Rosa from Gerold

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Rosa von Gerold (born August 13, 1829 in Waltershausen , Thuringia , German Confederation as Rosalinde "Rosa" Henneberg ; † January 16, 1907 in Vienna , Austria-Hungary ) was an Austrian writer who mainly wrote travel literature . She wrote under the name Roseline Alwine Henriette Caecilie Clotilde Minone and was known as a salon lady .

Life

Rosa von Gerold was born on August 13, 1829 under the name Rosalinde Henneberg as the daughter of a successful businessman from Arnstadt († 1869) and his wife Christiane (née Kestner; † 1876) in Waltershausen in Thuringia. Her maternal grandfather was the merchant and captain of the Waltershausen city militia, Balthasar Kestner. The maternal grandmother came from a rich farmhouse. The paternal grandparents ran a tannery . As the firstborn she also had two siblings: Melanie (1832–1836) and Bruno (1834–1886). In 1836, when Rosa was about six or seven years old, the family moved to Frankfurt am Main and finally to Vienna . She received the limited schooling of a “senior daughter” and continued her education through diligent reading and foreign language studies. She started traveling at an early age and over the years has sometimes had longer stays in world cities. She also received painting lessons from Rudolf von Alt (1812–1905). In 1853 she married the respected publisher and bookseller Moritz Gerold (1815-1884), who was raised to the nobility on August 7, 1876 . The escutcheon showed a spear and an eagle . There were no children from the marriage.

After the marriage she ran an elegant salon in which numerous outstanding personalities from the world of scholars and artists frequented and in which she held many festivities. The personalities who frequented her salon and with whom she sometimes made friends include the composer Johannes Brahms and the painter Anselm Feuerbach , the painter Ludwig Hans Fischer , the sculptor Caspar von Zumbusch and the architect Heinrich von Ferstel . Another prominent guest was Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach , with whom she was particularly closely connected. The poets Marie von Najmájer and Countess Anna Pongrácz , the writers Alexander von Warsberg , Paul Heyse and Bayard Taylor, and the Bavarian lawyer and writer Ludwig Steub also frequented the area . There were also German studies scholar Karl Tomaschek , Latin studies scholar Johannes Vahlen , Shakespeare researcher Nikolaus Delius , classical philologist, German scholar and Grimm student Karl Bartsch , philosopher Franz Brentano , ministers Karl Ritter von Stremayr and Wilhelm von Hartel and numerous other guests Salon by Rosa von Gerold. In addition, various business partners and friends such as the Hachette Livre publishing house in Paris .

The Gerold family's Lindenhof (around 1870).

From spring to autumn, the Gerold couple lived on their Lindenhof estate , a villa built for them by Carl Hasenauer in Neuwaldegg from 1861 to 1863 , at that time still an independent community and since 1891 part of the 17th district of Hernals in Vienna . The couple spent the winter months (November to March) in their town house on Postgasse (then Barbaragasse) in Vienna's 1st district, Inner City . Moritz Gerold's printing house, which was built by Eduard van der Nüll and August Sicard von Sicardsburg in 1852, was once located at Barbaragasse 6 . Rosa von Gerold also had a share in her husband's work; among other things, unprinted works were subjected to the assessment in her salon. Furthermore, von Gerold was very interested in botany and was also a writer himself. Above all from the 1880s she published numerous travel descriptions of trips and vacations in and through Europe and the Middle East through her husband's publishing house . This is how works such as an autumn trip to Spain (1880, 2nd edition: 1881), an excursion to Athens and Corfu (1885) or an excursion to Kerkyra and Athens (1895) were created. A few years before her death, she published other books such as City Pictures from Southern France and Northern Persia (1904). She herself always referred to her works as amateurish "mayflies". She also published in specialist magazines and newspapers. Her house library, comprising around 1300 volumes, also showed her literary interest.

Although she always supported and stood by her husband, she never did so on a business level. She did not continue to run the business as a widow's business after her husband's death in 1884, after more than 30 years of marriage. The management of the company was temporarily taken over by Friedrich Gerold , her husband's older brother; on October 1, 1885, he transferred the management to his son Friedrich Gerold junior. and to Hermann Manz ( Manz'sche publishing and university bookstore ). In 1895 said Friedrich Gerold jun. back from stores. As a widow, Rosa von Gerold appeared less in public. She soon gave up her city apartment on Barbarastraße and moved to a house (Neuwaldeggerstraße 6) in the then still independent municipality of Dornbach , now also part of the 17th district. It was there that she died on January 16, 1907 at the age of 77 and was buried two days later at Dornbacher Friedhof in the family crypt of the Henneberg family (group 1, no. 7). It was there until 1994.

At her request, Maria Goswina von Berlepsch , with whom she was friends, compiled autobiographical notes from her estate for a publication. Von Gerold bequeathed the unpublished manuscripts to the Austrian National Library , at that time still the imperial court library .

Publications (selection)

  • 1880: An autumn trip to Spain (2nd edition, 1881)
  • 1885: A trip to Athens and Corfu
  • 1895: A trip to Kerkyra and Athens
  • 1904: City pictures from southern France and northern Persia
  • 1904: Instantaneous pictures from the book of my memories
  • 1908: Memoirs , edited by Maria Goswina von Berlepsch (with a biographical introduction)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Registration form from 1901 , accessed on July 24, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Gerold, Rosa von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Henneberg, Rosalinde (maiden name); Roseline Alwine Henriette Caecilie Clotilde Minone
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian writer and salon lady
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1829
PLACE OF BIRTH Waltershausen , Thuringia , German Confederation
DATE OF DEATH January 16, 1907
Place of death Vienna , Austria-Hungary