Small Salon Seating Group of aristocratic provenance, designed by Josef Hoffmann.

The so-called ​“Fle­d­er­maus Gruppe”, named after the cabaret ​“Fle­d­er­maus” (“Bat”) in Vien­na (see ref­er­ence images of the cabaret below). The seat­ing group, pol­ished in black shel­lac, con­sists of four chairs, the so-called ​“Fle­d­er­maus” arm­chair (by Kohn Mod. No. 728), and a round table, all exe­cut­ed in beech and bent beech­wood. The small seat­ing group has been new­ly uphol­stered and cov­ered in Alcantara.

Prove­nance:

Court lady to Empress Elis­a­beth Marie Count­ess Fes­tet­ics de Tol­na. Mária Fes­tet­ics, born on Octo­ber 20, 1839, in Tol­na, Tol­na Coun­ty, Hun­gary; Died on April 17, 1923, in Söjtör, Zala Coun­ty, Hungary.

After much hes­i­ta­tion, Marie Fes­tet­ics was appoint­ed court lady to the Empress in 1871 at the urg­ing of Count Andrássy and Fer­enc Deák von Kehi­da. Hav­ing heard rumors about the dif­fi­cult Empress, she feared she would no longer be able to lead her own life, but she soon found favor with Elis­a­beth and remained as her court lady until her death. Since Elis­a­beth did not want to do with­out her, Marie had to reject count­less mar­riage pro­pos­als at the Empress’s request, and when Marie once seri­ous­ly fell in love with a Russ­ian prince, Elis­a­beth for­bade her to accept his proposal.

Marie quick­ly became one of the Empress’s clos­est con­fi­dantes, per­haps one could say her friend, for whom she, as well as for her home­land Hun­gary, aban­doned her fam­i­ly plans. Count­ess Fes­tet­ics was con­sid­ered an excep­tion­al­ly beau­ti­ful and par­tic­u­lar­ly intel­li­gent woman at the Aus­tri­an court. Her fore­sight, insight into human nature, and keen obser­va­tion­al skills were praised and admired in many quarters.

One of the sig­nif­i­cant his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments of this time at the Aus­tri­an court is the diary of Count­ess Fes­tet­ics, in which she metic­u­lous­ly record­ed all events and often depict­ed them unadorned.

It is a valu­able his­tor­i­cal source that not only details life at the Hab­s­burg court but also describes the life of the Empress in detail. The Fes­tet­ics diary is now housed in the Széchényi Nation­al Library in Budapest…

Elis­a­beth’s biog­ra­ph­er Cor­ti par­tic­u­lar­ly empha­sized Marie Fes­tet­ics’ extra­or­di­nary insight into human nature, which is evi­dent in her writ­ings. Cor­ti: ​“It is remark­able how this woman always sens­es in advance which per­son­al­i­ties will lat­er have an unfor­tu­nate influ­ence on her mis­tress. The Count­ess records her con­cerns on the same day that these per­son­al­i­ties enter the Empress’s life in her diary; so it is not a ret­ro­spec­tive judg­ment but shows that this woman has a cor­rect instinct, an enor­mous­ly sharp obser­va­tion, and out­stand­ing men­tal capac­i­ties. While Mrs. von Fer­enczy is unlim­it­ed­ly faith­ful, mod­est, and devot­ed, Count­ess Fes­tet­ics is undoubt­ed­ly the most intel­lec­tu­al­ly advanced and sharpest woman in the cir­cle grad­u­al­ly assem­bled around Elisabeth.”

Brigitte Hamann under­scores the devo­tion of the lady-in-wait­ing to her Empress. In the Fes­tet­ics diary, there are rhap­sod­ic entries such as (1872): ​“She is the embod­i­ment of the con­cept of love­li­ness. Some­times I think she is a lily, then again: a swan, a fairy, or an elf.”

Marie Fes­tet­ics was excep­tion­al­ly loy­al in her diary entries — occa­sion­al­ly, she expressed out­rage over gos­sip sto­ries with­out includ­ing their con­tent in her diary and remarked, for exam­ple: ​“I would nev­er for­give myself for pre­serv­ing such a sto­ry from obliv­ion! Ter­ri­ble!” Despite all the admi­ra­tion and loy­al­ty, Marie Fes­tet­ics often crit­i­cized the Empress’s behav­ior sharply and not­ed in 1873, for exam­ple: ​“She is an enthu­si­ast, and her main occu­pa­tion is brood­ing. […] She need­ed an occu­pa­tion, and since the only one she could have is con­trary to her nature, every­thing lies dor­mant with­in her.” Cor­ti: ​“The Count­ess nev­er tires of putting her­self in her mis­tress’s shoes.”

