Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn (1919)

Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn

Marianne "Manni" Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, real name Maria Anna Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn, née Mayr-Melnhof, is a dowager princess and Austrian photographer.

On her mother's side, Maria is a direct descendant of Empress Maria Theresa, which has opened all doors of aristocracy, business, politics and art to her. She was encouraged to take up photography by Lilly Palmer and Karl Lagerfeld after her husband died in 1962. Soon she was working with Frau im Spiegel magazine, then Bunte and Vogue.

Wherever she was - skiing in St. Moritz, on a yacht, at parties and weddings, in Europe and in America, Maria photographed everyone around her: Onassis and Maria Callas, Prince Charles, Gianni Agnelli, Romy Schneider, Luciano Pavarotti, the Queen Mother or King Juan Carlos. During her lifetime she photographed many world celebrities. By her centenary, Maria had more than 300,000 of her photographs in her archive.

Maria never took immodest or offensive photos of her friends. Princess Caroline of Monaco once joked, "You're not a paparazzi, you're a mamarazza," thus the nickname Marianne Sayn-Wittgenstein-Sayn was born.