around 1835

Clara Wieck (1819 - 1896) at the age of 16
Oil by an unknown hand, around 1835
Robert Schumann House, Zwickau

There is no secure documentation for this unsigned painting in small format which was offered by a second-hand bookshop in 1914. The bright eyes and the similarities with thedocumentarily secured and almost contemporaneous portrait images of the young Clara, however, speak in favour of this really being an image of Clara. The image shows Clara at a time when her friendly relationship with Robert Schumann, who had by that time broken his engagement with Ernestine von Fricken, turned into love, sealed with a “first kiss” in November 1835!

(I.B., translated by Th. Henninger)

Cf. Zeitgenössische Porträts von Robert und Clara Schumann [Contemporary Portraits of Robert and Clara Schumann], 1994, p. 24, Cat. No. 7.