The Line SS Imperatrix was built in the Trieste Arsenale, the shipyards of the Austro Hungarian Lloyds (Lloyds Austrico-Ungarico), in 1888; the sistership of the then flagship of the line, the SS Imperator		SS "Imperator"
The company Austrian Lloyd Trieste, variously known as Austrian Lloyd, Osterreichischer Lloyd, Austro Hungarian Lloyd Steam Navigation Co., Austrian Lloyds Steam Navigation Co. and, finally in 1891, reverting to its earlier title of Lloyds Austrico, was founded in 1833 by Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Bruck (1798-1860), on the model of the British Lloyd. In 1836, the company opened a department "Steam Navigation" beside the early department "Trade & Sea Reports". Therefore, 1836 is considered to be the birth year of the shipping company. It commenced operations with seven small wooden paddleboats for the voyage to Constantinople and the Levant. In 1842, Ferdinand I (1793-1875), Emperor of Austria (1835-1848) allowed the ships of the company to fly the postal flag and its officers and crew to wear the Austrian uniform. The "First Danubian Steam-Navigation Company" ceded in 1844 to the "Austrian Lloyd" the line to Constantinople and Smyrna (now Istanbul and Izmir, respectively, in Turkey). The "Austrian Lloyd" was also in charge of the mail transport between England and India via Trieste and Alexandria. In 1849, the company inaugurated its flagship "Vorwärts". The name of the ship (literally, steaming ahead) became the motto of the company. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, the company expanded rapidly launching lines to Bombay (1869), Colombo (1879), Singapore and Hong-Kong (1880). By 1886, the company operated 86 ships. After having set up their own ship building and engineering yards in Trieste, the Arsenale, by 1910 they had increased to a fleet of sixty-two iron and steel steamships, with a gross tonnage of about a quarter of a million tons. They visited the whole eastern coast of the Adriatic and the Levant with frequent services. There was a monthly mail service between Trieste, Brindisi and Bombay and later also a monthly ordinary service between Trieste, Bombay, China and Japan and a local connection between Colombo, Madras and Calcutta. Following the end of the First World War and the dissolution of the Austro Hungarian Empire, the line was split up. Although Austro Lloyd Shipping, founded in 1951, carries the original name today, the direct descendant is Lloyd Triestino, which passed from Austria to Italy in 1919 and is still based in Trieste.

The current house flag of Austro Lloyd Shipping is almost identical to the original Lloyds Austrico - Ungarico flag; the original having the word "Vorwärts" on the scroll under the anchor; Vorwärts, Forward, being the name of one of their early fast steam ships.