Over the years, Marie (along­side Ida von Fer­enczy, who held the title of ​‘Empress’s Read­er’) became Elis­a­beth’s most pop­u­lar court lady and con­stant com­pan­ion. The work as a court lady, who Elis­a­beth had to accom­pa­ny on her numer­ous trav­els and hikes, became too exhaust­ing for Marie Fes­tet­ics over the years. ​“I am dead tired,” she wrote in her diary in 1882 after a long hike. There­fore, in Jan­u­ary 1883, Char­lotte von Majlath was appoint­ed court lady and com­pan­ion to the Empress at the Vien­nese court. In 1890, anoth­er Hun­gar­i­an, the 24-year-old Count­ess Jan­ka Mikes, was appoint­ed court lady, who seemed bet­ter suit­ed to the Empress’s high sport­ing ambi­tions. She was fol­lowed in 1894 by Irma Sztáray as court lady and com­pan­ion on the Empress’s hikes. Marie Fes­tet­ics, along with Ida von Fer­enczy, was trans­ferred to the ​“indoor service.”

Marie Fes­tet­ics was dis­traught after the Empress’s assas­si­na­tion and wrote to Ida Fer­enczy: ​“We will mourn a lot togeth­er, Ida, the best belonged to us. No one will rob us of that, it is a jew­el — we always loved her, not like many who only real­ized it when the dag­ger pierced her heart.”

After the Empress’s death, Marie Fes­tet­ics had to vacate her apart­ment in the Hof­burg. She moved to an apart­ment in the third dis­trict of Vien­na, which she had bought ear­li­er. Ida von Fer­enczy, who suf­fered the same fate, lived in a neigh­bor­ing apart­ment. After the Empress’s death, Marie Fes­tet­ics spent a lot of time on her estate in Söjtör, went on trips, vis­it­ed many places that she once vis­it­ed with Elis­a­beth. She usu­al­ly spent the win­ters in Vien­na, in her apart­ment on Reis­ner­straße. There she vis­it­ed Emper­or Franz Joseph annu­al­ly short­ly after New Year’s Day. She sold her Vien­na apart­ment short­ly before her death, which occurred in Söjtör.

Lit­er­a­ture / Quotes:

• Gudu­la Wal­ter­skirchen, Beat­rix Mey­er (eds.): ​“The Diary of Count­ess Marie Fes­tet­ics. Empress Elis­a­beth’s Most Inti­mate Friend.” Res­i­denz-Verl. St. Pöl­ten 2014

• Katal­in Béres, Beat­rix Mey­er: ​“My beloved qui­et Söjtör. Fes­tet­ics Mária court lady and fam­i­ly.” Söjtör 2014, (Hun­gar­i­an)

• Egon Cae­sar Con­te Cor­ti: ​“Elis­a­beth, the Strange Woman. Accord­ing to the writ­ten lega­cy of the Empress, the diaries of her daugh­ter, and oth­er unpub­lished diaries and doc­u­ments.” Pustet, Salzburg, and oth­ers, 1934

• Brigitte Hamann: ​“Elis­a­beth. Empress against her will.” Revised new edi­tion, paper­back edi­tion, 10^th edi­tion. Piper, Munich, and oth­ers 2008, (Piper series 2990)

• Beat­rix Mey­er, ​“Empress Elis­a­beth and her Hun­gary.” Allit­era, Munich 2019

• From the diary of a lady-in-wait­ing (“From the diary of a lady-in-wait­ing”), diary entries of Maria Fes­tet­ics from Gödöl­lő and Budapest; Com­piled by Maria Kiss-Tol­nayné, Gödöl­lő 200

Please click HERE for anoth­er salon seat­ing group by Josef Hoff­mann in our col­lec­tion, which is also named after the cabaret ​‘Fle­d­er­maus’ in Vien­na. It con­sists of a bench, two arm­chairs, and four chairs.