Lydia Welti-Escher
Lydia Welti-Escher (born July 10, 1858 in Enge near Zurich , † December 12, 1891 in Champel near Geneva ) was a patron and founder of an art foundation and one of the richest women in Switzerland in the 19th century.
Life
Lydia Welti-Escher was the only surviving child of the powerful Zurich politician and business leader Alfred Escher and Augusta Escher-Uebel (1838–1864). She grew up in Belvoir , a stately home in the municipality of Enge near Zurich. Lydia lost her mother at the age of six and was raised by grandmothers and educators. Alfred Escher endeavored to be with his daughter as often as possible, despite immense business and political commitments, with whom he maintained a warm relationship. Lydia Escher's youth differed significantly from that of young Zurich women from upper-class circles. She supported her father with paperwork at an early age, ran the Belvoir household and grew into the role of hostess. The poet Gottfried Keller was a welcome guest at Belvoir and a fatherly friend of Lydia Escher .
Lydia Escher was a self-confident young woman who read a lot, spoke several foreign languages and enjoyed going to music and theater performances. In her letters to her childhood friend, the painter Louise Breslau (also: Luise Breslau), she said that she took singing and piano lessons. Lydia Escher, who is interested in art, was particularly fascinated by the creative genius.
On January 4, 1883, Lydia Escher married Friedrich Emil Welti - the son of the then most powerful Federal Councilor Emil Welti . Thanks to his marriage to the Escher daughter, he was able to rise to the top of the Swiss economy and took a seat on numerous boards of directors.
While Friedrich Emil Welti was making a career, Lydia Welti-Escher was becoming increasingly bored. She didn't keep housekeeping, and she missed interesting guests and stimulating conversations. Through her husband she finally came into contact with Karl Stauffer-Bern . The Welti-Escher couple acted as patrons for the painter and made it possible for him to work in Italy. In October 1889, the Welti-Escher couple moved to Florence. Shortly afterwards, Friedrich Emil Welti traveled back to Switzerland - according to his statement for business reasons - and left his wife in Karl Stauffer's care. The two became lovers. Lydia Welti-Escher wanted to divorce her husband and marry Karl Stauffer. Together they fled to Rome. Frightened by this, Friedrich Emil Welti became active. Federal Councilor Emil Welti let his relations play in favor of his son, and the Swiss legation in Rome performed important henchman services.
This seemed to seal the fate of the young lovers: Lydia Welti-Escher was interned in a Roman madhouse and Karl Stauffer was imprisoned. He was first accused of kidnapping and theft, and later even of raping a madwoman. Karl Stauffer was acquitted of this in June 1890 due to the lack of a criminal offense. The psychiatric report on Lydia Welti-Escher dated May 27, 1890, which was recently published for the first time in its entirety, had shown that her internment in the Roman madhouse was not justified and that the first diagnosis of "systematized madness" was fictitious. From today's point of view, too, the experts' argumentation and their conclusion that Lydia Welti-Escher possessed her complete intellectual integrity are convincing (Prof. D. Hell).
After a four-month stay in the madhouse in Rome, she was finally brought back to Switzerland by her husband Friedrich Emil Welti and agreed to his divorce petition and a financial agreement that obliged her to pay CHF 1.2 million in compensation. Not integrated into Zurich society and ostracized as an adulteress, Lydia Welti-Escher moved into a house in Champel near Geneva in the late summer of 1890 . After seeing her last goal in life - the establishment of an art foundation - achieved, Lydia Welti-Escher ended her life on December 12, 1891 by opening the gas tap in her villa. In January of the same year, Karl Stauffer-Bern had already ended his life in Florence by suicide because his love for Lydia Welti-Escher had broken him.
There is one point in the portrayal of Lydia Welti-Escher's life that is controversial among biographers. While, according to Joseph Jung's biography, Lydia Welti-Escher is said to have been "examined" again in the Königsfelden psychiatric clinic after her internment in the Roman psychiatric clinic and after her return to Switzerland , biographer Willi Wottreng explains for another There are no sources for a stay in Königsfelden. This is important because it shows that Lydia Welti-Escher opposed the will of her husband and father-in-law and, after the events in Italy, has proven herself to be an emancipated woman.
plant
Lydia Welti-Escher set up a foundation with the considerable fortune she had left after the divorce - it was the Villa Belvoir, including the property and securities with a total value of CHF 4 million at the time. After the founder first thought of her family name, this was given the name Gottfried Keller Foundation as a more neutral alternative solution . The administration was with the Swiss Federal Council . On June 6, 1890, the foundation became law. Lydia Escher wanted to accomplish a patriotic work like the Gotthard tunnel initiated by her father Alfred Escher .
According to the original intention of the founder, the Gottfried Keller Foundation should have promoted the "independence of women - at least in the field of applied arts". At the insistence of her (divorced) husband, this purpose was not included in the deed of incorporation and pushed into an accompanying letter. The Gottfried Keller Foundation developed into an important collection institution for art, but the feminist concerns of the founder were not met.
