A very successful rococo painter, working mainly for Frederick the Great, King of Prussia but not only. She specialised in portraits. The king regarded her works very highly and entrusted her with painting mythological scenes in his newly built palace of Sanssouci.
However, what attracted my attention was not solely the fact that over 200 years ago she was financially independent with very strong position in male dominated industry. It was this self-portrait with the monocle she painted at the age of 56.
Very intimate and different from most of her other works. Her eyes are smiling. The brushstrokes are quick and there is not much attention to details. There is no background, just a chair she sits on. Was she in a hurry or was she trying new techniques? You catch her when she is reading a book. You interrupt her but she is not irritated. In fact she is quite content to see you and it seems she might strat laughing or say something funny in a moment. And after I read her story I might know why. So who was Anna Dorothea?
She was born in Berlin as Anna Dorota Lisiewski. Her father, Georg Lisiewski was Polish. He came to Berlin around 1700 and started a career as – you would never guess – a portrait painter. He passed his talent and passion to all three of his children: Anna Dorothea, Anna Rosine and Christian Friedrich Reinhold. Not much is known about Christian but the two girls were soon celebrated as super talented, wonder kids.
In 1742, aged 21 Anna Dorothea married Ernst Friedrich Therbusch who was in an entirely different line of business – he owned an inn in Berlin. He was apparently also a lawyer. They had seven children, two of whom died very young. Being busy with family and the inn she gave up painting for many years. Was she happy? Hard to say but it is safe to make an assumption that she was very bored. In 1760 she pick up her brushes and starts painting again. Not as a hobby. She earns her living with it. A few months later she decides to leave her family and goes to Stuttgart where she completed 18 portraits for Duke Karl Eugen. I have found no trace of what happened between her and her husband. Did he approve? Was he angry and disappointed? Did he try to stop her? Or maybe he was relieved to see her go? And how did she manage to get herself a job? Very hard to make a clear judgement on that. It is still quite likely that they separated on friendly terms. Anna Dorothea painted a few portraits of her spouse. I have come across three of them, two dated after she had left.
MIDDLE: 1771, Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nurenberg, Germany
RIGHT: 1766, private collection
So at least two of these portraits were painted after Mr and Mrs Therbusch split up. Still, he looks cheerful and rather happy on all three of them. True, Anna Dorothea could have presented him this way to convince everyone that no harm was done but would he sit for her and be her model if things got really sour between them? I doubt it. Quietly I would like to think he supported her decision but it also may be that he claimed a chunk of her salary and that is why he seem to have been no trouble.
RIGHT: Julius Vieth van Golsenal, 1771
But that’s not all with Anna Dorothea. Being 44 she packs her trunks again and goes to Paris. When she arrived in 1765 French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture first could not believe that the colours and strokes on her paintings were a work of a woman. They were simply too good, worried the Academy. It was only later that they displayed and promoted her work. Still, during her Paris years she was rubbing shoulders with prominent artists and intellectuals and had close relationship with Denis Diderot, one of the Encyclopedists and major figure during the Age of Enlightenment. The two ended up living together for some time and there are reports he was posing for her naked, which makes her the first female painter to paint male nudity. Anna Dorothea was well past her youngest age so we can assume that apart from new passion the couple must have been a good intellectual match for one another. Over two centuries later their romance became an inspiration for contemporary writer, Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt to write a play “The Libertine” (“Der Friegeist”) in 1997. The play was successfully staged in Theatre Montparnasse in Paris. Her Paris experience was happening when Mr Therbusch was still very much alive but completely out of the scene. We do not know if he knew or if he objected. Or if she had any second thoughts. What we know is that she split up with Diderot and in the end was not able to get enough commissions to pay her bills in Paris.
In 1769 she is returned to Germany stopping briefly in Brussels and in The Hague. Back home she was greeted with open arms, treated with esteem and soon became a portrait painter of Frederick the Great and most of his court and family. By painting eight portraits of Prussian royals for Catharine the Great her work was known and admired also in Russia.
MIDDLE: Wilhelmine Encke, Countess Lichtenau, 1776,
LEFT: Henriette Herz, 1776, Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin
She died in 1781, aged just 61. But what a life! She did not leave any memoires, we know her only through her paintings. What was it like to be a working woman in those days? How did it feel to be well paid and independent when the phrase “women rights” or “pay equality” was completely unknown, unheard of? And how about her family? Was it a spontaneous decision to get away from them or was it a step she quietly considered for years before she did it? I would like to ask her all that but she would not answer, she just smiles.
dated 1740-49. I think it must have been painted around the time of her wedding, just before she gave up art for almost two decades.