Terbusch, Anna Dorothea

Anna Dorothea was born in Berlin on July 23, 1721 in the family of a German portrait painter of Polish descent Georg Lisievsky . The artist’s father came from a noble family and arrived in Berlin to the court of the Prussian king Frederick William I in 1692 as part of the retinue of the court architect Johann Friedrich Eosander von Goethe . Since women were not admitted to art academies, Lisievsky himself taught the painting of daughters - future famous portrait painters Anna Dorothea Terbusch and , together with their brother . The sisters also received several painting lessons from the court artist Antoine Pan .

In 1742, Anna Dorothea married Ernst Friedrich Terbusch, the owner of the White Dove inn and inn in Berlin. In marriage, she gave birth to seven children, five of whom survived. During family life, Anna Dorothea almost did not paint pictures. She painted in secret from everyone at night. In 1760, the artist, leaving her children with her husband, returned to artistic activity, for which contemporaries described her as a “short-sighted middle-aged woman”.

In 1761, Terbusch won the seat of a court artist at the court of the Württemberg Duke Karl Eugene in Stuttgart . In a short time, she wrote eighteen paintings for the desuportes in the mirror gallery of the ducal castle, which, unfortunately, all burned down during the fire. In 1762, she was appointed an honorary member of the , founded a year earlier. In 1764, at the invitation of the Bavarian elector Charles IV Theodore, she worked at his court in Mannheim . Two portraits of the Elector of the artist’s brush are now kept in the collections of in Mannheim and the old Pinakothek in Munich . These canvases indicate a shift in emphasis in official portraits of heads of state from a large front to a small private portrait, symbolizing an enlightened ruler.

In 1765, Terbusch arrived in Paris. At first, the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture rejected the artist’s painting, as she considered the painting too good to be written by a woman. Denis Didro mentions Terbusch's paintings, including his portrait, in which he is naked, in the for 1767, published by himself and Friedrich Melchior Grimm. In the philosopher’s book “ ” Terbusch is one of the actors.

February 28, 1767 with a picture of the genre "Young man with a glass in his right hand and a lit candle," the artist was finally admitted to the Royal Academy. She was the only woman to present her paintings at the Paris Salon of 1767. Although Terbusch was not able to achieve commercial success in France, during this time she improved her skills.

December 6, 1768, thanks to the painting "Portrait of the Landscape Painter Jacob Philip Hackert ", the artist became the first woman to be admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Through Brussels , The Hague and Amsterdam , where she completed her art education, studying the collection of Gerrit Braamcamp and painting a portrait of the collector herself, she returned to Berlin in early 1769. The Terbusch technique in face painting, in which she used many thin glazes to achieve a natural effect, involves a thorough study of Rubens’s creative heritage.

Returning to Berlin in 1769, the artist continued to paint, achieving high marks for her professional activities. After the death of her husband in 1772, she was recognized as his widow, and since 1773, together with her brother, she opened a joint studio on Unter den Linden Boulevard. During this period, she wrote a number of paintings of historical and mythological content for the palace of Sanssouci. In 1775, Trebush painted a portrait of the sixty-three-year-old Frederick II the Great. Assessing the artist’s skill, the king said: “In order to dishonor her brush, she again adorned my face, filling [him] with the grace of youth” ^[1] .

By order of the Russian Empress Catherine II the Great, Terbush painted full-size portraits of all members of the Prussian royal family. Now they are kept in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg.

Terbusch died in Berlin on November 9, 1782, and was buried in the Dorotheenstadt cemetery; now a park is laid out at this place. After the demolition of the old baroque church in the middle of the 19th century, the epitaph dedicated to it was added to the outer wall of the new church. During the demolition of the ruins of the new church in 1965, the epitaph was lost.

Relations between Terbusch and Diderot inspired the writer Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt to create the play “Free in Spirit” in 1997, based on which the film “ Libertine ” was shot in 2000 by director Gabriel Agion . The role of Terbusch in the film was played by the French actress Fanny Ardant .

• . Lisiewska, Anna Dorothea // Neue Deutsche Biographie: [ him. ] . - Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, 1985 .-- Vol. Xiv. - P. 684. - 784 p. - ISBN 3-428-00195-8 .
• . Digitalisat Historische politisch- geographisch- statistisch- und militärische Beyträge : [ him. ] . - Berlin: Joachim Paoli, 1785. - Vol. III. - P. 569. - 720 p.
• Küster K., Scherzer B., Fix A. Der freie Blick. Anna Dorothea Therbusch und Ludovike Simanowiz. Zwei Porträtmalerinnen des 18. Jahrhunderts: [ him. ] . - Heidelberg: Kehrer Verlag, 2002 .-- ISBN 3-933257-85-9 .
• Küster K. Anna Dorothea Therbusch, eine Malerin der Aufklärung. Leben und Werk : [ him. ] . - Heidelberg: Landesbibliographie Baden-Württemberg, 2008.
• . Malerinnen aus fünf Jahrhunderten: [ him. ] . - Hamburg: Ellert und Richter, 1988 .-- ISBN 3-89234-077-3 .

• Literatur von und über Anna Dorothea Therbusch (neopr.) . www.dnb.de. - Katalog der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek. Date of treatment December 13, 2017. (German)