Caroline Bertuch

Bertuchhaus am Baumgarten, formerly residential and FJ Bertuch's office building, today the seat of the Weimar City Museum

Friederike Elisabetha Caroline Bertuch , née Slevoigt (* 1751 in Waldeck near Bürgel , † 1810 in Weimar ) was an entrepreneur of the Weimar Classic .

Life and accomplishments

She was the daughter of the Saxon-Weimar game master zu Waldeck Traugott Friedemann Slevoigt and Eva Friederica Elisabetha Reuschel (occasionally also written Reischel) from Sömmerda . In 1776 she married the publisher Friedrich Justin Bertuch . Together with her sister Auguste Slevoigt she ran her own plasterer's workshop in Weimar. It was a subsidiary of Friedrich Justin Bertuch, who founded this company in 1782 at the suggestion of his wife and who probably provided it with the necessary share capital. The manufacture was located in Bertuch's own house. She specialized in making artificial flowers. This company, which also supplied the Weimarer Hof, also had a social goal. Destitute members of the bourgeoisie should be able to achieve such an income. Christiane Vulpius was probably the most important employee of her company . The Bertuch's contact with the court was by no means exclusively through the business activities of Friedrich Justin Bertuch. Among other things, Caroline Bertuch was in correspondence with the Weimar court painter Georg Melchior Kraus . She also frequented Goethe . She also participated in the journal Journal des Luxus und der Moden , founded in 1786 , which was also used for its own advertising. Your company was royally sanctioned. It was officially called Fürstl in an advertisement with a table of goods and prices . privileged Armen-Fabrique by Caroline Bertuch, in Weimar .

The influence of Caroline Bertuch can be seen in the corporate philosophy of her husband, who eventually founded other companies, also with social impetus .

literature

• Katharina Middell: The Bertuchs must be lucky all over the world
• Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Encounters and Conversations: 1793–1799 , p. 33
• Walter Steiner, Uta Kühn-Stillmark: Friedrich Justin Bertuch: a life in classic Weimar between culture and commerce , p. 46
• Jessica Aniol: "... my life is now divided between noble things and domestic things ..." - The life of the publisher's wife Caroline Bertuch (1751-1810) in Weimar . In: Weimar-Jena: The big city - The cultural-historical archive, pp. 115–127.

Web links

• Dieter Wunderlich: Christiane Vulpius 1765–1816 / biography . Website by Dieter Wunderlich, 2009
• Siegmund von Bibra , Leopold Friedrich Günther von Goekingk : Journal from and for Germany 1784: Julius to December. Ellrich, p. 140 .
• Dorothee Ammermann: Friedrich Justin Bertuch (1747-1822) .
• Jessica Aniol: The strong hand of the publisher . Thuringian newspaper , December 12, 2010