She had a sense of humor, you have to give her that.
One of her silhouettes shows an elderly lady with a hat, large bag and coat who, despite her high heels, which are unsuitable for hiking, looks as if she would like to start walking right away.
"I'm still available," Therese Prestel inscribed her energetic female form.
Could this lady be herself?
Prestel would be capable of portraying himself with such wit.
Catherine Deschka
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
Follow I follow
The Mainz artist (1856 to 1921) captured the events of her surroundings in countless silhouettes with a keen power of observation and a great sense of humor.
The Landesmuseum Mainz has almost 300 of them in its graphic collection.
However, since the artist often used to abbreviate her signature to "Th.P.", they were erroneously listed in the early inventory books under the name "Theo Prestel".
Now, however, the new head of the Graphic Collection, Maria Aresin, who has been working since the beginning of the year, has taken on the cuts and was able to clearly assign them to Therese Prestel.
Popular technique of the portrait
The first exhibition in the collection curated by Aresin, the cabinet exhibition “Schemenhaft”, is now about 80 paper cuts by Therese Prestel and thus an art genre that is rarely viewed, although it was still widespread in the 19th century.
Historical books in the exhibition, in which the cutting technique is explained, testify to how popular paper cuts were.
Aresin also laid out the small scissors commonly used for this purpose in showcases, with which the fine works of art could be cut.
She even set up a silhouette chair so that visitors can understand how shadow profiles were created.
In the 17th and 18th centuries, silhouettes, used to capture the typical physiognomy of a person's face in profile, became a popular portrait technique.
The Swiss theologian Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801) even believed that a person's silhouette could explain their character.
In the Romantic era, paper cutting then became an important visual medium, including for entire figures.
While the portrait silhouette was pushed back more and more by photography, invented in 1839, genre scenes with several figures in particular became increasingly popular, says curator Aresin.
The simple implementation made it possible not only for established artists such as Philipp Otto Runge (1777-1810), but also for amateurs to conjure up small works of art out of paper.
Therese Prestel worked on an artistic level.
And according to Aresin, I cut her pictures more freely from memory and not with templates.
Therese, actually Elise Dorothea Leonore Therese, Prestel came from a family of artists and publishers.
Her father was Johann Erdmann Gottlieb Prestel, a sculptor and German painter best known for his animal portraits.
Her great-grandfather was the painter and engraver Johann Gottlieb Prestel (1739-1808) and her great-grandmother the engraver and watercolor painter Maria Katharina Prestel (1747-1794).