Else Blankenhorn (1873–1920)
As daughter of a wealthy family, she took an active part in the social and cultural life of the royal capital. She loved music, played piano, sang and was prepared for a life centered on marriage and family. Due to her state of exhaustion and various nervous crises, she twice went to the Swiss Bellevue Sanatorium for treatment. She played music, translated and took photographs, and in 1908 began to paint, draw and embroider. In her paintings, she developed a colorful visual cosmos, she drew in notebooks, and embroidered tapestries. The Prinzhorn Collection maintains a large collection of her diverse works.

The “Empress Else” and her charitable duties
Else Blankenhorn believed herself to be the wife of Wilhelm II, from whom she had received an important assignment. She was to oversee the physical nourishment of, and finance all buried, but not yet deceased, married couples on the day of their resurrection. To these ends, she produced banknotes—96 of which have made their way into the Prinzhorn Collection. These banknotes often feature her self-portrait, accompanied by angels and authorized with the seal of the “German Reich”. The colon she regularly employed stood for the spiritual unity between Blankenhorn and Emperor Wilhelm II. On the backsides of the paintings, the figures are seen from behind, which underscores the fact that they were paper objects to her, not paintings. This assignment in spirit exceeded Blankenhorn’s financial abilities, so that she was forced to introduce ever greater sums (“millions x billions”), and exotic coin values, such as “centuplons”, “quadruplons” or “seidublons of Marks”. Thus, she anticipated the enormous sums that the inflation following World War I would bring forth.

Indeed, the Blankenhorn family suffered from the depreciation of the German Reichsmark compared to Swiss francs, which was the reason the patient was transferred in 1919 from Bellevue to the Reichenau sanitorium in Baden. She died there in 1920 of cancer.

Images:

Else Blankenhorn, „36000 MILLIARDEN MARK – KAISERIN ELSE – KAISER WILHELM“ (banknote), before 1920, ink on paper, Inv. No. 1892h © Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital

Else Blankenhorn, „I. MILLIARDE. THALER“ (banknote), before 1920, ink on paper, Inv. No. 1891q © Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital

Else Blankenhorn, „2000 MARK – MILLIARDEN UNENDLICH“ (banknote), before 1920, ink on paper, Inv. No. 1893d © Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital

Else Blankenhorn, „2000 SEIDUBLONEN MARK“ (banknote), before 1920, watercolor and ink on paper, Inv. 1893 © Prinzhorn Collection, Heidelberg University Hospital