12 Works, November 21st. is Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann's day, her art, illustrated with footnotes #238

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

An Egyptian Pot Seller at Gizeh, c. between 1876 and 1878

Oil on canvas

Height: 92 cm (36.2 in); Width: 114 cm (44.8 in)

Statens Museum for Kunst

The picture is a concentrate of observations on travels 1869-70 and 1874-75 to Turkey, Greece and Egypt and must be described as one of Jerichau Baumann's masterpieces. It is carried by a sensuality and coloristic boldness that is atypical of the Danish art of the period, but less marked by the pointed ethnocentrism that characterizes contemporary international orientalism. 

The scene is rich in colour and contrast; the glorious hues of the rug catch the eye. The nude body beneath sheer silk and the exotic jewellery add a sensuous quality that still impresses. Of Polish-German descent, Jerichau Baumann had a wider outlook than most Danish artists of the time. More on this painting

Anna Maria Elisabeth Lisinska Jerichau-Baumann (21 November 1819 – 11 July 1881)

was a Polish-Danish painter. She was married to the sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau.

Elisabeth was born in Żoliborz,  a borough of Warsaw. Her father Philip Adolph Baumann (1776–1863), a mapmaker, and her mother, Johanne Frederikke Reyer (1790–1854), were of German extraction.

Elisabeth Anna Maria Jerichau-Baumann (DANISH, 1819-1881)

Odalisque

Oil on canvas

38½ x 29½ (97.7 x 75 cm.)

Private collection

At the age of nineteen, she began her studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf which at the time was one of the most important art centres in Europe and her early subject matter was drawn from Slovak life. She is associated with the Düsseldorf school of painting. She began exhibiting there and in 1844 attracted public attention for the first time. After she moved to Rome, her paintings were primarily of local life. When Baumann was not travelling, she spent many hours a day in her studio in Rome. She was particularly fond of the Italian painters. Baumann had great success abroad, however, and had a special following in France where she was twice represented at the World Fair in Paris, first in 1867 and again in 1878. In 1852 she exhibited some of her paintings in London, and Queen Victoria requested a private presentation in Buckingham Palace. Among the portraits presented to the Queen was her painting of Hans Christian Andersen, completed in 1850.

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

Denmark, c. 1851

Ol on canvas

Height: 149 cm (58.6 in); Width: 119 cm (46.8 in)

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek

Mother Denmark (Danish: Mor Danmark) is the female personification of Denmark and a patriotic emblem of the Danish nation.

Allegorial representations of Denmark as a woman with antique garments and a coat of arms are first seen in the 18th century. In the 19th century, with Romantic Nationalism, it became more common. 

In 1851, under influence of the Danish victory in the Battle of Isted, Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann created a painting of Mother Denmark in the form of a young woman, with a Dannebrog and Viking jewellery, holding an antique sword, walking through a field. The painting became a model for many later depictions of Mother Denmark. More on this painting

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

Matka Polka/ Mother Poland (preliminary study), c. 1857

Oil on canvas

Height: 41 cm (16.1 in); Width: 34 cm (13.3 in)

Private collection

Jerichau Baumann, Elisabeth

Britannia, c. 1873

Oil on canvas

216,0 x 162,0 cm

KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg

And where in 1851 she portrayed 'Mother Denmark' as a young, blonde girl, twelve years later she paints a gigantic and grandiose version of 'Britannia', which rules the world's oceans while a naked, black woman crawls with her infant for her foot. More on this painting

Jerichau Baumann, Elisabeth

Detail; Britannia, c. 1873

Oil on canvas

216,0 x 162,0 cm

KUNSTEN Museum of Modern Art Aalborg

In 1869–1870 Baumann traveled extensively in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle-East, and again in 1874–1875 accompanied by her son Harald. Being a woman, she was able to gain access to the harems of the Ottoman Empire and as a result was able to paint scenes of harem life from personal observation, in contrast to most artists of the time, whose work on this popular subject was entirely derived from the imagination or other artists in the same position as themselves. Nevertheless, as Roberts points out, she had to curb her desire to paint the women of the harems as Europeans liked to imagine them because they insisted on being painted in the latest Paris fashions.

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann

Egyptian potter from Bulah, Cairo, c. 1876

Oil on canvas

Private collection

An Egyptian Pot Seller at Gizeh is one of several paintings of Oriental women by Polish-Danish painter Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann. It is considered one of her best works.

