Elizabeth Kerri Mahon

While researching the lives of both Jane Digby and Lola Montez for my book SCANDALOUS WOMEN, I discovered that they had two things in common:  they both were both mistresses of Ludwig I of Bavaria and both had their portraits included in his Gallery of Beauties. The Gallery of Beauties is a collection of 36 portraits of some of the most beautiful women from Munich's nobility and middle classes. They were painted between 1827 and 1850, mainly by Joseph Karl Stieler who was appointed the court painter in 1820.  Ludwig gathered the portraits in the south pavilion of the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich.  The gold-and-white room with its stucco-work sopraportas was originally used as a small dining room. It was then redesigned by Andreas Gärtner, father of the architect Friedrich von Gärtner. This is a portrait of Jane Digby, Lady Ellenborough (1807 - 1881) as she was then, painted around 1831.  Jane ended up in Munich after the end of a love affair with t...

October 1846 saw Lola heading for Bavaria, eager to put the past behind her and to earn some much needed money. Although Dujarier had left her 20,000 pounds, Lola had a lavish lifestyle. It was in Bavaria that Lola would achieve her greatest triumphs and tragedies, and pass into history as a legend. After auditioning for the State Theatre, Lola was told her dancing might cause moral offence by the theater's manager. He'd heard rumors of her scandalous performances elsewhere. Determined to defend her reputation, and probably banking on Ludwig being taken by her allure, Lola stormed the palace unannounced to plead with the King Ludwig of Bavaria himself for help. There is a legend that Lola cut the strings of her bodice with a letter opener when the King asked her if her bosoms were real. No matter what really happened, Lola got her wish. The King agreed to let her dance and, ironically, Lola made her debut in a play called The Enchanted Prince. At the time that they met, Lola wa...

'Her name was Lola, she was a showgirl, With yellow feathers in her hair and a dress cut down to there She would merengue and do the cha-cha But while she tried to be a star ," Copacabana by Barry Manilow. 'She is fatal to any man who dares to love her,' Alexandre Dumas, pere. "I have known all the world has to give -- ALL!" Lola Montez shortly before her death in 1861. She is considered one of the first tabloid celebrities, the 19th Century's answer to Madonna. Her lovers included Franz Liszt and the King of Bavaria. She was an actress, a writer, a lecturer, and the most famous Spanish dancer in the world who couldn't actually dance. Later in her life, she was able to charge more for her lectures than Charles Dickens. Her name? Lola Montez. In her lifetime, she claimed to be the illegimate daughter of Byron, the daughter of Carlists from Spain, the daughter of a Spanish grandee stolen by gypsies, and many others, but the reality was far simpler an...