Emma Sophie Körner was a German painter, a pupil of the Swiss painter Anton Graff, and sister of the poet and soldier Carl Theodor Körner.
Background
Emma Körner was born in 1788, the daughter of Christian Gottfried Körner, a Judge of the Court of Appeals (Oberappellationsgerichtsrats), and of Minna Stock, the daughter of the engraver Johann Michael Stock. Her mother’s sister was the painter Dora Stock. Her father was a supporter and promoter of the poet Friedrich Schiller, who even lived for some time with the family.
Career
Other distinguished personalities, such as Goethe and Heinrich von Kleist, were also often guests. Emma’s aunt Dora, who had lived in her sister’s house since August 1785, encouraged Emma’s artistic talent, as well as painting her portrait. Seized with grief, Emma wanted the grave opened, but her father refused, fearing the effects on her of an overwhelming flood of emotion.
Four weeks after this visit, Emma was struck down in Dresden by a virulent nervous fever.
She was buried next to her brother under an oak-tree in Wöbbelin. Until it was destroyed in the bombing of Dresden in World World War II, the “Körner-Museum” in their old family home displayed paintings and compositions by the Körners and by Dora Stock.
Views
A remnant of these is now exhibited in the nearby “Dresden Museum of Romanticism,” in the former house of the painter Gerhard von Kügelgen.
Membership
Because Theodor had volunteered as a member of the Lützow Free Corps in the Befreiungskrieg against Napoleon in 1813, the Körners were avoided by many, both socially and politically, during the period of the Saxon king’s alliance with the French.