The Hapsburg Imperial Bridal Veil
By Karen Thompson, volunteer, Textiles, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.
Also, see: http://blog.americanhistory.si.edu/osaycanyousee/2011/06/the-finer-details-of-the-hapsburg-imperial-bridal-veil.html
The spectacular Austrian Imperial Bridal Veil was made for the wedding of Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince Rudolf in Vienna in 1881. (Photo courtesy National Museum of American History)
The center back of the veil is decorated with the coats-of-arms of Belgium and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Twenty-one coats-of-arms, graduated in size, form a garland along the sides and lower edge of the veil. On the right side of the central coat-of-arms of Belgium, the lion, are the coats-of-arms of the provinces of Belgium: Antwerp, Brabant, West Flanders, East Flanders, Hainaut, Liége, Luxembourg, Limburg and Namur. At the upper end the coat-of-arms of Brussels is added to bring the total to ten to balance the left side, where the border of the veil is embellished with the coats-of-arms of ten of the Austro-Hungarian provinces (Herrschaften): Bohemia, Old and New Hungary, Lombardy and Venice, Galicia, Austria under the Enns, Salzburg, Transylvania, Styria and Carinthia, Moravia and Silesia, and Tyrol. Illyriahas been omitted to balance the design. The coats-of-arms of Brussels (St Michael with the dragon) are located at an angle on both sides, inside the border. The central part of the veil is covered with elaborate ferns, lilies, roses and other floral motifs on the gossamer fine ground powdered with the tiniest of dots. The portion that covers the head is enhanced with a pattern of small, delicate rosebud motifs. The entire veil is bordered with a beautiful array of lace flowers.
(Belgian Coat-of-arms. Photo by author.)
Handmade lace rarely shows the date and place of construction, but worked in needle lace at the sides of the veil’s central Belgian lion motif are “Bruxelles 1880” and “Léon Sacré”. Queen Marie Henriette had commissioned Léon Sacré, a famous Brussels lace merchant in the 19th century, to have the veil designed and made by the best Flemish needle lace makers for her daughter’s wedding. Stéphanie writes in her Memoir I Was to Be Empress, 1937, London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson: “My mother devoted herself indefatigably to the preparation of my trousseau, which was to be as complete and costly as possible.”
The veil is 100 inches wide and 123 inches long (8⅓ feet by 10¼ feet or 2.5 meters by 3.1 meters) and constructed entirely in variations of tiny buttonhole stitches made with a needle and very fine 2-ply, S-twisted cotton thread. The Flemish lacemakers made about 28 stitches and 33 rows per square inch in the open ground between the motifs and 88 stitches and 102 rows in some of the denser parts. It is a beautiful tribute to their lace making skills. “For months the girls and women of Flanders had been busying their nimble fingers in the preparation of masterpieces of lace, intended for their Princess”, writes Stéphanie. The approximate size of the cotton thread used is 180/2 or about 80 threads in one centimeter (315 threads in one inch) if you place the threads snuggly side by side.
Princess Stéphanie of Belgium and Crown Prince Rudolf of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were married in Vienna on May 10, 1881 when Stéphanie was barely 17 years old. Princess Stéphanie: “My wedding dress, made of heavy silver brocade, was a marvel of beauty, with garlands and silver roses embroidered on the long train. A veil of Brussels lace, a gift from the town of Brussels, was fastened by a diamond brooch. Myrtles and orange-blossoms were interwoven with the magnificent diadem which Emperor Franz Josef had given me. I wore, too, the Order of the Star and Cross. It was fastened to a plastron sparkling with diamonds, once worn by Empress Maria Theresa. In my hand I held a beautiful prayer book, its binding made of exquisite lace.” No close-up photos of the wedding dress with the veil have been located.
Rudolf and Stéphanie had a daughter Elisabeth Marie, born in 1883, but no son who could become heir to the Hapsburg throne. Stéphanie and Rudolf’s marriage was unhappy and ended with his suicide at Mayerling in 1889. Archduke Franz Ferdinand then became heir to the Hapsburg throne, but his assassination in 1914 in Sarajevo precipitated World War I and the end of the Hapsburg Empire. Seven hundred years after Rudolf I founded the Hapsburg Empire in 1218 the last Hapsburg emperor was deposed in 1918. The new Austrian government confiscated all Hapsburg property, making life difficult for Princess Stéphanie and her daughter Elisabeth. To pay for living expenses the women likely sold personal belongings, including the Hapsburg Imperial Bridal veil.
Mrs. Marjorie Merriweather Post, then Hutton, bought the lace veil in ca. 1925 for the wedding of her daughter Adelaide.
But: From whom? exactly when? and how much did she pay?
An article in the Needle and Bobbin Club Bulletin in 1925 describes “…the wedding veil of Hapsburgs, worn by three unhappy brides of that household”… This is questionable, and probably stems from incorrect information given to Mrs. Post when she bought the veil. According to the provenance given to the Smithsonian with the veil in 1964: “The Austrian Imperial Bridal Veil, known as the Hapsburg Lace, being the wedding veil of point de Bruxelles on a ground of cobwebby point d’Aguille, which veil was made in Belgium during the Eighteenth Century and presented to Isabella of Parma on the occasion of her marriage to Emperor Joseph II in 1760, and was subsequently worn at various Imperial weddings.”
