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To my delight, I discovered that, against all odds, the crown of the Aztec Empire is (apparently) still extant. Allegedly, the Conquistadors hung onto Montezuma’s original feathered headdress and brought it back to Europe where it found its way into the hands of the Austrian branch of the Hapsburg family who put it in a scary museum somewhere in Vienna. However, as I tried to find out more about the crown of Montezuma, I ended up reading more about the Aztecs. Now, I always regarded the Aztecs as a death-cult society built on top of a base of cruel slavery and vicious warfare. The truth is more complicated. The “empire” was really a grand alliance of three neighboring city-states from the Valley of Mexico. The Triple Alliance (as the Aztecs called themselves) conquered the surrounding tribes and kingdoms through war and political/cultural means, yet whenever this alliance took over a new region they left the nobility and social structures intact and “ruled” through extracting tribute and demanding other cultural concessions. Their “flower wars” were not traditional wars of conquest familiar to say, the Romans or the French, but highly stylized affairs…however the (pre-ordained) losers were indeed sacrificed to appease the astonishing yet bloodthirsty gods of the Aztec pantheon.
We will come back to all of this later this week. For right now, let’s get back to the crown of Montezuma II. This beautiful item is remarkable in many ways, but, um, being “real” isn’t necessarily one of them (speaking of which, the original is pictured at the top of the post , and the other pictures are museum reproductions). The provenance of this headdress (if it is a headdress) is highly disputed. Not only does it not match the (questionable) illustrations we have of Aztec headdresses, but also the 16th century records about the piece have some holes . According to lore the crown was seized during the conquest of Mexico (ca. 1520) and sent back to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain. The piece is then recorded in the collections of Archduke Ferdinand II in Ambras (near Innsbruck Austria) in 1575. It became an object of fascination in the mid to late 19th century. Since it is made from delicate iridescent feathers (which fade over time) the crown was “restored” in 1878. the European restorers used kingfisher feathers and restored it as a standard (a sort of flag as opposed to a “Moorish hat” (which is how it was recorded in the Grand Duke’s collection).
The restored crown is over a meter in height and 1.75 meters across (4 feet by 6 feet). it is crafted of layers of feathers, which seem to have conferred certain spiritual significance in the afterlife (and in the Aztec court, where special feather workers were kept to work with innumerable caged birds). The layers of feathers are described in detail on Wikipedia:
“The smallest is made from blue feathers of the Cotinga amabilis (xiuhtōtōtl) with small plates of gold in the shapes of half moons. Behind this is a layer of Roseate spoonbill (tlāuhquechōlli) feathers, then small quetzal feathers, then a layer of white-tipped red-brown feathers of the squirrel cuckoo, Piaya cayana, with three bands of small gold plates, and finally two of 400 closely spaced quetzal tail feathers, some 55 cm (22 in) long.”
To conclude, I have written about a emperor’s crown which is not necessarily a crown for an empire which was not necessarily an empire. Everything in this post is suspect. Our fundamental view of the Aztecs (who didn’t even call themselves that) seems as questionable as this imperial crown. Yet, despite these very real questions, the crown of Montezuma today has become the focus of an intense political campaign to return the piece to Mexico. Austria and Mexico exchange diplomatic statements about it and teams of scientists and ethnologists study the fragile treasure. Whether it actually belonged to Montezuma or not, the piece definitely seems to be an Aztec artifact of enormous significance and equally great beauty. It is as splendid–or perhaps more splendid– as any of the other crowns I have written about, yet it is sad too, with its bloody history, its ongoing mysteries, and the contemporary conflict which swirls around it. The fact that it is made of fragile feathers of long gone birds gives it additional beauty and pathos.