The painting depicts a young woman who is wearing a fairly transparent garment while looking directly at the viewer. Chief curator and senior researcher at the National Gallery of Denmark, Peter Nørgaard Larsen, who has ranked the painting among his favourite works in the museum's collection, has observed, "you get the sense that here we face a strong personality who is not ready to simply be sex object, but has strong self-esteem. In this respect, Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann's pictures are very different from what we generally call European Orientalism—a long tradition of male artists painting beautiful women dressed in very little; pictures that were painted by men bought by men and looked at by men. She had a different sensibility, as is apparent in this picture, and that makes her unique in Danish and European art history". More on this painting

Elisabeth Jerichau Baumann

An Egyptian Fellah Woman with her Baby, c. 1871 – 1872

Oil on canvas

8.5cm (h) x 129.2cm (w)

SMK Open 

A Fellah is a peasant, farmer or agricultural labourer of the original rural population in the Middle East, in this case Egypt.A Fellah is a peasant, farmer or agricultural labourer of the original rural population in the Middle East, in this case Egypt.

This painting is an excellent example of Baumann’s keen sense for the erotic and the sensuous. This painting of an Egyptian farm worker is among the most striking of Jerichau Baumann’s oriental scenes. The nudity beneath the sheer silk fabric, the exotic jewellery, the reddening evening sky, and the dark colours all infuse it with a sensuous quality that must have had a strong impact in the 1870s, a time when the body was still viewed with suspicion. More on this painting

In 1869, she was admitted into the harem of Mustafa Fazil Paşa. She was able to gain entry because of her royal patronage in Denmark and brought with her a letter of introduction from Princess Alexandra of Denmark by then the Princess of Wales. The princess had accompanied her husband (the future Edward VII) on a grand tour which included the Ottoman Empire, earlier that year, and therefore had great influence. But the fact that Mustafa was a liberal in favour of a Western style constitutional government and was a vocal proponent of modernization played an important part in her being granted entry. She was entranced by Mustafa Paşa's daughter Nazlı and wrote home to her husband and children, 'Yesterday I fell in love with a beautiful Turkish Princess' (See below).

Elisabeth Maria Anna Lisinska...

The princess nazili hanum or nazli khanum, c. 1875

Oil on canvas

132 x 170 cm ; 52 by 67 in

Private collection

Princess Zainab Nazli Khanum Effendi (1853 - 1913) was an Egyptian princess of the dynasty of Muhammad Ali and one of the first women to revive the tradition of literary salons in the Arab world, in her Cairo palace in the early 1880s and until his death. She spent her youth in Istanbul where she received an education rarely granted to the women of her time. She spoke six languages ​​including Turkish, Arabic, French, Italian and German. Married to the Turkish Ambassador, Halil Sherif Pasha, she lived briefly in Paris. After the death of her husband, she moved to Cairo in a palace which hosted social gatherings and intellectuals who had become her friends. More on this painting

Her work from this period is sometimes decorative and frequently sentimental but with a fine sense of colour and lighting. The sensualism in some of these paintings was still considered taboo in some parts of Europe and the Danish art world tried to keep these works out of sight. Until recently, her paintings were kept in museum storerooms in Denmark. The erotic quality in many of her husband's statues may have helped her to disregard this provincialism in spite of the obvious social risks to a woman at the time

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

Mermaid, c. 1861

Oil on canvas

96 cm x 126 cm

Ny Carlsberg Glyptote

Mermaid, painted in 1873, is the last of at least four oil on canvas paintings of mermaids painted by the Polish-Danish painter Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann. It depicts a mermaid with a melancholic facial expression, leaning against a rock in shallow water, with a night sky residing over a moonlit sea in the background.One of Baumann-Jerichau's earlier mermaid paintings was presented to Hans Christian Andersen as a birthday present and is now in the Funen Art Museum. The two other mermaid paintings are in private collections. More on this painting

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

Mermaid, c. 1863

Oil on canvas

I have no further description, at this time

Elisabeth Baumann  (1819–1881)

Mermaid, c. 1873

Oil on canvas

96 cm x 126 cm

Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek  

Mermaid, painted in 1873, is the last of at least four oil on canvas paintings of mermaids painted by Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann. It depicts a mermaid with a melancholic facial expression, leaning against a rock on shallow water, with a night sky residing over a moonlit sea in the background.

Elisabeth Baumann Jerichau

A Shepherd Boy standing before the Parthenon

Oil on canvas

55 x 38 1/4 in. (139.7 x 97.2 cm.)

Private collection

Baumann met her husband, Jens Adolf Jerichau, an art professor, in Rome. They married in 1846 and had nine children, two of whom died in infancy. Of the rest, several became accomplished painters including Harald Jerichau (1851–1878), who died of malaria and typhus in Rome, and Holger Hvitfeldt Jerichau (1861–1900) who painted primarily impressionistic landscapes. His work earned the favour of the Russian Royal Family whose patronage helped him finance his foreign travels. He was called "a true visionary and talented artist" by the art critics of the time and had many successful exhibitions but like his older brother died young at age 41. One of his paintings sold for over twelve thousand dollars in 1991. She has several other descendants who are artists and her grandson J.A. Jerichau (1891–1916) was one of Denmark's most talented modernist painters. More on Elisabeth Jerichau-Baumann

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