lexel never married. He served "with distinction" in Italy and North Africa during the Second World War. He appears to have enjoyed a fairly active gay lifestyle and died on Majorca at the age of seventy-nine.

Overblown and unpleasant kings - Wilhelm II and Carol II, portraits by de László

Emperor Wilhelm II, 1909-11.
Though recently repaired, the portrait still shows the marks of  five slashes apparently inflicted by Russian soldiers at the end of World War II.

The first grandchild of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, "Willy" suffered a birth injury that permanently damaged his left arm; many believe his disability, and others' reaction to it, severely affected his psychology. He was further warped by his early indoctrination into the all-pervasive Prussian military milieu, and manipulated by politicians who were opposed to the liberal ideas of his father, and who encouraged his increasingly arrogant and pompous behavior. He was eventually alienated from his parents, directing his anger and spite at his mother, especially. As an adult, he was decidedly a poseur, rarely appearing out of military uniform, and presenting himself in portraits as the personification of the most bombastic and bellicose form of kingship. Callous and vindictive, petty and dictatorial, fairly humorless, meddling. Oh, and World War I.

The painting before restoration. The central arch of the colonnade of the Communs, Neues Palais, Potsdam, can be seen in the background.

A finished sketch for the full-length portrait, 1909.

Two sketches for the portrait, circa 1908-11. Here, in the background, the Communs is shown from the same angle as in the photograph below.

In the studio: the artist, the horse, one of the artist's sons, and the unfinished painting, 1911.
At this stage, the building in the background still looks to be a view of a wing of the Communs rather than the colonnade.

Sketch of the borzoi included in the painting, though reversed. In the smaller sketch to the right of the dog, here, one can make out the
Emperor and the horse in the same configuration as in the final painting, but the dog - as here - is in a reversed position. Circa 1908-10.

Reference photograph with sketch of  the horse's head and the dog in its originally planned position. As in the finished painting,
the Communs of the Neues Palais can be seen in the background, though viewed from a different perspective.

Reference photograph. The Emperor is posed on the terrace of the Neues Palais, Potsdam.

1908.

1908.

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King Carol II of Romania, 1936.

A great-grandchild of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Carol grew up under the control of his great-uncle King Carol I, who spoiled the child and, at the same time, instilled a "profound love of German militarism". He also largely excluded the boy's parents from any role in his upbringing; Carol would eventually become alienated from his parents, especially his mother the vivacious, flamboyant Queen Marie. Lazy and apathetic, from his teenage years he became known for his romantic misadventures. At the age of twenty-four, second in line to the throne, he abandoned his army post in order to marry a commoner. The marriage was annulled seven months later, though the couple continued to live together; they even had a child the following year. Only a year later, he made a properly dynastic marriage to Princess Helen of Greece. (A second cousin and also a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.) Their only son was born soon after, but the marriage quickly soured, due to Carol's playboy lifestyle, his drinking and womanizing. Then he took up with the infamous Elena Lupescu, who would be his mistress (and finally wife) for the rest of his life, and Helen was finally compelled to divorce him in 1928. Before that, in 1925, because of his relationship with Lupescu, Carol had renounced his right to the throne in favor of his son and had gone to live in Paris with his mistress. Two years later, Carol's father died and his five year old son was proclaimed king. But only three years, later Carol returned to Romania in a coup d'état and took the throne from the boy. Inflicting many petty cruelties on his former wife and alienating his son, indulging in a sybaritic lifestyle, Carol managed to weather the vagaries of Romania politics and the encroachment of Hitler for ten years; it helped that he had a complete lack of scruples. But he was deposed in 1940, and Michael once again became king. Carol and Luspescu went into exile, first in Mexico, then settling permanently in Portugal.

Sketch for the official portrait.

The artist and model.

1936.

Four sisters - photographs of the daughters of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh

Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, later Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, was the second son of Queen Victoria. The duchess, the former Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, was the only daughter of Alexander II of Russia. The couple's first born, Alfred, died a suicide at the age of twenty-four. But they had four daughters: Marie "Missy" (29 October 1875 - 18 July 1938), later Queen of Romania; Victoria Melita "Ducky" (25 November 1876 - 2 March 1936), later Grand Duchess of Hessen und bei Rhein and, after that, Grand Duchess Kirill of Russia; Alexandra "Sandra" (1 September 1878 - 16 April 1942), later Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenberg; and Beatrice "Baby Bee" (20 April 1884 - 13 July 1966), later Infanta of Spain. The sisters were very close, the first three more so; they were only a year and two years apart in age. Beatrice was six year younger than her closest sibling and doesn't always appear in these group portraits.

Victoria Melita, Alexandra, Marie.

Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra. Though second born, Victoria Melita was always dominant among the sisters.

Alexandra, Victoria Melita, Marie.

Victoria Melita, Alexandra, Marie.

Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra.

Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra.

Beatrice, Victoria Melita, Alexandra, Marie.

Victoria Melita, Marie, Alexandra, Beatrice. Victoria Melita and Marie had by far the closest bond among the four.

Alexandra, Beatrice, Victoria Melita, Marie.

Beatrice, Marie, Alexandra, Victoria Melita. From a portrait by Friedrich August von Kaulbach, circa 1900.

Beatrice, Marie, Victoria Melita.

Marie, Victoria Melita, Alexandra.

Alexandra, Marie, Beatrice, Victoria Melita.

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Addendum 4/5/2021:

Kaulbach's portrait of the four sisters, seen above in a reproduction from a vintage postcard, originally hung in the dining room of the Edinburgh Palace in Coburg. Unseen for many decades, it was thought that it might actually be lost. Only recently has it been confirmed as being safely held in the private collection of a family descendant.