This “title” belongs to the non-royal mistress of King Ludwig I, Helene Sedlmayr. The king was known to have had several romantic liaisons, the most well-known and fateful being, of course, the one with the legendary dancer Lola Montez, which caused the 1848 revolution, forcing the king to abdicate his throne.

However, back to Helene, the daughter of a shoemaker. Today, she lives on for many as "the beauty of Munich." The Munich-based rock band Spider Murphy Gang dedicated a song to her, several beauty competitions bring her ‘back to life’ every year and, in a somewhat-altered piece of comedy theater, the famous love affair was turned into a sort of local hit in which the pregnant Helene was married to one of the king’s chamberlains, for “reasons of state.” The chamberlain gave her many red-blond sons – as red-blond as the king himself once was …

Back again to Helene, this time in the here and now, in the upper level of the south pavilion of Nymphenburg Palace, in the former little dining hall, today a sumptuous space that boasts images of the beauties of King Ludwig I. Here 36 portraits of beautiful women are on exhibit, all of which were commissioned by the king between 1827 and 1850 and painted by Joseph Stieler. The two most famous of the bunch are of course the portraits of the Munich beauty Helene Sedlmayr and the scandalous Lola Montez.