Sophie Auguste Tilebein

Sophie Auguste Tilebein (* December 20, 1771 in Göttingen ; † August 21, 1854 in Züllchow near Stettin ; actually Sophie Caroline Auguste Tilebein née Pepin, used Buyrette) was a German painter and graphic artist , organizer of cultural life in Stettin and founded an artistic salon in Szczecin.

Live and act

ancestry

The Tilebein couple at the Herzogseiche (painting by Friedrich Georg Weitsch )

Sophie Auguste Tilebein had French and English roots. She was the daughter of the English professor of English at the University of Göttingen, Philipp Heinrich Pepin, and his wife Henriette Luise Perard, the daughter of a royal court preacher of the French Reformed congregation in Stettin, who died in childbed.

Teenage years

Her father loved her very much, but without a mother was unable to provide for her upbringing. Therefore, the child was raised by relatives of the mother, especially the preacher of the French Reformed congregation in Hanover Armand. Sophie Auguste was taught the basics of geography, botany, religion, literature, languages, she played the harpsichord and took care of the singing. With her father she went to Berlin and then to Paris.

Marriage to Jean Rodolphe Buyrette

In 1790, at the age of 19, Sophie Auguste married the 55-year-old merchant Jean Rodolphe Buyrette in Stettin, who had become wealthy through the trade in wood and wine, shipbuilding and his own shipping company . Even at that time, their hospitality and social skills were valued. After six years of marriage, Jean Rodolphe Buyrette died on October 1, 1796.

Marriage to Carl Gotthilf Tilebein

Less than a year after the death of her first husband, Sophie Auguste married a second time. Carl Gotthilf Tilebein was the son of the merchant Gotthilf Friedrich Tilebein , who traded in wine, grain and wood and had become wealthy as a result. Carl Gotthilf Tilebein was given the honorary title of "Privy Councilor of Commerce" in 1806, so that his wife was addressed as a "Privy Councilor".

Carl Gotthilf Tilebein was sent abroad for seven years as a young man to learn the trade of a businessman . He had also been in Bordeaux for some time to learn the secrets of viticulture and the making of wine. In 1784 he returned to Stettin and initially worked for his father. After his death in 1787 he ran the company under the name of Ta. Tilebein & Comp. initially continued with his brother-in-law Johann Tobias Piefke, who died in 1792. He belonged to a circle of close friends of Princess Elisabeth of Braunschweig .

He had already met Sophie Auguste when she was still married to Buyrette. Later he helped the widow with financial matters. The marriage took place in the Church of St. Gertrud in Stettin on July 31, 1797. After a modest wedding (since less than a year had passed after the death of their first husband), the young couple went on a long, eleven-month honeymoon through many countries in Europe, during which they spent six months in Paris, initially in a 5-room rented room -Apartment in the Hotel du Nord and then in a 5-room apartment close to the theaters that were frequently visited. There she met her father again, who was a professor in Paris. While her husband was able to develop his commercial interests, the young woman devoted herself to her intellectual and artistic training. In addition to taking guitar and singing lessons, she learned Italian and studied literature and playing the piano. The couple made the acquaintance of many French personalities. But they also met again many former acquaintances whom they knew from Stettin.

During the honeymoon, Piefke's brother-in-law managed the business alone. He died shortly after the Tilebein couple returned, so that Carl Gotthilf Tilebein ran the business alone until his death.

Castle in Züllchow

During her first marriage to Jean Rodolphe Buyrette, he had already bought a rural Büdner house with a garden on an Oder hill in Züllchow for his wife in 1795 . This property was later significantly enlarged. The Tilebein couple intended to sell their town house and to have a country house built on this property, and they commissioned the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel with a design. The drafts that Schinkel drew at the time and for which Stettin had been looking for a long time, reappeared not long ago in Münster / Westphalia. They represent a representative building, two storeys high and seven window axes wide, with an approach ramp and pillar porch in front of the front center. However, the execution was not carried out because the French marched into Stettin in October 1806. Sophie Auguste Tilebein didn't like the design either. With reference to her friends Friedrich Georg Weitsch and Friedrich Wilhelm von Schadow, she commented on the design with the comment that Schinkel places value on splendor and great taste, but not on practicality and bourgeois comfort. He always builds for princes and lords, but not for the real owner.

When the couple resumed the house building project in 1809, Sophie Auguste Tilebein drew a crack herself and had it carried out by a master carpenter from Szczecin. A castle-like country house was created with a theater, music hall and library .

