Ernst Gallery

Royal group at Rosenau Castle on the occasion of the Bethrot

Royal group at Rosenau Castle in Coburg gathered to celebrate the engagement of the Czarevitch Nicholas (later Czar Nicholas II) to Princess Alix of Hesse. The engagement took place at the wedding of Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh to Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse. Each member of the family is annotated, and includes Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, Prince and Princess Louis of Battenberg (the latter formerly Princess Victoria of Hesse), Grand Duke & Duchess Serge of Russia (the latter formerly Princess Elizabeth of Hesse), Princess Marie of Edinburgh (Crown Princess of Romania), Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh and Prince and Princess Henry of Prussia (the latter formerly Princess Irene of Hesse). Rosenau was the birthplace of Albert, the Prince Consort

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10223943

1894 Haeckel Pithecanthropus ape man crop

Pithecanthropus europeaus alalus (european speechless ape-man) by Gabriel Max, 1894, reproduced as Photogravure Plate 29 in Ernst Haeckel "Naturliche Schopfungs-Geschichte" (Natural History of Creation), Druck und Verlag, Berlin 1898. This painting was presented to Haeckel on his 60th birthday to celebrate his naming (without any fossil evidence!) a theoretical missing link between man and ape "Pithecanthropus alalus". The painting was purely hypothetical as no hominids were yet discovered. Some report it was originally commissioned by Haeckel's enemy Virchow to make fun of him - but if so, it mis-fired as the picture reified the concept. At around the same time, one of Haeckel's students, Eugene Dubois, found the first fossil Homo erectus specimens and gave the new species the name Pithecanthropus erectus honouring Haeckels speculative ape man

© PAUL D STEWART/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Princess Sophie of Greece with in-laws and sons

Princess Sophie of Greece (1914-2001), seen far right, later Princess of Hesse-Cassel, and through her second marriage to Georg Wilhelm of Hanover, Princess of Hanover, pictured here with her two elder children from her second marriage, Prince Welf Frederick (1947-1981) and Prince Georg of Hanover (b.1949) and her parents-in-law. They are the former Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, youngest child and daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II and her husband Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick. Sophie was the daughter of Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece (Alice of Battenberg) and one of the four sisters of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Date: c.1953

© Mary Evans Picture Library/CHARLOTTE ZEEPVAT