User:Petra Notenboom

EMMA KIRCHNER - 19th Century photographer

Emma Kirchner (born Johanna Frederika Doris Emma March 3, 1830 – February 10, 1909) daughter of tailor Carl Pancrasius Kirchner (1800-1833) and Johanna Frederika Fritzsche (1800-1878). January 18, 1833 her sister Maria Amalia Louisa is born. After the death of their father May 30, 1833 his widow is left alone with the ‘Schneiderei’, a baby and a toddler. In 1841 they live at the Neukirchhof 7 and have their tailor shop at the Größe Fleischergasse 24 in Leipzig. In 1852 Emma and Maria, both still unmarried become mothers. Maria’s daughter Emma is born in Leipzig December 18, and Emma’s daughter Dorice is born in Leipzig December 26. The father of Dorice is book publisher Rudolph Löes. With Carl August Bretschneider, agent in manufactories Emma gets two other girls whom die after a few days. August 1860, Maria (1833-1883) immigrates to Delft in the Netherlands, to marry gunsmith Frederik Gräfe, (1835-1905), father of her daughter.

Emma is not as lucky. Both biological fathers marry someone else and in 1863, three months after the marriage of Carl Bretschneider, she also moves to Delft with her daughter, accompanied by her mother. Immediately after her arrival she starts a photographic studio under the name E. KIRCHNER & CO. Not much is known about the years 1840-1860 and the school education of Emma and Maria. It’s a known fact that around time, the first European photographer Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann had her own photo studio in the Burgstrasse 11 in Leipzig, near Kirchner’s home. Another fact is that Wehnert-Beckmann made a picture of a 25-year old Emma Kirchner which leads to the question if she was one of her pupils. Another known fact is that, Bertha Wehnert-Beckmann had connections with the writer/journalist Louise Otto-Peters and the in Delft born, Dutch writer Betsy Perk. In July 9, 1870 Fritz Gräfe discharged Kirchner and starts his own studio at the Zuiderstraat 136, and Emma Kirchner opens her own studio on July 19, that same year. Reason for his decision is her membership of the emancipation group of Betsy Perk that same year, which proofs that Kirchner was the first female-photographer that joined this initiative. July 22, 1875, Dorice (1852-1937) marries Johannes Hendricus Jacobus Henri de Louw (1851-1944), son of photographer J.M.W. de Louw. Emma works about one year with Henri until 1872, when he starts his own studio at Koornmarkt 16 in Delft, where her two grandchildren, Dora (1876-1959) and Frederika (1878-1972) are born. After this time Kirchner works alone until she is 70 years old, and May 1899, Johan van Doorne takes over her photo studio. Emma Kirchner moves to The Hague where her granddaughters marry the same year, and in 1900 she becomes a great-grandmother of two boys. In 1901 Dorice divorces Henri de Louw and moves to Amsterdam, in 1903 followed by Emma Kirchner. The last years of her live, she lives at the house of her granddaughter, classical singer Dora de Louw, married to the Dutch composer 'Bernard Zweers. Emma Kirchner died February 10, 1909, and was buried at the monumental graveyard Huis ter Vraag. EMMA KIRCHNER WEBSITE EMMA KIRCHNER PROJECT for more information: kirchner@zonnet.nl