Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria (1892–1930)

Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska Marie Karoline Ignatia Salvator (27 January 1892 – 29 January 1930) was the eldest daughter of Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria and Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria. Through her mother, she was a granddaughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria and through her father, she was a descendant of King George II of Great Britain.

Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska
Countess of Waldburg, of Zeil and Hohenems
Elisabeth Franziska of Tuscany at age 22
Born(1892-01-27)27 January 1892
Vienna, Austria-Hungary
Died29 January 1930(1930-01-29) (aged 38)
Syrgenstein, Austria
SpouseGeorg, Graf von Waldburg zu Zeil und Hohenems
IssueCountess Marie Valerie
Countess Klementine
Countess Elisabeth
Count Franz Josef
Names
German: Elisabeth Franziska Marie Karoline Ignatia
HouseHabsburg-Lorraine
FatherArchduke Franz Salvator of Austria
MotherArchduchess Marie Valerie of Austria

Biography edit

 
Photograph of Elisabeth Franziska and her sister Archduchess Hedwig, 1912

She was born in Vienna on 27 January 1892 to Archduke Franz Salvator of Austria and his wife, Archduchess Marie Valerie, youngest daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.[1] She married at Niederwallsee on 19 September 1912 Georg Count von Waldburg zu Zeil und Hohenems (1878–1955). The marriage was one of love and not a political marriage. Georg von Waldburg had no money or property, and had been hired as a tutor for her brothers.[2]

They had four children, three daughters and a son:

  • Countess Marie Valerie von Waldburg-Zeil (28 June 1913 – 8 July 2011), married Archduke Georg of Austria, Prince of Tuscany (1905–1952) in 1936. He was the younger son of Archduke Peter Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Princess Maria Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
  • Countess Klementine von Waldburg-Zeil (5 October 1914 – 24 September 1941), unmarried and without issue.
  • Countess Elisabeth von Waldburg-Zeil (23 February 1917 – 18 June 1979), unmarried and without issue.
  • Count Franz Josef von Waldburg-Zeil (7 March 1927 – 31 August 2022), married Countess Priscilla of Schönborn-Wiesentheid in 1956. They had seven children.

Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska was a painter for some time. She died, aged 38, of pneumonia on 29 January 1930. Her widower remarried nearly two years later, on 29 December 1931, to her younger sister Gertrud.

Ancestry edit

References edit

  1. ^ Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, ed. (1977). Burke's Royal Families of the World. Burke's Peerage. p. 348.
  2. ^ "Archduchess Weds Tutor. Emperor Francis Joseph Said to Have Helped the Love Affair". The New York Times. September 19, 1912. Retrieved 2010-08-22. The marriage of the Archduchess Elizabeth Franziska, daughter of the Archduke Francis Salvator, to Count George von Waldburg at Vienna to-day added another romance to the many in the records of the house of Hapsburg [sic].

External links edit