Madame Szymanowska and Goethe – a burning love?

Walenty Wańkowicz (1799-1842): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, 1828. Oil on canvas, Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris/Biblioteka Polska w Paryżu
Walenty Wańkowicz (1799-1842): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, 1828. Oil on canvas, Bibliothèque polonaise de Paris/Biblioteka Polska w Paryżu

Just why Szymanowska sought Goethe’s friendship is not known. At any rate, on 8 August she and her sister travelled to Marienbad. At this time, Marienbad in the Austrian Crown land of Bohemia, was an aspiring spa town that was still very much under development. In 1808, on the initiative of the Tepl Premonstratensian monastery, the first bathing house had been built on the sulphurous “Maria” source fourteen kilometres west, which, with its surrounding healing springs, had been known since the Middle Ages. Following publications by the monastery doctor about the healing effect of the sources, a health resort, initially consisting of half-timbered houses, was set up in 1813 (Fig. 3). In the first season in 1815, seven buildings were available to the guests as accommodation.[18] In 1818, the health resort, which was named Marienbad after the source, was officially recognised. By 1820, classical pavilions had been erected at the fountains and at the viewpoints, parks had been created and prestigious spa buildings and hotels had been built (Fig. 4). However, it was still possible to experience the original idyll of the valley in the Kaiserwald (Fig. 5). In 1824, the site already had forty buildings and had a good reputation as a healing sanatorium for guests who also travelled to take the waters in nearby Carlsbad, which was much older, or to the other sites around Eger.[19]

In the period in question, high-ranking European society consisting of around eight hundred spa guests would frequent Marienbad. In August 1823, for example, to name just a few of the guests from the first eleven days of August when Maria Szymanowska and her siblings arrived, the guests included Ludwig Baron von Mannsbach, government assistant lawyer from Greiz, the Polish Division General Jan Nepomucen Umiński from Poznań, the “true Russian wife of the privy council from Kurland”, Charlotte Baroness von Hahn, Baroness Bernhardine von Aachen from Westphalia, a Kajetan von Szydłowsky, “landowner and knight of the Polish Order, from Warsaw”, Ferdinand Baron von Reiboldt, “Saxon secret finance officer, with wife, née Baroness Pflugk, and daughter, from Dresden”, a Bavarian lieutenant, a tutor from Greiz, a royal Bavarian Judge at the Higher Appeal Court with wife from Munich, merchants and noblemen from Prague and Berlin, the “chamberlain and estate owner” Leopold Count Kinsky von Wchinitz und Tettau from Vienna, a lawyer with wife from Budweis, a Count von Mycielski, landowner from Poznań, a Baron Skórzewski, “Landowner from Ekelmo (sic!, presumably Chełmno) in Pohlen” and opera singer Anna Milder, who had travelled from Berlin. People had a choice of living in the inns Zum Stern, Zum Prinzen, Zur Goldenen Sonne, Zur Goldenen Krone, Zum Schwarzen Adler, Zur Goldenen Traube, Zum Goldenen Falken, Zum Goldenen Löwen, Zum Weißen Schwan, like Szymanowska and her siblings in Klingers Gasthof, in the Sächsisches or in the Russisches Hause, in the hotels Zum Römer, Zur Stadt Dresden, Zum Grünen Kreuze or in the bathhouse.[20]

[18] Gersdorff 2005 (see Literature), page 9

[19] “Marienbad in Bohemia, which, along with Töplitz, Carlsbad and Franzensbrunn, is looking to assert a position…” (Allgemeine deutsche Real-Encyclopädie für die gebildeten Stände. (Conversations-Lexicon.) sixth edition, Volume 6, Leipzig 1824, page 146, online resource: https://opacplus.bsb-muenchen.de/Vta2/bsb10710725/bsb:1014601?queries=Marienbad&language=de&c=default )