Lydia Welti-Escher is an outstanding female figure from the Belle Époque in Switzerland. On the one hand, her merit lies in the fact that, as a patrician, through her liaison with an artist - to which she was open - she broke the narrow social and moral norms of being a patrician; on the other hand, there is historical merit in the establishment of a Swiss art foundation of national importance.
On the occasion of her 150th birthday, Lydia Welti-Escher was honored as an outstanding patron of the arts by the Zurich “ Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster ” - the women's guild: as a souvenir, an honor plaque was placed at a place in front of the Zurich art house. Following a move by the same company in December 2008, the city of Zurich officially named the square “Lydia-Welti-Escher-Hof”. Book author Willi Wottreng, who gave the laudation, describes Lydia Welti-Escher in the foreword to his biography as “a noble feminist”.
literature
- Anna Katharina Bähler: Welti-Escher, Lydia. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
- Willi Wottreng : Lydia Welti-Escher. A woman in the Belle Epoque. Elster-Verlag, Zurich 2014, ISBN 978-3-906065-22-9 .
- Joseph Jung : Lydia Welti-Escher (1858-1891). With an introduction by Hildegard Elisabeth Keller . NZZ Libro, Zurich 2013, ISBN 978-3-03823-852-2 .
- Joseph Jung (Ed.): Lydia Welti-Escher (1858-1891). Biography. Sources, materials and contributions. NZZ Libro, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-03823-557-6 .
- Joseph Jung: Alfred Escher 1819–1882. Rise, power, tragedy. 4th enlarged edition. NZZ Libro, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-03823-522-4 .
- Willi Wottreng: The millionaire and the painter: The tragedy Lydia Welti-Escher and Karl Stauffer-Bern. Orell Füssli, Zurich 2005, 2nd, expanded edition: Zurich 2008, ISBN 978-3-280-06049-0 .
- Joseph Jung: The imaginary museum: private commitment to art and state cultural policy in Switzerland: the Gottfried Keller Foundation 1890-1922. NZZ Libro, Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-85823-681-0 .
- Bernhard von Arx : The Stauffer case. Chronicle of a scandal, Hallwag, Bern 1969, ISBN 3-7296-0408-2 .
- Otto Brahm : Karl Stauffer-Bern. His life, his letters, his poems. Stuttgart 1892.
- Thomas Wagner, Willi Wottreng, Susann L. Pflüger: New Year's sheet of the society to Fraumünster on the year 2009, third piece . Edition Gutenberg, Volume 3, No. 3, Zurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-9523176-1-7
Fiction
- Lukas Hartmann: A picture by Lydia, Diogenes-Verlag, Basel 2018, ISBN 978-3-257-60864-9
- Stef Stauffer: The Signora wants to be alone. Münster Verlag, Basel 2017, ISBN 978-3-905896-68-8 .
- Wilhelm Schäfer: Karl Stauffer's life course. A Chronicle of Passion (novel), Munich / Leipzig 1912, ISBN 978-0-666-61024-9
Web links
- Literature by and about Lydia Welti-Escher in the catalog of the German National Library
- Alfred Escher Foundation
- Lydia Welti-Escher in the archive database of the Swiss Federal Archives
Individual evidence
- ^ Sister Hedwig, born on June 4, 1861, died on July 28, 1862; see for example: Wottreng: Lydia Welti-Escher. 2014, p. 39, p. 43.
- ↑ Young: Lydia Welti-Escher . 2013; Jung: Alfred Escher . 2009, pp. 464-492.
- ↑ Von Arx: The Stauffer case. 1969, p. 148 and p. 168; Wottreng: The millionaire and the painter. 2005, p. 121 and p. 122; Young: Lydia Welti-Escher . 2009, p. 14 and p. 17.
- ↑ Young: Lydia Welti-Escher . 2009, p. 146 (psychiatric report); Wottreng: The millionaire and the painter. 2005, p. 146; von Arx: The Stauffer case. 1969, p. 269.
- ↑ Daniel Hell: The report from today's perspective. In: Young: Lydia Welti-Escher . 2009, p. 359.
- ↑ Young: Lydia Welti-Escher . 2009, p. 163: "... in the psychiatric institution of the canton Aargau ... Lydia is examined by Doctor Edmund Schaufelbühl"; also von Arx: The Stauffer case. 1969, p. 275: "Meanwhile, Ms. Welti-Escher was sitting in the Königsfelden sanatorium in Aargau ...".
- ^ Wottreng: Lydia Welti-Escher. 2014, pp. 229-232; the same: Königsfelden - a supplement. In: New Year's Gazette of the Gesellschaft zu Fraumünster for 2009, Lydia Welti-Escher, Zurich 2008, p. 28 f.
- ^ Letter from Lydia Welti-Escher to Emil Isler, July 29, 1890, archive of the Gottfried Keller Foundation.
- ↑ August 20, 2008: Street Designation Commission; Name of "Lydia-Welti-Escher-Hof" .
- ^ Wottreng: Lydia Welti-Escher. Zurich 2014, p. 10.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Welti-Escher, Lydia |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Zurich patrician, patroness and founder of an art foundation |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 10, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Close to Zurich |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 12, 1891 |
| Place of death | Champel near Geneva |