Apollonia Seydelmann, née De Forgue (17 June 1767/68,

Venice Venice ( ; ; , formerly ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 islands that are separated by expanses of open water and by canals; portions of the city are li ...

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

- 27 June 1840,

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

) was a German-Italian miniaturist.

Life and work

She was the daughter of a French landowner and an Italian woman named Teresa Tomasini. After her father's death, her mother married the poet

Caterino Mazzolà Caterino Tommaso Mazzolà (18 January 1745 at Longarone – 16 July 1806 in Venice) was an Italian poet and librettist. Born into a wealthy family from the islands of Murano, he and his family moved to Venice around 1767, but after a few yea ...

. In 1780, he was appointed Court Poet in Dresden. There, at the age of sixteen, she married the painter

Jakob Seydelmann Jakob Crescenz Seydelmann, also known as Crescentius Josephus Jacob Seydelmann (26 July 1750, Dresden – 27 March 1829, Dresden) was a German graphic artist and illustrator. __NOTOC__ Life and work His father, Franz Joseph Seydelmann (1713-1785) ...

. Under his tutelage, she also became a painter. They had one daughter. In 1790, they travelled to Italy, where she took lessons in miniature painting from Therese Concordia Maron, the sister of

Anton Raphael Mengs Anton Raphael Mengs (12 March 1728 – 29 June 1779) was a German Neoclassicism, Neoclassical painter. Early life Mengs was born on 12 March 1728, at Ústí nad Labem in the Kingdom of Bohemia, the son of Ismael Mengs, a Danish-born painter wh ...

, who had been her husband's teacher. When they returned home, she had already earned recognition for her sepia drawings and was accepted into the

Dresden Academy The Dresden Academy of Fine Arts (German ''Hochschule für Bildende Künste Dresden''), often abbreviated HfBK Dresden or simply HfBK, is a vocational university of visual arts located in Dresden, Germany. The present institution is the product ...

, with a pension of 200

Thaler A thaler or taler ( ; , previously spelled ) is one of the large silver coins minted in the states and territories of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy during the Early Modern period. A ''thaler'' size silver coin has a diameter o ...

s. In 1820, she was named an honorary member of the

Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma The Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma is a public tertiary academy of art in Rome, Italy. It was founded in the sixteenth century, but the present institution dates from the time of the unification of Italy and the capture of Rome by the Kingdom ...

. Her drawing of the

Sistine Madonna The ''Sistine Madonna'', also called the ''Madonna di San Sisto'', is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael. The painting was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza, and probably executed ''c.'' 15 ...

, after the work by

Raphael Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (; March 28 or April 6, 1483April 6, 1520), now generally known in English as Raphael ( , ), was an Italian painter and architect of the High Renaissance. List of paintings by Raphael, His work is admired for its cl ...

, was made into a famous engraving by

Johann Friedrich Müller Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Müller (11 December 1782, Stuttgart - 3 May 1816, Pirna) was a German copperplate engraver. Biography He was the eldest son of the copperplate engraver, Johann Gotthard von Müller, and his second wife Rosine née Sch ...

, an artist in

Stuttgart Stuttgart (; ; Swabian German, Swabian: ; Alemannic German, Alemannic: ; Italian language, Italian: ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, largest city of the States of Germany, German state of ...

. It was said that he was not fully satisfied with her rendition of the painting, and travelled throughout Italy, studying Raphael's works first hand. In Dresden, she also ran a small salon, which was frequented by foreign and local artistic notables.Marie Börner-Sandrini: ''Erinnerungen einer alten Dresdnerin'', Warnatz & Lehmann 1876, pg.187

Life and work

References

Further reading