Ludovike Simanowiz
Ludovike Simanowiz (* 21st February 1759 in Schorndorf , † 3. September 1827 in Ludwigsburg , native Gwendolyn Sophie Ludovike Reichenbach ) was a Württemberg painter of Classicism .
life and work
Ludovike Simanowiz was the daughter of the surgeon or surgeons Jeremias Friedrich Reichenbach (1725-1810) and his wife, the pharmacist daughter Susanne Sophie Reichenbach, born Schwegler. Ludovike was born in 1759 in the Schorndorfer Jagdschlösschen, which served as barracks. Ludovike was the eldest daughter of at least six children, four sons and two daughters. Ludovike's second oldest brother, Carl Ludwig (1757–1837), was a ducal Württemberg librarian and archivist, and his son (and thus Ludovike's nephew) was Karl Ludwig Friedrich (1788–1869), a natural scientist and entrepreneur who later became a baron. The next younger brother Wilhelm Heinrich (1763–1843) became the personal and regimental medic of Duke Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg in Mömpelgard . The latter son in turn (also a nephew of Ludovike) was the cotton manufacturer in Urspring Johann Georg Friedrich Reichenbach (1791–1873). The Ludovikes family moved to Ludwigsburg at Mömpelgardstrasse 26 in 1762 , where the Schiller family also moved in 1766. Ludovike grew up with Friedrich Schiller and his sisters. Lifelong close friendships stem from this time, especially with Christophine Reinwald , née Schiller and their younger brother Friedrich.
Contrary to the social norm, Ludovike, supported by her family, who were convinced of her extraordinary talent, embarked on an artistic career. However , as a woman in the arts, she had no access to the ducal Académie des Arts in Ludwigsburg or the Hohen Carlsschule in Stuttgart . Instead, Ludovike received private lessons in oil painting and drawing from the Württemberg court painter and art professor at the Hohen Carlsschule, Nicolas Guibal , in Stuttgart in 1776 . Drawings and sketches from this period are archived in the Städtisches Museum Ludwigsburg and in the German Literature Archive in Marbach . Ludovike is consistently pursuing her training. At the age of 28, thanks to the contact between her teacher Guibal and the financial support of Duke Carl Eugen and the Württemberg Duchess Franziska von Hohenheim , she went on an educational trip to Paris to see the French court painter Antoine Vestier in the art metropolis Time to get further training. She stayed in Paris for almost two years to study - Vestier taught her in her own pupil class. Working in a studio community and deeply connected friendships, including with artists such as the painter Simon Frédéric Moench and the writer Ludwig Ferdinand Huber , shape this phase of life.
In 1788 she was appointed to the Württemberg court from Friedrich Eugen von Württemberg , the brother of Duke Carl Eugen , in Mömpelgard , today's Montbéliard . The portraits of the ducal family were their first major commission. These paintings have not been preserved. In 1789 she returned to Stuttgart and in May 1791 married Lieutenant Franz Simanowiz, to whom she had been engaged since 1786. At the age of 18 she met Franz Simanowiz, presumably through her brothers, who, like Friedrich Schiller and Franz Simanowiz, were trained at the Hohe Carlsschule. The newly wed couple moved into an apartment in Ludwigsburg. For Ludovike Simanowiz, the marriage meant walking a tightrope: on the one hand, she wanted to give in to her heart and start a household with her beloved husband, on the other hand, she longed for the studio atmosphere of Paris. Many letters from and with her friends are evidence of this. Letters from and to Ludovike Simanowiz are archived in the German Literature Archive in Marbach.
The fact that she repeatedly tried to meet both needs and built on trust in herself and Franz Simanowiz is shown in her second trip to Paris, which she undertook in the winter of the same year without Franz Simanowiz, who had been called back to the troops to continue their art studies. When she returned to the Paris of the Revolution , she lived again with her friend from her days in Stuttgart, the opera singer Helene Balletti , who had meanwhile married the Marquis of Lacoste . In the Palais de Lacoste, centrally located and close to the political events in the Tuileries, the ardent advocate of the revolution from Ludwigsburg, Johann Georg Kerner and Eberhard Wächter , a painter from Balingen and also a student of the Hohe Carlsschule, who inspires his art in the Service of the revolution. Finance minister Jacques Necker and his daughter Madame de Stael as well as Bonaparte were also guests in this open house.
It can be assumed that Ludovike Simanowiz met the Girondist, who was also born in Schorndorf, and brief French foreign minister and later Goethe friend Karl Friedrich Reinhard . The fighting raged on the streets of revolutionary Paris. This year, Olympe de Gouges wrote her “ Declaration of the Rights of Women and Citizens ”. Ludovike was an eyewitness to the storming of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792, when the royal family was captured. In a letter to Christophine Reinwald, Schiller's sister, she writes: “... the riots that followed him also destroyed my intentions, which were beginning to blossom so beautifully ... I witnessed their madness: out of curiosity, I attended the Jacobin Club a few times , me believed to be among the furious ... one speaks of killing like slaps in the face ... "
For Simanowiz, too, the political situation is becoming more and more dangerous. The Lacostes Palace was searched several times for monarchists. Ludovike's hosts, Helene Balletti and Marquis de Lacoste, managed to escape to their estates near the Spanish border shortly before August 10, 1792. Simanowiz, still living in the palace, was repeatedly subjected to strict interrogations; like all foreigners, she was refused a passport to travel home. Not until the winter of 1792/93, a fortnight before the beheading of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinettes on January 23, 1793, a friend helped her escape to Normandy . In the spring of 1793 Ludovike Simanowiz finally received a passport and was able to start her final journey home, which, however, had to be interrupted by a strong nervous fever. In Strasbourg she was bedridden for 6 weeks and was cared for by friends.
