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Anna Maria Ehrenstrahl, as married Wattrang, (1666-1729), was a Swedish painter, the leading female painter in her country. She was a baroque-artist and painted allegorical works, portraits and group portraits in the style of the Baroque.

[edit] Biography

The daughter of the court painter David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl and Maria Momma, she was taught by her father to copy and finish his works and to paint details to complete the paintings in his studio. She is confirmed as her fathers assistant from ca 1680. Her learning as an artist was therefore not complete, as he never intended her to become an independent artist, just as a form of artistic secretary in his studio, but she was in fact to create paintings herself eventually.

In 1688 she married Johan Wattrang, vice president in Svea Hovrätt, and painted six portraits of this courts former presidents, which she gave the court signed with her own name (1717). Her way of painting was in the same barocque style as her father; she painted allegories and portraits of both single people and groups, bot real people and mytholocigal figures in the style of the time. Among them was portraits of king Charles XI of Sweden, Prince Ulrik (in 1685), an allegory over the four seasons (1687) and an allegory of Cupid and Psyche. She painted the four king's under her lifetime, the Princes Gustaf and Fredrik, Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark and Aurora Königsmarck.

She belonged to the circle around the salonist and poet Sophia Elisabet Brenner, who wrote her a poem inspired by her works:

[edit] See also

• Ulrika Pasch
• Anna Maria Thelott

[edit] References

• http://runeberg.org/sqvinnor/0147.html
• Österberg, Carin et al., Svenska kvinnor: föregångare, nyskapare. Lund: Signum 1990. (ISBN 91-87896-03-6)
• "Svenskt Konstnärslexikon", Allhems Förlag, Malmö.