Dorothea Storm-Kreps
Twig with Two Pears
- Dorothea Storm-Kreps (Dutch, 1734–1772)
- Pencil, brush and bodycolours, 395 × 301 mm
- Date of creation not known
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen
The daughter of a floriculturist, Dorothea Storm-Kreps grew up surrounded by flowers. While we don’t know who taught her or encouraged her passion for painting and drawing, at some point she began to produce watercolors and gouaches of flowers and fruit.
Legend has it that she met her husband, gardener Johannes Storm, gardener, when both were in Leiden to admire the American aloe plant, made to flower by the florist Stekhoven. Even after her marriage, Dorothea Kreps continued to pursue her hobby of painting in her atelier above the greenhouses. She is believed to have made botanical drawings in the Hortus Medicus, which (according to RKD) her husband managed from 1751 to 1801. She died a few days after giving birth to her seventh child.
Other than the painting reproduced on this Art Herstory card, scholars know of only a few works by the artist. Among them is a watercolor she painted for the Atlas Moninckx, to which Maria Moninckx, Alida Withoos, and Johanna Herolt (a daughter of Maria Sibylla Merian) also contributed.
Sofonisba Anguissola
Clara Peeters
Louise Moillon
Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi
Maria Schalcken
Judith Leyster