Der Ruhm und sein Preis

Glamour, money, intrigue and scandal defined the life of Hungarian portrait painter Vilma Parlaghy (1863-1924), 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 60, and is largely forgotten today – not least because she took her greatest work of art, her own person, with her to the grave.

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• Portraits of international high society
• Art and society around 1900