[20] List 1823 (cf. Note 9, see PDF 1), No. 618-685, 1-11 August 1823

Media library
  • Fig. 1: Szymanowska, 1816

    Zofia Woyno (ca. 1810-1830): Portrait of the pianist Maria Szymanowska, miniature, 1816. Gouache over pencil on paper, 14 x 10,4 cm, Inv. No. Min.628 MNW, National Museum in Warsaw/Muzeum Narodowe w W...
  • Fig. 2: Serenade for Anton Radziwiłł, 1819

    Marie Szymanowska: Serenade for piano and accompanying cello, composed for and dedicated to His Highness, Prince Anton Radziwiłł, Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel 1819, National Library of Warsaw/Bibliot...
  • Fig. 3: Marienbad, ca. 1815

    The “Kreuzbrunnen” in Marienbad, ca. 1815. From: Franz Satori, Oesterreichs Tibur, oder Natur- und Kunstgemählde aus dem oesterreichischen Kaiserthume, Vienna 1819, frontispiece, Austrian National Lib...
  • Fig. 4: Marienbad, ca. 1820

    View of Marienbad, ca. 1820. Copperplate engraving, 8 x 13 cm. Title page to: List of spa guests arriving in Marienbad in 1823, Eger 1823
  • Fig. 5: Marienbad, ca. 1820

    Ludwig Ernst von Buquoy (1783-1834): View of Marienbad, ca. 1820. Copperplate engraving, coloured, 28.5 x 44 cm, privately owned
  • Fig. 6: Goethe, 1823

    Orest Adamowitsch Kiprensky (1782-1836): Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Marienbad 1823. Lithograph based on a pencil drawing
  • Fig. 7: Goethe, 1823/26

    Henri Grévedon (1776-1860): Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Paris 1826. Based on a drawing by Orest Adamowitsch Kiprensky (1782-1836) from 1823, lithograph, Inv. No. his-Port-G-0077, The Unive...
  • Fig. 8: Goethe, 1828

    Joseph Karl Stieler (1781-1858): Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1828. Oil on canvas, 78 x 63.8 cm, Inv. No. WAF 1048, Bavarian State Painting Collections – Neue Pinakothek Munich
  • Fig. 9: Brösigke’sches Haus, um 1821

    Unknown: Brösigke’sches Haus (Palais Klebelsberg) in Marienbad, ca. 1821, coloured lithograph, 44.9 x 65.1 cm, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
  • Fig. 10: Ulrike von Levetzow, ca. 1821

    Unknown: Portrait of Theodore Ulrike Sophie von Levetzow, ca. 1821. Pastel, 43.4 x 33.5 cm, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
  • Fig. 11: Szymanowska, 1825

    Aleksander Kokular: Portrait of Maria Szymanowska/Portret Marii Szymanowskiej, 1825. Oil on canvas, Inv. No. K.839, Muzeum Literatury im. Adama Mickiewicza, Warsaw
  • PDF 1: List of the Marienbad spa guests, 1823

    List of the spa guests arriving in Marienbad in 1823, Eger 1823, Eger 1823 (cover page missing), Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar
  • PDF 2: Kurjer Warszawski, 1822

    Nowości Warszawskie. Kurjer Warszawski, No. 77, 31 March 1822, page 1, Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie
  • PDF 3: Kurjer Warszawski, 1823

    Nowości Warszawskie, in: Kurjer Warszawski, No. 183, 3 August 1823, page 1, column 2, Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie
  • PDF 4: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, 1824

    News. Leipzig, from Michael 1823 to March 1824, in: Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, No. 13, 25 March 1824, column 204, Münchner Digitalisierungs-Zentrum
  • PDF 5: Journal für Literatur, Kunst, Luxus und Mode, 1823

    Madam Szymanowska – zu Weimar. Journal für Literatur, Kunst, Luxus und Mode, Volume 38, No. 109, November 1823, pages 889-892, Klassik Stiftung Weimar
  • PDF 6: Kurjer Warszawski, 1824

    Nowości Warszawskie, in: Kurjer Warszawski, No. 14, 16 January 1824, page 1, column 1 f., Biblioteka Jagiellońska w Krakowie