Mamarazza

The top one looks like lunch time chez Niles.

These are wonderful.

Prince Ludwig was obviously a menace behind the wheel. Accident in 1950, fatal one in 1962, and how many in between?

Anyway, the forest winter picnic is magnificent.

Every so often you spring these astounding photos on us. It’s almost enough to make one feel glad to be alive. The forest one is great, but I like the smoking prince. Ask him if he won’t start something rolling to make tobacco part of our cultural heritage.

Outstanding. And customary in these parts.

Great photos. The top one, the guzzling princess reminds me very much of one of my young cousins, who was also caught holding a champagne bottle the same way, for joking purposes. An adult saw her and made a comment before realizing there was only a few drops left in the bottle. the 1950 one really amazed me, the car is all smashed on the rrof yet the women’s outfits and hair, or headscarfs are in perfect shape! just like in the movies.

Dear Andrew,
For this post you deserve another donation. I’ll look for that PayPal button.
All the best.

My insuppressible modern American white guilt, liberal post-modern materialism, or some such complicated thing that lurks within me prompts me to comment:

I like these, but I wonder if I would find the topmost picture to be so charming if the children,rather than looking like tiny aristocrats, were instead poor and dirty.

I think I’d be inclined to pity or mock them as white trash and call for the lynching of their parents.

Why shouldn’t the poor have the same pleasures as the rich?
Come on, Mr Cusack, find us a photo of our Appalachian brothers in a similar pose.
I think that I at least would find it equally enchanting.

B T Van Nostrand: Funny you should mention Appalachia. That is where I am from. Specifically, the coal-rich foot hills of the middle Ohio Valley, where Kentucky and West Virginia rub uncomfortably against each other along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy river. Where the Hatfields and McCoys shot each other. And where dirty children drink and smoke. But I don’t think anyone has ever bothered to photograph them.

A winter picnic!! How lovely. :) I want to have one too!

Sara, you’re on!

But not in Finland. Too much snow for a winter picnic!

The photo showing princess Yvonne and prince Alexander remembers
me the happy days at Kogl castle (Upper Austria, owned by the
father of Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein, count Friedrich Mayr-Melnhof
) where we climbed together at the trees of the park in the early
fivetees…

The photo showing princess Yvonne and prince Alexander
remembers me the happy days at Kogl castle (Upper Austria,
owned by the father of Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein,
count Friedrich Mayr-Melnhof) where we climbed together
at the trees of the park in the early fivetees…

I found very interesting and pertinent the comment of Mister Wac (2 march 2011) about prinzess Yvonne and prinz alexander .
When i saw the picture for he first time (I had some exemplars under my eyes recently) I though ” wouah , is it an aristocratic bodega ? And people are now alarmed about children drinking and smoking !! hahaha !”
But certainly these beautiful children are not stoned or drunk. And They certainly have more fun that the appalachian children doing this. They play adults… Not to escape hungry stomac ..
BUT, I found Marianne zu Sayn_Wittgenstein-Sayn a great photographer !!!

Slightly intrigued, obsessed with Mamarazza ! These images so beautiful and telling. Thank you

When this was published Mamarazza was a hale and hearty 92. She is now 101.
Ad multis annos, Fürstin!

Thank you for sharing the images and background. Having lived in Berg/Bavaria, it’s quite normal to allow children to tipple. Any idea if it’s possible to purchase prints of Mamarazza’s photos?