It is correct that the veil was made in Belgium of Brussels needle lace “point de Bruxelles… point d’Aguille”. However, this type of needle lace, currently most commonly known as “point de Gaze” was not made until the middle of the 19th century, and the date 1880 is incorporated into the lace along with “Bruxelles” and “Léon Sacré”. Moreover, the central motif is the Austro-Hungarian coat-of-arms used from 1867 to 1918. The Hapsburg veil was made for Princess Stéphanie in 1880. Their daughter Elisabeth Marie of Austria could theoretically have worn it at her wedding to Otto Weriand of Windisch-Grätz on Jan 23, 1902. But it was sold before anybody in the next generation was married.
Marjorie Merriweather Post’s oldest daughter Adelaide Brevoort Close (1908-1998) wore the veil over a short dress and a long train at her January 19, 1927 wedding to Thomas “Tim” Welles Durant in New York. The veil was fastened with small clusters of orange blossoms at either side of her head. Mrs. Post donated the veil to the Smithsonian Institution in 1964. It is currently on temporary loan to the Hillwood Estate, Museum & Gardens where it can be seen in an exhibit of wedding fashions worn by the Post family from 1874 to 1958. See: http://www.hillwoodmuseum.org/exhibitions/WeddingBelles/Exhib.html Wedding photos and a short silent movie of the 1927 wedding are included in the exhibit.
The Austrian Imperial wedding veil has been on display several other times since Mrs. Post bought it. The Bobbin and Needle Club displayed it with laces and jewels in Pierre Cartier’s galleries at 653 Fifth Ave, New York during the third week of Nov. 1925. From there it went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY during December 1925 and part of January 1926. (Needle and Bobbin Club Bulletin”, Vol. 9, #2, 1925)
From May to November 1980 the bridal veil was exhibited with Belgian Lace at the Renwick Museumin Washington, DC. And the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York borrowed the veil for a display from June to November, 1982. Hillwood exhibited the Hapsburg veil from 1986 to 1990. From June 7, 2001 to January 20, 2002 the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire Bruxelles (Brussels Art and History Museum) displayed the veil with other Belgian wedding laces from the 19th through the 21st Centuries. (Coppens, Marguerite, La Mariée…Princesse d’un jour, Elke bruid is een prinses) After the current display at Hillwood, the veil will return to the Smithsonian Institution, American History Museum, where a portion of it may be seen during monthly behind-the-scenes lace tours. Please call 202-633-3826 to sign up.
LaceNews 
Karen sends these notes on how to find the ‘Leon Sacre and the Bruxelles 1880 date on her photo. Follow the directions carefully, it’s not easy, but I found them. The words are rather small. :
Looking at the center shield of the Belgian lion, there is a ring of
floral motifs along the lower edge. Between those and the large
flowers next to them, you can see Leon Sacre on the left and Bruxelles
1880 on the right.
More notes from Karen on the conservation of the Veil at the Smithsonian:
About the conservation: Before the veil was approved for the current loan we spread it out on a very large table, where the textile conservator examined it carefully and noted tears and repairs. I made a small sample of point de gaze needle lace mesh for her with approximately the same size thread as had been used for the veil. She cut a thread in this sample to see what would happen. She concluded that repairing the small tears in the veil would create more damage than leaving them alone. Some tears have been repaired at an earlier date. The veil is in amazingly good shape. It has been worn at least twice, and fastened to the hair of the brides with a diamond brooch for Princess Stephanie and with clusters of orange blossoms for Adelaide. In both cases, the veil rested on a long train, but was not supported on the brides’ heads.
And more notes from Karen on her research as to how this veil might have been purchased :
It is a possibility that she could have bought the veil from Marian Powys. The Hillwood curator and registrar both say that they don’t have any information. That is surprising, as Mrs. Post kept meticulous records – this certainly warrents further investigation. I have checked the archives at the Smithsonian, and there is nothing about the purchase in them. There is an appraisal letter from Mary Albert Ellis of Mme. Helen G. Albert appraisers in New York from June 24, 1964, after the veil was donated to the Smithsonian. It has the same erroneous information about the veil as was in the Needle and Bobbin Club bulletin in 1925. She estimated the value to $60,000 (in 1964). Mrs. Post donated the veil and two other
important pieces af lace to the Smithsonian in 1964. (This was at the time she was divorcing her fourth husband, Mr. Herbert Arthur May). An undated and unsigned photocopy of a page attached to the appraisal letter for one of the other pieces says “purchased from Grande Maison de Binne” The photocopy in the museum archives is very weak, and I am not completely sure itsays “Binne” . I have been unsuccessful finding any references to Grande Maison de Binne or Rinne, and am not at all sure the veil was bought at the same time or the same place as the “Louise-Marie flounce” (first Queen of the Belgians, wife of Leopold I).
Mrs. Post was not married to European aristocracy, but had plenty of money of her own, inherited from her father -the Post cereal fortune. All four of her husbands were also very wealthy. She was married to Mr. E. F. Hutton when she bought the veil. Her third husband, Mr. Davies, was ambassador to the Soviet Union. While living there she accumulated an impressive collection of Russian art.