<b>1900 - 1914 > Bruxelles - Laeken</b> ° 25.7.1876; + 23.11.1965. As a royal duchess in Bavaria Princess Elisabeth received an artistic education from a very early age and became a talented violonist. She already practised photography before her marriage in 1900 to the future King Albert I. As Queen of the Belgians from 1909, she brought back numerous photographs from her travels (China, Belgian Congo, Egypt, United States, India, Poland, etc.). She also posed members of her family and her learned and artistic friends, in particular during her stay in De Panne during the First World War (of note from 1916 is the sequence of shots of Emile Claus painting in the dunes, or the splendid portraits of Emile Verhaeren whose overlarge coat, lent to him by the King, flaps in the wind). Besides her own photographs, the Archives of the Royal Palace in Brussels preserve her large collection of signed photographic portraits of artists. Queen Elisabeth dedicated herself to the development of Belgian cultural life, especially by founding the famous "Queen Elisabeth" music competition and by her support for building the "Palais des Beaux-Arts". After World War II, in light of an increased demand by the public for patriotic images, Queen Elisabeth loaned her personal collection of negatives to the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIK-IRPA) where 574 copy negatives were made.