Hedevig Christine Paus (29 October 1763 – 7 March 1848) was a Norwegian businesswoman and the grandmother of the playwright

Henrik Ibsen Henrik Johan Ibsen (; ; 20 March 1828 – 23 May 1906) was a Norwegian playwright, poet and actor. Ibsen is considered the world's pre-eminent dramatist of the 19th century and is often referred to as "the father of modern drama." He pioneered ...

. Henrik Ibsen's parents, Knud and Marichen—Hedevig's daughter—grew up as close relatives, sometimes referred to as "near-siblings," and both belonged to the tightly intertwined

Paus family The Paus family (), also styled ''de Paus'', is a Norwegian family that emerged as a priestly family from Medieval Oslo in the 16th century. For centuries, it belonged to the " aristocracy of officials," especially in the clergy and legal prof ...

at the

Rising Rising or RISING may refer to: Film and TV * "Rising", 2001 television series episode, see list of ''Dark Angel'' episodes * "Rising" (''Stargate Atlantis''), television series episode * ''Rising'' (web series), an American daily news and opini ...

estate and in

Altenburggården Altenburg House (Norwegian: ''Altenburggården'') was a large townhouse in central Skien, Norway, known as the childhood home of the playwright Henrik Ibsen and his mother Marichen Altenburg. It burned down during the great fire of 1886. It was l ...

– that is, the extended family of the sibling pair Hedevig Paus and

Ole Paus Ole Paus (1947–2023) was a Norwegian singer-songwriter and poet, widely regarded as one of the most innovative Norwegian musical figures of the 20th century and "Norway's most significant troubadour at the time of his death." Emerging during t ...

, who belonged to the merchant elite of Skien. Ibsen drew significant inspiration from his childhood environment and family, and named or modelled various characters after family members; the main character of "Hedvig" in his masterpiece ''

The Wild Duck ''The Wild Duck'' (original Norwegian title: ''Vildanden'') is an 1884 play by the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. It explores the complexities of truth and illusion through the story of a family torn apart by secrets and the intrusion of a ...

'' was named after her.

Biography

She was born at Bjåland in

Lårdal Lårdal is a village in Tokke Municipality in Telemark county, Norway. The village is located on the north shore of the lake Bandak and about south of the village of Høydalsmo and the European route E134 highway. The village is the site of ...

in 1763. A member of the regionally prominent

of civil servants, she was the daughter of the forest inspector of

Upper Telemark Upper Telemark () is a traditional district in Telemark county in Norway. The area includes the inland areas of Telemark. More than two-thirds of the total area of Telemark—more than —belong to the traditional region of Upper Telemar ...

, Cornelius Paus, and Christine Falck. Cornelius's father and grandfather were both chief district judges of Upper Telemark. Hedevig was the sister of the ship's captain and shipowner

, and of Martha Paus (1761–1786), who was married to the shipowner and timber merchant Hans Jensen Blom. In 1794, she married the ship's captain Johan Andreas Altenburg, who early ceased sailing and settled down as a wealthy shipowner and merchant in Skien. At the beginning of the 1800s, the Altenburg family was among the wealthiest merchant families in the port city of Skien. Johan Andreas Altenburg "owned properties valued between twenty and thirty thousand, including a large mansion, a spirits distillery at Lundetangen, which was the second largest in the county, as well as a farm in the countryside at Århus and two ships engaged in the timber trade." Her husband died in 1824, and she then took over his businesses. The following year, their daughter

Marichen Altenburg Marichen Cornelia Martine Altenburg (24 April 1799 – 3 June 1869) was the mother of the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen and is known as the model for several characters in some of Ibsen's most famous plays, including Åse in ''Peer Gynt''.Robe ...

married

Knud Ibsen Knud Plesner Ibsen (3 October 1797, in Skien – 24 October 1877, in Skien) was a Norwegian merchant from the city of Skien and the father of the playwright Henrik Ibsen. He is widely considered the model for many central characters in hi ...

, who was the stepson of Hedevig's brother Ole Paus. Hedevig then transferred the assets to her daughter, and according to the laws of the time, they became the property of her son-in-law. The fortune enabled Knud Ibsen to establish himself as one of Skien's leading merchants in the late 1820s and early 1830s. One of her brother's sons, and Knud's half-brothers, Henrik Johan Paus, was also raised by Hedevig and Johan Andreas Altenburg. The families of Paus, Altenburg, and Ibsen were, therefore, very closely and intricately interwoven, and the marriage between Marichen and Knud has been described as "a perfect family arrangement."Joan Templeton, ''Ibsen's women'', Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 1ff. Hedevig Paus was the grandmother of

. Henrik Ibsen named many literary characters after family members, and he gave his grandmother's name to the character "Hedvig (Ekdal)" in ''

''. Ibsen also wrote that he had used his own family and childhood memories as the model for the Gynt family in ''

Peer Gynt ''Peer Gynt'' (, ) is a five-Act (drama), act play in verse written in 1867 by the Norwegian dramatist Henrik Ibsen. It is one of Ibsen's best known and most widely performed plays. ''Peer Gynt'' chronicles the journey of its title character fr ...

''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Paus, Hedevig Christine Henrik Ibsen 1763 births 1848 deaths 19th-century Norwegian businesswomen 19th-century Norwegian businesspeople People from Telemark