Carl Andreas August Goos (painter, 1797-1855)
1850
Portrait of Luise Wille

Painting
21.5 x 27.5 cm
 
Relatives of Luise Wille
Luise Wille (1810, Schleswig - 1895, Berlin) was the second youngest child of Georg Friedrich Schumacher (1771-1852) and the medical doctor's daughter Johanna Margareta née Bong (1775-1726), both natives of Altona. Georg Schumacher (see Wikipedia), being close to the Enlightenment, was a high school principal, educator, and author of an autobiography, Genrebilder aus dem Leben eines siebenzigjährigen Schulmannes (Schleswig 1841). It is unknown when Luise (in Schleswig?) married Wille (first name unknown), after the wedding they both lived in Swinemünde (today Swinoujscie, Poland), where Wille was employed as a senior postal officer. This position certainly meant modest prosperity, but not riches. Childless throughout her life, Luise lived for a few years (approx. 1850-1852) separated from her husband in Schleswig, to take care of her father and run his household together with her younger, unmarried sister Agnes (1814-1889).
 
The daguerreotype (unfortunately not existent) that Wille obviously had made as a personal memento for his wife was made during this time. The small picture shows him wearing a cap and jacket with shiny metal buttons and epaulettes, thus a representative uniform as it was probably worn by state officials in the postal service. A little later, Luise had the Schleswig portrait painter Goos paint the small, intimate portrait for her husband, in which she is holding the daguerreotype - as a reminder to her husband that she is also thinking of him.
 
After the death of her father in 1852, Luise returned to her husband in Swinemünde. After Wille died of cholera there in 1866, Luise and Agnes, who had lived with her sister in Swinemünde since their father's death, moved to Berlin, where both lived until the end of their lives in the Domhospital (Protestant-Reformed old lady's and widows' home).
 
The picture bears, next to the left elbow of the portrayed, the inscription: “A. Goos pinxit [painted (it)] 1850”
 
LL/126699