Sisi’s stars – The famous jewels Empress Elisabeth wore in her hair
1865
Empress Elisabeth ordered a set of twenty-seven stars made of diamonds and pearls from the Vienna jewellers Köchert and Pioté. She gave some of the stars to her ladies-in-waiting, while the rest were left to members of her family. For example, Archduchess Elisabeth, the daughter of Crown Prince Rudolf, wore the stars for her wedding in 1902. Sisi’s stars are immortalized in the well-known portrait which Franz Xaver Winterhalter painted of the empress.
