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

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