Maria Mathilde Esch (18 February 1815 – 2 May 1904) was an Austrian genre painter.

Life

The daughter of German architect and local superintendent of construction (1784–1854), Esch grew up in

Brno Brno ( , ; ) is a Statutory city (Czech Republic), city in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava (river), Svitava and Svratka (river), Svratka rivers, Brno has about 403,000 inhabitants, making ...

, at the time part of

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

. She became a student of several recognized painters of the era, such as

Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller (; 15 January 1793 – 23 August 1865) was an Austrian painter. Waldmüller was one of the most important Austrian painters of the Biedermeier period. Career In 1807, Waldmüller attended the Academy of Fine Art ...

and

Joseph von Führich Joseph von Führich (fully Josef Ritter von Führich) (9 February 1800 – 13 March 1876) was an Austrian painter, one of the Nazarene movement, Nazarenes. He painted religious pictures almost exclusively. Führich acquired his greatest fame as ...

, and spent time in cities like

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Munich Munich is the capital and most populous city of Bavaria, Germany. As of 30 November 2024, its population was 1,604,384, making it the third-largest city in Germany after Berlin and Hamburg. Munich is the largest city in Germany that is no ...

and

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

. Following the death of her father in 1854, she permanently moved to Vienna, where she built upon her already existing reputation as a skilled landscape and genre painter by carrying out her profession, with most of her works going into private ownership. She focused primarily on scenes of the German and Hungarian popular culture, but also produced some

still lifes A still life (: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or human-made (drinking glasses, books, ...

. Her paintings were exhibited in Vienna, Munich,

Dresden Dresden (; ; Upper Saxon German, Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; , ) is the capital city of the States of Germany, German state of Saxony and its second most populous city after Leipzig. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, 12th most p ...

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

and Brno.

Selected works

* ''Bauernhof in Mähren'' (1856) * ''Marktszene in Mähren'' (1856) * ''Münchner Mädchen auf dem Friedhof'' (1856) * ''Die Domkirche auf dem Brünner Petersberge'' * ''Ansicht von Brünn'' * ''Mädchen mit einem Hunde'' (1858) * ''Die Blumenverkäuferin vor der Kirche'' (1863) * ''Kroatische Edelbraut'' (1880) * ''Die 5 Sinne''

References

1815 births 1904 deaths 19th-century Austrian painters Austrian painters Austrian landscape painters Austrian genre painters {{Austria-painter-stub