Maria Röhl

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Maria Christina Röhl (26 July 1801 – 5 July 1875) was a Swedish portrait artist who made portraits of a large number of the best known people in Sweden in the first half of the 19th century. Her paintings are exhibited at the national museum Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. The Swedish Royal library has a collection of 1800 portraits.

Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér drawing by Maria Röhl (1829)
Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér
drawing by Maria Röhl (1829)

[edit] Biography

Maria Röhl was born in Stockholm in a well-off family but became poor at the death of her parents in 1822. After her first plans to become a governess, she was educated in drawing by the professor and engravor Christian Forsell; she had already received education in art by the painter Alexander Hambré, and was now taught to make quick and realistic portrait drawings in lead and chalk.

She began to draw the friends of the Forsell family, where she lived, and soon it became fashionable in high sociaty to be portraited by "mamsell Röhl", and she was able to support herself as an artist. She was much employed by those who couldn't pay to be painted in oil, and drew a large number of famous Swedes of the time, both aristocrats and actors. Maria Röhl did paint in oil, but the majority of her work are drawings in lead and chalk.

In 1843, Röhl was appointed court painter, and in 1843-1846, she studied in Paris at the studio of Leon Cogniet at the French academy of arts. After her return, she established her own studio at Brunkebergstorg in Stockholm. During her last years, the art of photography became a harsh rival to her drawn portraits. She died in Stockholm.

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