Fled from the turmoil of the French Revolution, back in Ludwigsburg, Ludovike Simanowiz painted portraits of the Friedrich Schiller family in 1793/94. First she portrayed the mother Elisabeth Dorothea Schiller and the father Johann Kaspar Schiller as a present on November 10, 1793, the birthday of his son Friedrich. Immediately afterwards Friedrich Schiller, who also lived for a short time in Ludwigsburg, at Wilhelmstrasse 17, and among other things worked on his Wallenstein, had her painted himself and in April 1794 his wife Charlotte Schiller too . Friedrich Schiller thanked him in a letter in June 1794 for the portraits that had meanwhile arrived in Jena: “In the meantime, be indulgent and accept the small matter as reimbursement for the paint and the canvas; because I cannot and will not pay you for art. "
In 1798 Franz Simanowiz, meanwhile a captain, was transferred to Stuttgart, and the family residence also moved there. The following year Franz Simanowiz suffered a stroke. Because of his paralyzed legs, he was very dependent on help. Ludovike Simanowiz looked after her husband for 28 years and topped up the small pension. She gave painting classes and accepted female students as boarders in her home. In a letter to Regine Vossler, her closest friend, she wrote: “I have got used to the necessity of having to do art as a purchase, and through my hard work I have made it so far that we can live independently. What would have become of our fate if God had not given me the courage to do my art in what I confess to be a very unpleasant way. Now the wages are sweet after all. "
In 1811/12 the couple moved back to Ludwigsburg, to today's Körnerstrasse 16. Friedrich Reichenbach, Ludovike's older brother, lived nearby, in Erdmannhausen . He was pastor at the Januarius Church in Erdmannhausen and Johanna, Ludovike's younger sister, ran the household for him there. The Simanowiz couple, who came from Ludwigsburg, were often in the parish in Erdmannhausen for several weeks in the summer months, where a group of friends frequented with whom they could speak openly politically. In a letter to the Erdmannhausen siblings, she expressed her solidarity with the Spanish popular uprising , full of indignation at the French great power politics:
“Just read the article in yesterday's newspaper from Spain first, that is very important u. makes a general sensation. The official announcements of these news are not yet there, but one does not doubt the truth of these events, one could have expected for a long time that the people would finally have to tire of the horrors of this infamous government. "
Franz Simanowiz died on June 14, 1827. In the same year, Ludovike Simanowiz followed her husband. The grave of the Simanowiz couple is in the old cemetery in Ludwigsburg. More than a hundred of her pictures, including 30 portraits of family members, have survived. The majority of them are privately owned. None of the paintings were signed by Ludovike Simanowiz. A memorial in the Schorndorf City Museum commemorates the artist.
literature
- Ludovike Simanowiz . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 31 : Siemering – Stephens . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1937, p. 42 .
- Anna Blos : Women in Swabia. Fifteen pictures of life . Silberburg, Stuttgart 1929, p. 121-134 ( wlb-stuttgart.de ).
- Jochen Schmidt-Liebich: Lexicon of Women Artists 1700–1900 , KG Saur Verlag GmbH, Munich, 2005, ISBN 3-598-11694-2 , pp. 436–438.
- Gertrud Fiege: Ludovike Simanowiz. A Swabian painter between revolution and restoration . German Schiller Society, Marbach 1991.
- Andrea Fix, Ricarda Geib, Matthias Gnatzy, Thomas Milz, Mascha-Riepl-Schmidt: Blick-Wechsel, Ludovike Simanowiz 1759–1827 . (Catalog for the exhibition of the Schorndorf Kulturforum on the occasion of Ludovike Simanowiz's 250th birthday in the Galleries for Art and Technology, Schorndorf, February 20 - March 15, 2009), Verlag Carl Bacher, ISBN 978-3-924431-46-4
- Friederike Klaiber: Ludovike. An image of life for Christian mothers and daughters . Stuttgart 1847 online .
- Gabriele von Koenig-Warthausen (1972), Ludovike Simanowiz b. Reichenbach: painter 1759–1827. In: Robert Uhland (Ed.), Life Pictures from Swabia and Franconia , Vol. 12, Pages 121–44. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer.
- Katharina Küster, Beatrice Scherzer and Andrea Fix: The unobstructed view. Anna Dorothea Therbusch and Ludovike Simanowiz. Two portrait painters from the 18th century . (Catalog for the exhibition of the Ludwigsburg Municipal Museum; Kunstverein Ludwigsburg, Villa Franck, 2002/2003), Kehrer Verlag Heidelberg, ISBN 3-933257-85-9
- Mascha Riepl-Schmidt : The Swabian painter Ludovike Simanowiz - artist with successful emancipation . State gazette for Baden-Württemberg, year 2010, no.9.
- Martin Stolzenau: Schiller's portraitist: Ludowike Simanowitz on her 250th birthday . Good Württemberg here. Supplement to the Ludwigsburg newspaper. 60th year, 2009, No. 1.
- Wintterlin: Simanowiz, Kunigunde Sophie Ludovike . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 344-346.
Web links
- Literature by and about Ludovike Simanowiz in the catalog of the German National Library
- ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Kunstverein Ludwigsburg (exhibition November 2002 to January 2003) )
- German Literature Archive Marbach
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Simanowiz, Ludovike |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Reichenbach, Kunigunde Sophie Ludovike (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Württemberg painter |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 21, 1759 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schorndorf |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 3, 1827 |
| Place of death | Ludwigsburg |