Description
Anna Elizabeth Klumpke "A Path Through The Woods" impressionist Landscape<br>Painting American California Listed Artist 1856-1942 24.5" x 36" painting, 27.5"<br>x 39" frame. No craqueleur, tears, or restorations. Two very small paint flakes<br>over signature shown in last pic. No other flakes or issues. The frame is not<br>original.<br><br>Anna Elizabeth Klumpke (October 28, 1856 – February 9, 1942), was an American<br>portrait and genre painter born in San Francisco, California, United States. She<br>is perhaps best known for her portraits of famous women including Elizabeth Cady<br>Stanton(1889)[1] and Rosa Bonheur (1898).[2]<br>Anna Elizabeth KlumpkeBornOctober 28, 1856<br>San Francisco, CaliforniaDiedFebruary 9, 1942(aged 85)<br>San Francisco, CaliforniaResting placePère Lachaise Cemetery, Neptune Society<br>ColumbariumNationalityAmericanEducationAcadémie JulianKnown forGenre<br>works, painting<br><br>Life and careerEdit<br><br>Anna's father, John Gerald Klumpke, born in England[3] or Germany,[4] was a<br>successful and wealthy realtor in San Francisco. Her mother was Dorothea<br>Mattilda Tolle. Anna was the eldest of eight children, five of whom lived to<br>maturity. Among her siblings were the astronomer Dorothea Klumpke-Roberts, the<br>violinist Julia Klumpke, and the neurologist Augusta Déjerine-Klumpke. At age<br>three, Anna fell and suffered a fracture of her femur. She fell again at age<br>five and suffered osteomyelitis with purulent knee arthritis. These problems<br>handicapped her, and her mother went to extraordinary lengths to find a remedy<br>by taking Anna and three of her siblings to Berlin for treatment by Dr. Bernhard<br>von Langenbeck.<br>The treatment lasted 18 months and included thermal baths at Kreuznach.<br>Unfortunately, it was not successful, and Anna remained hobbled all her life.<br>While they were in Europe, her mother ensured that her children received<br>excellent tutoring.<br><br>Anna Klumpke in her studio<br><br>The time away in Europe strained the Klumpkes' relationship. When Anna was<br>fifteen, her parents divorced. She and her siblings (now numbering five) moved<br>with their mother to Göttingen, Germany, where they lived for a time with<br>Mattilda's sister, who had married a German national. Anna and her sister<br>Augusta were sent to school at Cannstatt, near Stuttgart. When she was<br>seventeen, the family moved to Clarens, near Lake Geneva in Switzerland where<br>she spent two years in a boarding school.<br>Anna studied art at home for the next few years, and in October 1877, moved with<br>her family once more to Paris, where she was later enrolled in the Julian<br>Academy (1883–1884), under the tutelage of Tony Robert-Fleury and Jules<br>Lefebvre. She spent many an hour copying paintings in the Musée du Luxembourg,<br>including Rosa Bonheur's Ploughing in the Nivernais.[5][6] At one point, she<br>also studied under Vuillefroy. She presented her first work at the Paris<br>Salon in 1884, while still at the Academy, and she won the grand prize for<br>outstanding student of the year. She exhibited regularly at the Salon for<br>several more years. After completing her studies, she returned to the United<br>States for a few years and taught in Boston. However, by 1889, she was back in<br>Paris.<br>As a girl, Anna had been given a "Rosa" doll, styled after the French animal<br>painter Rosa Bonheur—so famous at the time that dolls were made in her image.<br>From early childhood, Anna had been fascinated and inspired by the woman<br>artist.[7]<br>Intent on painting Bonheur's portrait, she met Rosa Bonheur on October 15, 1889,<br>under the pretext of being the interpreter for a horse dealer. The two women<br>were soon living together at Bonheur's estate in Thomery, near Fontainebleau,<br>and their relationship endured until Bonheur's death in 1899.[2]<br>Klumpke was named as the sole heir to Bonheur's estate and oversaw the sale of<br>Bonheur's collected works in 1900. She founded the Rosa Bonheur Prize at<br>the Société des Artistes Français and organized the Rosa Bonheur museum at the<br>Fontainebleau palace.<br>Klumpke was a meticulous diarist, publishing in 1908 a biography of Bonheur, Sa<br>Vie Son Oeuvre, based on her own diary and Bonheur's letters, sketches and other<br>writings. In the book, which was not published in English until 1998, Klumpke<br>told the story of Bonheur's life and related how she had met Bonheur, how they<br>had fallen in love, and how she had become the artist's official portraitist and<br>companion.<br>Klumpke exhibited her work at the Palace of Fine Artsand The Woman's Building at<br>the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, Illinois.[8]<br>Following Bonheur's death, Klumpke divided her time between France, Boston, and<br>San Francisco, finally settling in San Francisco in the 1930s. During World War<br>I, with her mother, she established a military convalescent hospital at her home<br>in Thomery.<br>In 1940, at the age of 84, Klumpke published her own autobiography Memoirs of an<br>Artist. She died in 1942 at the age of 86 years in her native San<br>Francisco.[7] A memorial to her is at Neptune Society Columbarium, San<br>Francisco, and she is buried alongside Rosa Bonheur at Père Lachaise Cemetery,<br>Paris.
