Few royal portraits are as instantly recognisable as Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s 1865 painting of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi. She stands in a pale, off-the-shoulder gown, her famously long chestnut hair woven into an elaborate style and scattered with small, glittering stars. As Vanity Fair Italia recalls this week, those stars were not painter’s decoration but real jewels, and their story includes one of the oddest thefts in the history of royal jewellery.
A set of 27 stars that could change shape
Sisi married Emperor Franz Joseph in 1854 and quickly became admired for her beauty and style. The emperor commissioned a set of 27 diamond stars for her from the Viennese court jewellers, most notably Alexander Emanuel Köchert, whose family firm still makes star jewels inspired by the originals today. Not every star was the same: some had eight points and some ten, and some were set with a single pearl at the centre while others were all diamonds.
A story kept by the Köchert house says the idea came from the theatre, after the empress saw Mozart’s The Magic Flute and was taken with the star-covered costume of the Queen of the Night. Whatever the inspiration, the stars were cleverly practical. Each could be worn alone as a brooch or pendant, several could be joined into a necklace, or they could be combined into a tiara. Worn through her braids, they let Sisi wear diamonds without a crown, and diamond stars in the hair soon became fashionable among Europe’s aristocracy.
The star that went missing
Over the years Sisi gave some stars away to ladies-in-waiting and relatives, and the set later passed to her granddaughter, Archduchess Elisabeth Marie, who wore them at her wedding in 1902. Many have since been scattered among heirs and private collections.
In June 1998, during an exhibition at Schönbrunn Palace marking 100 years since the empress’s death, a ten-pointed star with a central pearl, lent by a private owner and by then converted into a brooch, was taken from a secure display case and replaced with a copy. The swap reportedly went unnoticed for around a month. The real jewel turned up in Winnipeg in 2007 during a Canadian police investigation into a series of bank thefts, and the Canadian Gerald Blanchard was later sentenced. The star returned to Austria in 2008 and was afterwards acquired for the Sisi Museum in Vienna’s Hofburg, where it is now on display.
More than 160 years on, the stars remain a reminder that one versatile piece can be worn many ways. For a little of that spirit, explore our pendant necklaces, sparkling earrings and coordinated jewellery sets.
Sources: Vanity Fair Italia, “La principessa Sissi aveva 27 stelle di diamanti…” (26 October 2026); Vienna Online (vienna.at), “Gestohlener Diamantstern kehrt ins Sisi-Museum zurück”; Die Presse, “Gestohlener Sisi-Stern nach zehn Jahren wieder in Wien” (2008); The Washington Post (18 June 2007); The Sydney Morning Herald (3 June 2007). Featured image: AI-generated illustration.
