The fame of Anna Memorata, Fulvia Morata, and Anna Maria Schurmann meanwhile filled the German women with emulative desire to inscribe their names beside those accomplished persons. Gertrude Möller was learned in the languages, and Sibylla Schwarz in poetry. Even Rist, who excluded women from his literary society, corresponded with the poetess Maria Commer.
This was the beginning of honorary poetic orders, and women were not excluded from these, especially from those established by Zesen. He was the patron and encourager of female genius and enterprise; his pen was dedicated to the service of the sex, and his praises were reciprocated by the grateful fair. In his “Lustinne” he sings of the lady poets of his day.
The female artists of that time seemed, indeed, to lack such generous appreciation; and it may be that the enthusiastic eulogies lavished by poets on each other had a selfish aim. Yet the period was not without a goodly number of women who cultivated art, and it is not improbable that the success of the poetesses had some effect in stimulating their zeal. The example of the illustrious Schurmann, who wore the double wreath of both branches of study, was before their eyes; and the Dutch school had much influence in forming tastes in Germany.
The love of exercising creative power naturally developed itself in various ways. Nuremberg, the seat of the Pegnitzschäfer order of bards; Hamburg, the residence of the chivalrous Zesen; Saxony, where flourished many fair devotees to literature—were not abandoned by the spirit of art. In the first-mentioned city we hear of two paintresses descended from families celebrated for artistic excellence: Susannah Maria von Sandrart, who also did etching in copper; and Esther Juvenel, who drew plans for architecture. To these may be added the name of Barbara Helena Lange, who earned celebrity by engraving on copper, and carving figures in ivory and alabaster. She was admitted to the Pegnitz order, on account of her poetical talent, in 1679, her poetical name being entered as Erone. In 1686 she married one Kopsch, and with him removed to Berlin, and afterward to Amsterdam.
The names of Maria Clara Eimart and Magdalena Fürst may here be mentioned as flower-painters; that of Helen Preisler as an engraver on copper; and Joanna Sabina Preu as both an engraver and modeler in wax. All these obtained no insignificant reputation.
In Nuremberg also lived, in 1684, Anna Maria Pfründt, born in Lyons. She modeled portraits in wax, some of which were those of persons of high rank, and, adorned with costly drapery and precious stones, gained a wide-spread reputation for the artist.
Augsburgh was also rich in evidences of woman’s artistic taste. Susannah Fischer and Johanna Sibylla Küsel excelled in painting, while her younger sisters, Christina and Magdalena Küsel, with Maria Wieslatin, engraved in copper. Others surpassed the Nurembergers in fine carving.
In Regensburgh lived Anna Catharina Fischer, a flower and portrait painter; in Munich, Isabella del Pozzo was appointed court painter by the Electress Adelaide, and the miniature-painter Maria Rieger was employed very frequently by princely personages. Placida Lamme distinguished herself about the same time by painting miniatures and carving pictures, with which she occupied her time in the Bavarian cloister of Hohenwart.
In Hamburg, Mariana Van der Stoop and Diana Glauber were painters by profession, and in Saxony we find a skillful portrait-painter in Margaretta Rastrum, who pursued her art in Leipzig. The above-mentioned Anna Catharina Fischer lived a long time in Halle, with her husband, a painter named Block. Toward the end of this century we hear of Madame Ravemann, who executed a beautiful medal—an exquisite specimen of cutting—for Augustus the Second.