Adelheid Marie, née Princess of Anhalt-Dessau

Duchess of Nassau, painter

born: 25.12.1833 in Dessau

died: 24.11.1916 in Königstein im Taunus

Her parents, Prince Friedrich August von Anhalt-Dessau and Princess Marie Louise Charlotte von Hessen-Kassel, encouraged her talent as a painter from an early age. In 1851, Adelheid Marie married Duke Adolph zu Nassau. In Wiesbaden, she took painting lessons from the ducal curator Otto Reinhard Jacobi. In fulfillment of an initiative launched by Duchess Pauline Friederike zu Nassau, who died in 1856, she and Duke Adolph established the Paulinenstiftung(Pauline Foundation) in 1857. Adelheid Marie was honorary president of the Nassauischer Kunstverein e.V., founded in 1847. During the German Confederation's war against Denmark in 1864, Duke Adolph safeguarded her and her children's potential rights of succession in the previously Danish Duchy of Lauenburg. During the German War of 1866, Duke Adolph followed his troops on July 15 and left Adelheid Marie and her children behind in Biebrich Palace. It was not until the end of October, after the annexation of Nassau by Prussia on September 7, 1866, that Adelheid Marie left Biebrich for good.

On her travels throughout Europe at the beginning of the 1870s, especially to Italy, Adelheid Marie received new inspiration for her landscape painting. At Hohenburg Castle near Lenggries, acquired by Duke Adolph in 1870, she patronized painters of the Munich School. After the Königstein house was renovated in 1877, it once again became the focus of her painting activities, as it had been since 1859. Here she decorated the Protestant church, built in 1888, with numerous paintings. After Adolph's accession to the throne as Grand Duke of Luxembourg in 1890, she was the first woman to play a significant role in Luxembourg's artistic life. The retrospective of all her works in Königstein in 1915 attracted great attention. She was also the last mother of Nassau to be buried in the Weilburg royal crypt. Adelheidstraße in Wiesbaden commemorates the Duchess.