Lady on the Horse (Alfred Kubin, 1938, Pen and ink, wash, and spray on paper)
Alfred Kubin was born in Bohemia in 1877 (Bohemia was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire). Like many people, Kubin could see the direction which Austrian society was taking, and it seemed to rob him of direction. As a teenager he tried to learn photography for four pointless years from 1892 until 1896. He unsuccessfully attempted suicide on his mother’s grave. He enlisted and was promptly drummed out of the Austrian army. He joined various art schools and left without finishing. Then, in Munich, Kubin saw the works of symbolist and expressionist artists Odilon Redon, Max Klinger, Edvard Munch, and Félicien Rops. His life was changed—he devoted himself to making haunting art in the same vein. His exquisite mezzotint prints are full dream monsters, spirit animals, ghosts and victims. These dark works seemed to presage the era which followed. Yet throughout the nightmare of both World Wars and the post-war reconstruction, Kubin lived in relative isolation in a small castle.
After Anschluss in 1938, Kubin’s work was labeled degenerate, yet his age and his hermit life protected him and he continued working through the war and until his death in 1958. In later life he was lionized as an artist who never submitted to the Nazis (although possibly he was too absorbed in his own dark world to notice the even darker one outside).
The North Pole (Alfred Kubin 1902)
Kubin’s beautiful prints look like the illustrations of a children’s book where dark magical entities broke into the story and killed all of the characters and made their haunted spirits perform the same pointless rituals again and again. Great dark monuments loom over the lost undead. Death and the maiden appear repeatedly, donning their roles in increasingly abstract guise until it is unclear which is which.
The Pond (Alfred kubin, ca. 1905)
My favorite aspect of the works are the shadow monsters and hybrid animals which often seem to have more personality and weight than the little albescent people they prey upon. The gloomy ink work is so heavy it seems to lack pen strokes—as though Kubin rendered these little vignettes from dark mist.
The Egg (Alfred Kubin, 1902)
Kubin’s imagery was naturally seen through the psychosexual lens of Freudianism. He was claimed by the symbolists, and the expressionists. Yet his work seems to really exist in its own mysterious context. Kubin’s greatest works seem to involve a narrative which the viewer does not know, yet the outlines of which are instantly recognizable (like certain recurring nightmares).
The Government (Alfred Kubin)
Gifted in multiple ways, Kubin wrote his own novel, The Other Side, which has been compared to Kafka for its dark absurdity. I certainly haven’t read it, but if anyone knows anything about it, I would love to hear more below. In the meantime look again at this broken world of Gothic horror and wonder. Then maybe go have some candy and enjoy some flowers. There is plenty more dark art coming
Snakes in the City (Alfred Kubin,1911, pen and ink)
Heroic Statue of Skanderbeg
Skanderbeg (1405 – 1468) is the great national hero of Albania. He allied the Albanians together and defended the region from Ottoman expansion for more than two decades (until his death from malaria—a rare end for Baltic war leaders who opposed the Ottoman Empire). It is unclear whether Skanderbeg was precisely a king—he never styled himself as anything other than “Lord of Albania”—which makes it fitting that the so-called crown of Skanderbeg is only ambiguously a crown. Some historians refer to the headdress instead as the helmet of Skanderbeg. The item in question is certainly a helmet, but it is an uncommonly magnificent and ridiculous helmet which could certainly merit status as a crown. Manufactured of white metal, the helmet features elaborate gold roses, a gold band, and is surmounted by a horned goat’s head made of bronze.
The Crown/Helmet of Skanderbeg
The crown was carried into Italy by Skanderbeg’s heir after Albania fell to the Ottomans after his death (ironically Skanderbeg’s son married one of the last descendants of the Palaiologos family—the last royal house of Byzantium) and it eventually made its way into the collection of an unrelated lord and finally into the Hapsburg royal collection. Periodically Albanian kings and aspirants have petitioned the Austrians for return of the helmet/crown (most recently King Zog unsuccessfully attempted to repatriate it in 1931). It still remains a possession of the Austrian state and is currently housed at the Neue Berg Collection of Arms and Armour in Vienna.
A Frontal View of the Crown
ferrebeekeeper 