Der Ruhm und sein Preis

Glamour, money, intrigue and scandal defined the life of Hungarian portrait painter Vilma Parlaghy ( 8 3- 924), who owed her reputation to the rejection of her works by the major Berlin Art Expositions and to a gold medal she received from Kaiser Wilhelm II. Emperors, kings, ministers, and industrial magnates posed for her, and marriage to a Russian aristocrat earned her the appellation " Painter Princess" . After her divorce, she continued her career in America, where she painted portraits of steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, President Theodore Roosevelt, and the ingenious inventor Nikola Tesla. She became a millionaire but lost everything in the end. She died in New York at the age of , and is largely forgotten today – not least because she took her greatest work of art, her own person, with her to the grave. Portraits of international high society Art and society around 9