Helvig (von) Paus

Helvig Paus (until 1919 officially Helvig von Paus in Austria-Hungary) was born in 1909 in Vienna to the Norwegian vice consul and acting consul-general, Lieutenant Thorleif (von) Paus, Norway's de facto representative to Austria-Hungary in the first two decades of the 20th century. Her father was the only Scandinavian known to have witnessed the Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo in 1914. Her mother Ella (Gabrielle, Gabriele) Stein was Austrian, born in 1883 to a Jewish family who converted to Catholicism in 1885/1886.

Aged seven, Helvig was painted by Eilif Peterssen in 1915 in one of his his "most charming child portraits." Her parents divorced and her father returned to Norway in 1918, eventually moving to a castle he bought in Scania, Sweden. Helvig lived in Vienna until 1938, when she moved to Oslo, Norway with her mother.