On Thursday, September 26, 2024, the Gemäldegalerie will present the results of a two-year art-historical and art-technological research project on the work of the important Berlin rococo painter Anna Dorothea Therbusch in a book launch with an evening lecture. In addition to essays on overarching themes, the publication includes an extensive catalog section presenting the artist’s paintings kept in public institutions in Berlin and the Brandenburg region.
Image above: Anna Dorothea Therbusch, Das Federballspiel, 1741, Öl auf Leinwand, 105 x 150 cm, Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Inventar-Nr. GK I 7437 / Photo: Roland Handrick
The Berlin painter Anna Dorothea Therbusch (1721-1782) was one of the most important artists of the 18th century. Even as a young woman, she worked for clients close to the Prussian royal family. She later became successful in Paris, where in 1767 she was one of the few women to be admitted to the most important European art academy of the time, the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. Back in Berlin, she became a sought-after portrait painter in high society. She produced mythological histories for the palaces of Frederick II and received commissions from the Russian Tsarina Catherine II.
After the Gemäldegalerie, in cooperation with the Alte Nationalgalerie, presented the monographic exhibition “Anna Dorothea Therbusch. A Berlin Artist of the Enlightenment’, the Gemäldegalerie dedicated an art-historical and art-technological research and publication project to the painter from 2022 to 2024. For the first time, the volume to be presented makes Therbusch’s paintings held in museums and other institutions in Berlin and Brandenburg systematically accessible in a book. Thematic essays also provide new insights into the artist’s working methods and the materials she used, her life and the themes of her works, her personal networks and the history of her reception. The volume thus also offers an up-to-date introduction to the work of this extraordinary painter.
The publication will be presented to the public as part of a symposium on September 26 and 27, 2024 entitled “Anna Dorothea Therbusch in Context. Artists of the 18th Century in Berlin and Europe” on September 26 and 27, 2024. International experts will present the latest findings on the artist and highlight further research perspectives. The lectures will deal with Therbusch’s relationship to other artists such as Johann Gottfried Schadow and her brother Christoph Friedrich Reinhold Lisiewsky, with Therbusch’s depictions of female nudity and ancient heroines, with the position of her work in the development of Jewish portraits of women, with her concept of artistry, with her painting technique and her particular career strategies.
Anna Dorothea Therbusch in Berlin and Brandenburg. Works, technique, context:
Edited by Nuria Jetter, in collaboration with Sarah Salomon and Anja Wolf, with contributions by Jens Bartoll, Gerd Bartoschek, Alexandra Nina Bauer, Anina Gröger, Nuria Jetter, Sarah Salomon, Anna Schultz and Anja Wolf, 256 pages, Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2024, ISBN: 978-3-7319-1378-8, 39,95 EUR
Public book launch as part of the symposium “Anna Dorothea Therbusch in Context. Artists of the 18th century in Berlin and Europe”:
Thursday, September 26, 2024
6 pm
Welcome | Dagmar Hirschfelder, Director of the Gemäldegalerie
6:15 pm
Book presentation | Nuria Jetter, Sarah Salomon and Anja Wolf, Gemäldegalerie
6:45 pm
Evening lecture: A “meteor” in the southern German sky – Anna Dorothea Therbusch’s networks and career strategy | Katharina Küster, Landesmuseum Württemberg, Stuttgart
Venue: Lecture hall in the Kulturforum, admission free
