Princess Mathilde of Saxony, Duchess of Saxony (19 March 1863 – 27 March 1933) was the third child and third-eldest daughter of
George of Saxony and his wife,
Infanta
''Infante'' (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as Infant or translated as Prince, is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to ...
Maria Anna of Portugal. She was an elder sister of the
Kingdom of Saxony
The Kingdom of Saxony (german: Königreich Sachsen), lasting from 1806 to 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in French period, Napoleonic through German Confederation, post-Napoleonic Germany. The kingdom was ...
's last king,
Frederick Augustus III of Saxony
en, Frederick Augustus John Louis Charles Gustav Gregory Philip von Wettin
, image = Friedrich August III van Saksen.jpg
, caption = Frederick Augustus III (1914)
, succession = King of Saxony
, reign = 15 October 1904 – ...
.
Life
As a young girl, Mathilde was quiet and gentle, but she was not especially good-looking. Her father,
George of Saxony, had planned a marriage between Mathilde and
Archduke Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia, however Rudolf rejected this arrangement and instead married
Princess Stéphanie of Belgium.
It was then agreed that Mathilde would marry a nephew of
Emperor Franz Joseph I
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until hi ...
and the presumptive heir to the
Austro-Hungarian throne,
Archduke Franz Ferdinand. However, Franz Ferdinand rejected this arrangement. Dynastic relations between the Saxon royal family and the
Habsburgs
The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...
were once again strained when Franz Ferdinand chose to marry (
morganatically)
Sophie, Countess Chotek von Wognin. Relations between the two nations improved only when Mathilde's younger sister
Maria Josepha
Maria Josepha of Austria (Maria Josepha Benedikta Antonia Theresia Xaveria Philippine, pl, Maria Józefa; 8 December 1699 – 17 November 1757) was the Queen of Poland and Electress of Saxony by marriage to Augustus III. From 1711 to 1717, she ...
married her
second cousin,
Archduke Otto Franz of Austria.
Mathilde became embittered by these rejections and turned critical and waspish; she also turned to alcohol to ease her unhappiness, acquiring the nickname "Schnapps-Mathilde" for obvious reasons. She made life difficult for other members of the royal family, and as a consequence was the least popular of the family by a wide margin among the people of Saxony.
She was a talented painter and took lessons from the artist Alfred Diethe from 1890 to 1901. Some of her paintings, mainly landscapes and scenes of court life in Pillnitz, were made into prints. Others appeared on postcards, which were sold to raise money for charity.
Mathilde died unmarried on 27 March 1933 at the age of 70. She was interred in the ''New Tomb'' of the
Katholische Hofkirche in Dresden.
Ancestry
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mathilde Of Saxony, Princess
1863 births
1933 deaths
House of Wettin
Saxon princesses
Dames of the Order of Saint Isabel
Burials at Dresden Cathedral
Nobility from Dresden
German Roman Catholics
Albertine branch
Artists from Dresden
Daughters of kings