Salon in Züllchow

Greetings to Züllchow, composed by Carl Loewe

The Tilebein couple formed the cultural center of social life in Szczecin. Between 1790 and 1806 as well as 1820 and 1833, Rahel Levin and, after her marriage, Rahel Varnhagen , ran a literary salon in Berlin ( Salon der Rahel Varnhagen ), in which poets, naturalists, politicians, social giants and aristocrats interacted on the same level. During a seven-week stay in Berlin in 1805, during which the Tilebein couple stayed in the renowned “Stadt Paris” hotel, they also met Rahel Levin through their friend, the Swedish chargé d'affaires Carl Gustav von Brinkmann, in whose salon Ms. Tilebein appeared several times as a guest.

This reinforced the idea of ​​founding such a salon in Stettin as well. Local artistic personalities such as the composer Carl Loewe and the poet Ludwig Giesebrecht as well as foreign artists such as the Berlin actor and August Wilhelm Iffland were invited to the Tilebein family . Visitors were also the President of the Province of Pomerania Johann August Sack , Field Marshal Friedrich Graf Wrangel , General Doctor August Ferdinand Wasserfuhr , Goethe's grandsons Walther and Wolfgang , their mother Ottilie née von Pogwisch , Princess Elisabeth of Braunschweig and Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia . Carl Loewe, who was encouraged by Mrs. Tilebein and had been a frequent guest in Züllchow, set several poems by Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg to music out of gratitude . a “Greetings to Züllchow”, which Loewe dedicated to “Privy Councilor” Tilebein

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  Louis Ferdinand of Prussia (1772–1806)

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  Carl Loewe

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  Rachel Levin

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  Elisabeth Christine Ulrike from Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel

Widow years

Carl Gotthilf Tilebein died on July 7th, 1820 after a short illness. His wife buried him in a crypt in their own park. She later had a mausoleum built based on her design .

After the death of her husband, she continued her artistic and social activities. She continued to be a patron of many artists in Szczecin, and her support was of great importance. Mrs. Tilebein died on August 21, 1854 in Züllchow and was buried in the mausoleum next to her husband.

Tilebeinstiftung

Sophie Auguste Tilebein had no children. In her will, some of the financial assets were earmarked for pensions for friends and servants. The remaining estate, in particular the property in Züllchow, was used to set up the Tilebein Foundation. The original purpose of this was to provide a carefree retirement age for elderly women in need, who come from Pomerania, mainly from Stettin, as the bearer of an old people's home in the buildings in Züllchow. The foundation survived the difficult years, especially after the Second World War, when the German economy collapsed.

On the night of August 29-30, 1944, the war events destroyed the palace and the side buildings without killing people. The mausoleum and gardener's house were not destroyed and were later demolished. At the time of the bombing, there were no more valuables in the palace. They had been outsourced. What happened to them after the war is not known.

The foundation with its new seat in Kiel was entered in the list of foundations under the name “Tilebein Foundation Stettin-Züllchow” . As long as a suitable home is not available, donations of money to needy and economically needy women who come from Pomerania, preferably from Szczecin, or live there are to be given donations from the net income of the foundation's assets, if possible for Christmas.

Web links

• Article in the name of Sophie Auguste Tilebein in Encyklopedia Szczecin (Stettin)
• Article in the name of Sophie Auguste Tilebein in TransodraPolen

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The following statements are essentially taken from the very detailed description by Otto Altenburg: The Tilebeins and their circle. Stettin 1937. (294 pages) Online
2. ↑ Elmar Schöne: Baltic Studies , New Series, Vol. 55, 1996. Page 55. online
3. ↑ Pictures of the castle, which was described as one of the "miracles of Züllchow", on the Opencaching.pl website: [1]
4. ↑ cf. on Brinkmann: EF Fossmann: Brinckmann, Karl Gustav von In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie , published by the Historical Commission at the Bavarian Academy of Sciences, Volume 47 (1903), pp. 236-238, digital full-text edition
5. ^ Hermann Manzke: Medical Councilor Dr. August Steffen (1825–1910): Nestor and Spiritus rector of paediatrics in Germany and Central Europe. Kiel 2005, p. 23f. digital: [2]
6. ^ Carl Loewes Werke: Liederkreise, edited by Max Runze, Vol. XVII, Leipzig 1817, pages 99 to 115. Digital: [3]
7. ↑ Directory of foundations of the State of Schleswig-Holstein, digitally accessed on June 10, 2021, digital