by Christopher Keimling

The Elisabet Ney Museum, though it exists in relative obscurity, is one of Austin's greatest art treasures. The former studio of the famous European sculptress, the museum is a miniature castle, tucked away in a quiet residential area and hidden by large trees. It's the kind of place out-of-town visitors will see before you do.

My first visit came about when I didn't know what to do with my mom's German visitors. They appointed me tour guide and I was under the pressure of hospitality to take them somewhere. Vaguely aware that Ney herself was German, and feeling obligated to show them something cultural, I took them to the museum. Although they came to Austin expecting to see cowboys and rodeos, they were impressed nonetheless.

I was impressed too, and surprised to see one statue in particular -- that of the great King Ludwig II, aka the "Mad King," the "Dream-King," or the "Fairy-tale King" of Bavaria. When I was a child, I had seen some of his castles in Germany. Castles are King Ludwig's legacy -- he spent so much money on them that his own court declared him unfit to rule, fearing that he would bankrupt the royal treasury. Conspiring against him, government officials managed to round up some physicians willing to pronounce him a victim of insanity.

And there he stood, life-size, on a pedestal before me.

Today Ludwig's castles are a major source of tourist revenue in Germany. One of them, called Neuschwanstein, served as a model for Walt Disney's Cinderella castle. It took 17 years to build, and some of its interior rooms were never completed. At Linderhof, his summer home, he had an artificial grotto built, complete with fake stalactites and an entrance door disguised as a boulder. The walls were painted with murals depicting scenes from Wagner's operas, and on the surface of the underground lake floated a boat constructed in the shape of a giant swan. Ludwig was fond of swans, of Wagner, and of opulence. The rooms of his castles were replete with gilded surfaces, mirrors, wall-paintings, intricate woodwork, and expensive furniture.

Ludwig was a man lost in a world of fantasy, carried away by German myths and Richard Wagner's music. You're probably familiar with at least one of Wagner's hits, even if you've never heard of him -- he composed "Ride of the Valkyries," a piece familiar to most of us as the background music accompanying Elmer Fudd's "Kill the Wabbit" song in Bugs Bunny cartoons. Or if you've seen Apocalypse Now, you'll associate it with rampaging helicopter gun-ships flying over Vietnam.

Wagner was quite willing to take advantage of the king's admiration and the financial support that went along with it. In order to compose properly, he told the king he required a lavishly furnished villa in Munich. Ludwig indulged this and other requests, and was much criticized for his extravagance.

Ludwig's obsession with Wagner's music was just one of his eccentricities. Later in life he enjoyed taking horse-drawn sleigh rides -- at midnight, by the light of the moon. He didn't like to have servants hovering about as he dined, so he fashioned a table that lowered itself through the floor to an awaiting kitchen-staff below, where the table could be cleared and prepared for a second course. In one chamber, the ceiling could roll back, allowing him to sleep directly under the stars.

Dreamy and romantic, Ludwig was ill-suited in his role as monarch. His father died when he was eighteen, leaving Ludwig completely unprepared for the responsibilities of kingship. Eventually he was imprisoned in one of his own castles, and on June 13th, 1886, his life came to a tragic end.

On that day, Ludwig had taken a walk with his doctor on the shores of Lake Starnberg. The next morning, both men's bodies were found dead in the water. They had drowned mysteriously, leaving behind many unanswered questions. Why did the doctor signal accompanying guards away on the day of the their fateful stroll? Did Ludwig murder the doctor in a possible escape attempt? To this day, no one knows. Perhaps both died accidentally.

And what does all this have to do with Elisabet Ney, anyway? Well, it turns out that Elisabet Ney was one of the three most important women in Ludwig's life. Some believe one of her sons was actually Ludwig's love-child. (The rumor is highly improbable, but easily juicy enough to mention here.) Ney created a marble statue of Ludwig (the only one that was ever made of him), and a replica of it can be seen at the museum. The story behind its construction is as fascinating as the statue or even the man himself, and is just one of many reasons to seek out the hidden treasure of the Elisabet Ney Museum.