Blessed Karl of Austria Statue

On his wedding day in 1911, Karl turned to his bride Zita and told her they must now help each other get to heaven. He was twenty-four years old. He had eleven years left.

Five years later Franz Joseph died, and Karl inherited an empire already breaking apart in the middle of a war he had not started and did not want. He spent nearly the whole of his short reign trying to end it — reaching out in secret to the Allies through his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus, an attempt that failed and cost him what standing he had left. In December 1916 he was crowned King of Hungary in Budapest, the last man ever to be crowned with the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen. Two years later the empire no longer existed.

He would not abdicate. He understood the crown as something he had sworn before God, not a post he could resign. So he withdrew from government instead, and went into exile. After two failed attempts to reclaim the Hungarian throne, the Allied powers removed him to Madeira, where his family lived in a damp house they could not afford to heat. A chill turned to bronchitis, then pneumonia. He died on 1 April 1922, thirty-four years old, offering his suffering for the peace of his people.

John Paul II beatified him on 3 October 2004 and set his feast on 21 October — not the day he died, but the day he married Zita.

The crown in his hand

He carries the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen, the crown of his Hungarian coronation in December 1916. More than fifty kings were crowned with it across nine centuries. Karl was the last. He holds it at his side rather than on his head — which is close to how he seems to have understood it. When the empire fell he refused to abdicate, on the grounds that the oath had been sworn before God and was not his to take back.

Our approach

We sculpt from the historical record rather than from imagination. Karl's uniform, his sash, and the decorations on his breast are modeled on period photographs, and the face is worked from images taken during his life rather than from a devotional type. Every piece is finished by hand in our workshop.

Details

• Available in white, or finished by hand in full color
• Statue and plinth base
• Shown holding the Holy Crown of Saint Stephen
• Feast day: 21 October