Baroness Ines Taxis was born in Charlottenburg, a district of Berlin, on 28th May 1883. She was the daughter of a Danish aristocrat and an Austro-Hungarian countess. She painted her first landscape at the age of ten, in Colombia, where her father was the Ambassador, and the British Charge d'Affaires (who later married her older sister) so admired it that he exhibited it, prophecying an artistic future for Ines. At fifteen, while on holiday in Florence with her parents, she had lessons with a maestro recommended by the ex-Queen of Naples, who commissioned Ines to paint her portrait in miniature. She was so enchanted with the portrait that she had it enclosed in a jewelled locket. Ines was then sent to a finishing school in Dresden while her parents were overseas. At seventeen, her beloved father died and her mother did not think that an artistic career was suitable for a young lady, but luckily she found a benefactor in Sir Alfred Best, who stepped in to provide her with the funds to study at the Academie Julian in Paris. Sir Alfred's faith in her was justified, because, while still a first year student, her first painting of a Madonna and Child was hung in the Paris Salon with high praise from European critics. Commissions poured in, which enabled her to continue her studies for three years from a studio in Montparnasse, Then came the Grand-Ducal Saxon Art School, Weimar where she was the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal which was personally presented to her by the Grand Duke of Saxon-Weimar. Following years of success with her paintings and portraits, she married into the historic Taxis family and had two sons. In early 1938, prior to Hitler's invasion of Austria, he sent a high ranking Nazi officer to her Tyrolean castle, to offer her the 'honour' of painting 'der Fuehrer.' 'No', exclaimed the artist, 'Not even under an anaesthetic!'. A few months later, while in Rome, an attempt was made to kidnap her little sons by three armed Nazis, from the hotel where they were staying, while she painted a portrait of the King's daughter. The hotel was roused and the kidnap failed. Queen Marie of Romania, who was in Merano in the South Tyrol region of Italy, intervened and managed to secure Ines and her two sons the protection of the anti-Nazi Quuen Elena, who managed to get them to Merano, where she painted the last ever portrait of Queen Marie, prior to her death in July, 1938. Queen Marie had also aided them in getting to England, where she recommended Ines to her friend the Duchess of Kent. In the 1939 Register, Baroness Sophi Ines Taxis was listed as living at The Majestic Garden Hotel, Sandgate Road, Folkestone in Kent. She had been exempted from being interned as an enemy alien on 29th September 1939. What happened to Baron Taxis, or her sons, we have been unable to ascertain. In 1939, the Duchess of Kent sat for her portrait, and that portrait, as well as that of Queen Marie of Romania, featured at the first London exhibition of Ines' paintings, which the Duchess attended, as she did her further exhibitions. She had an exhibition in Walker's Galleries, 118 New bond Street in 1950 of Italian Paintings by Baroness Ines Taxis. In the Tatler of April 1950, a picture of her with the inscription underneath that reads: The artist, an ambassador's daughter and related by marriage to the Royal Houses of Habsburg and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha with Marie, Marchioness of Willingdon at the above exhibition, which the Duchess of Kent also attended. There are images of some of her paintings on google images. Ines Taxis died in Devon in 1978. Ines Taxis's work has been offered at auction multiple times. Among the artist's sold works is "Roman Palatine", which realized 51 USD at Woolley & Wallis in 2016 Very few of her paintings come to the market, as the portraits may all remain in private hands..