Marianne Ehrenström

Marianne (Mariana Maximiliana Christiana Carolina Lovisa) Ehrenström, née Pollet (9 December 1773 – 4 January 1867), was a Swedish writer, singer, painter, pianist, culture personality, memorialist, principal and lady-in-waiting. She was a member of the Academy of the Free Arts and an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. She is foremost known for her memoirs, which are regarded as a valuable historical documentation, especially about the contemporary cultural life.

Biography

Ehrenström was born in Zweibrücken, Germany, to the Swedish Commendant of Stralsund in Swedish Pomerania, Lieutenant General Johan Frans Pollett, and the dilettante painter Johanna Helena von Pachelbel-Gehag. She became a lady-in-waiting to the queen, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, in 1790, and kept her position until 1803. She was educated in singing by the singer Christoffer Christian Karsten, in piano playing by the composer Georg Joseph Vogler and in drama by the actor Jacques Marie Boutet de Monvel. She was admired as a singer, a piano player and as a painter of landscapes and miniatures and regarded as a great culture personality. She had a noted friendship with dramatist Carl Gustaf af Leopold.

She was elected to the Academy of the Free Arts in 1800, and as an honorary member to the Royal Swedish Academy of Music in 1814. Between 1815 and 1831, she founded and managed a girl's school. She married Colonel Ehrenström (d. 1816) in 1803. In 1826 she published a book about writers, theatre, music, painting and sculpture. She is most known in history for her memoirs, written in French, a large, often quoted and valuable source about the contemporary period, now kept at the Swedish Academy.

A selected part of her memoirs where translated and published by Henrik Schück in 1919 under the title : Den sista gustavianska hofdamen (The last Gustavian lady in waiting).

Works

• 1826 - Notices sur la littérature et les beaux arts en Suède
• 1830 - Notice biographique sur monsieur de Leopold, secrétaire d'état

See also

• Margareta Alströmer
• Christina Charlotta Cederström
• Märta Helena Reenstierna

References

• Österberg, Carin et al., Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare (Swedish women; Predecessors, pioneers). Lund: Signum 1990. (ISBN 91-87896-03-6) (Swedish)
• Mariana Maximiliana Christiana Ehrenström (Swedish)