MATHILDE KSCHESSINSKA | “My Life Was Beautiful” with Eugene Barilo von Reisberg

Wednesday 21 May 2014, 10:15 AM – 11:45 AM

Few stars of the Russian Imperial Ballet shone as brightly off the stage as Mathilde Kschessinska. The Prima Ballerina counted the Emperor and Grand Dukes among her admirers; amassed a fabulous fortune and sumptuous collection of jewels; and lived in one of the most elegant mansions in St Petersburg … only to lose it all in the Russian Revolution. However, in exile she was able to marry the man she loved and establish a dance studio which trained ballet stars of the next generation.

EUGENE BARILO VON REISBERG is a writer, researcher, and art consultant. He is an internationally acknowledged authority on Franz Xaver Winterhalter, the nineteenth-century elite portrait specialist, and he is currently completing a doctoral thesis on the artist at the University of Melbourne

photographer unknown, Mathilde Kschessinska, carte-de-visite, 1897, private collection

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