Wednesday

Rohl, Maria Christina - portraits of Ebbe Samuel and Anna Bring

Miniature portraits by Scandinavian artists are not often seen outside north Europe, thus this signed, dated, and identified, pair by Maria Christina Rohl are especially useful in comparing painting styles, and dating clothing for undated miniatures.

Maria Rohl (26 July 1801-5 July 1875) is described as a Danish artist in some references, but according to Blattel she was born at Skonstavik in Sweden. She was a Swedish portrait artist who made portraits of a large number of well known people in Sweden in the first half of the 19th century. Her paintings are exhibited at the national museum Nationalmuseum in Stockholm. The Swedish Royal library has a collection of 1800 portraits. She was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts (1843) and a portrait artist of the royal court.

Maria Röhl was born in Stockholm in a well-off family, but was left poor at the death of her parents in 1822. After first planning to become a governess, one of the few occupations then available to well-born but poor women, she was educated in drawing by the professor and engraver Christian Forsell and by the painter Alexander Hambré. She was taught to make quick and realistic portrait drawings in lead and chalk.

She began to draw the friends of the Forsell family, where she lived, and soon it became fashionable in high sociaty to be portraited by "mamsell Röhl", and she was able to support herself as an artist. She was much employed by those who couldn't pay to be painted in oil, and drew a large number of famous Swedes of the time, both aristocrats and actors. She painted a portrait of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow when he visited Stockholm in 1835. Maria Röhl did paint in oil, but the majority of her works are drawings in lead and chalk. Blattel notes that she also painted miniatures, but that may have only been during the early stages of her career, as with this pair painted in 1826.

In 1843, Röhl was appointed court painter, and in 1843–1846, she studied in Paris at the studio of Leon Cogniet at the French academy of arts. After her return, she established her own studio at Brunkebergstorg in Stockholm. During her last years, as with many artists, photography became a harsh rival to her drawn portraits. She died in Stockholm.

The sitters in the miniatures are Ebbe Samuel Bring (24 Jul 1785-20 Feb 1854) born Osajo, Kristianstad, Sweden, and his second wife Anna Maria Leche (1804-1877). They married on 23 August 1826 at Lund, Malmohus, Sweden. They had two daughters, Anna Sophia (18 January 1828-23 January 1828) and Ebba Wilhelmina Bring (1835-) born Lund, Malmohus, who married Niclas August Tengberg (26 Mar 1832-14 Nov 1870) in 1858, the son of N Tengberg and Augusta Charl Billquist.

Although not certain, Ebbe Samuel Bring is thought to be the son of Ebbe Bring and Maria Halstrom, who also had a daughter, Ebba Maria Bring (2 Apr 1777-1855) who married Goran (Georg) Liebert Skytte of Satra (27 Jan 1767-25 May 1836). The Bring family had a number of noted scholars at Lund University. Ebbe Samuel Bring was a cousin of Ebbe Gustaf Bring (4 Jul 1814-1884), the son of Sven Haken Bring and Ulrika Sofia Silfversvard. Ebbe Gustaf Bring was a Swedish bishop, professor, theological writer, born July 4 1814 in Askersund, death in Linköping night between 12 and August 13 1884. He became a student in Uppsala in 1829 and in Lund in 1832, gaining a PhD at Lund in 1835, and being appointed to associate professor in dogmatism and moral theology in 1837. He married the same year. In 1844 he was appointed theology teacher and the same year to the dean of his own congregation. From 1839-1847 Ebbe Gustaf Bring almost continuously held various professorial positions in the theological faculty, and in 1848 he was appointed professor of pastoral theology, and in 1856 also to be the rector of Lund University, a position held at various times by other members of the Bring family. Ebbe Gustaf Bring prepared King Oscar II's three eldest sons for their first communion. In 1861 he was appointed Bishop of Linköping, which he retained until his death in 1884.

Ebbe Samuel Bring was also a nephew of the mathematician Erland Samuel Bring (1736-1798 0r 1802?), who in 1750 became a student at Lund, passed the legal state examination in 1757, and was subsequently employed as a practical lawyer. In 1762 Ebbe Gustaf Bring became associate professor in the Faculty of Law and in 1765 the first holder of notarial activity at the university. In 1766 he became Master of Arts in 1770 and was appointed to the chair in history in 1779. Bring's activities in history were less significant than the actual field of his scientific interest in mathematics. The manuscript works, which he (seven volumes of the Lund University Library), are considered to show that he in many cases was ahead of his peers. His most famous work is "Meletemata quaedam mathematematica circa transformationem aequationum algebraicarum". He found a formula to reduce the general fifth degree equation;
\, Ax ^ 5 + bx ^ 4 + cx ^ 3 + dx ^ 2 + ex + f = 0
to the much simpler form
\, X ^ 5 + px + q = 0 .
It looked as though it was a big step closer to a general solution of the fifth degree equation, but Erland Samuel Bring's formula remained basically unknown. Erland Samuel Bring was rector of Lund University in 1790.

Anna Maria Leche, the wife of Ebbe Samuel Bring, was the daughter of Professor Wilhelm Julius Leche, the vicar of Kyrkheddinge, Esarps, Lund and also a schoolmaster. The Leche family seems to have lived in Malmohus since 1675 or earlier and it is likely that Anna Maria was related to the Johan Cornelius Leche who married Johanna Moller on 31 March 1792. It is also likely that she had several siblings or cousins, including, Jöns Gessel Leche (1794-?), Magnina Christina Leche (1798-?), and Magnus Christian Leche (1799-?). As Anna Maria was nineteen years younger than Ebbe Bring, it seems possible that one of her brothers was a student of Ebbe Bring and that is how they met. There is a collection of her letters, the "Anna Maria Bring letter collection", at Lund University.

Ebbe Samuel Bring MA, became a student in Lund in 1798, when only 13 years old, he gained his Master of Arts in 1808 and became Associate Professor of History in 1809. After a time, having studied medicine, he studied law, passing in 1815 his Law degree. In 1819 he became curate of Kriminallagfarenhet and 1821 Matthaeus Fremlings successor as professor of theoretical philosophy. In 1828 he was appointed professor of history, a post he held until his death. In 1841 he received sacerdotal ordination, was then pastor of Bjärshögs and Oxie prebendepastorat. He was twice rector of Lund University in Sweden, in the years 1830-31 and 1840-41. He died in 1855 and is buried at the Monastery Cemetery in Lund.

Ebbe Samuel Bring was also an author. His printed writings consists mainly of a very large number of academic dissertations and numerous political brochures. Books or papers, written by Ebbe Samuel Bring, as author or co-author, are thought to include;
- Svenska civillagfarenheten, uti systematisk ordning, 1819
- De veterum Suecorum et Gothorum præcipuis, quæ rempublicam spectant, , institutis Disquisitio Historica. Sectio Prima, 1823
- Prolusiones antiquariae, 1827
- Historica in difficiliores aliquot Herodoti locos adnotamenta, 1829
- Om statsförfattningen och krigsväsendet hos de fordna svear och göther. 1-10. Diss. resp. F.O. Cöster, N. Hemesse, A. Brunnerus, P.E.G. Gullander, O.B. Rosenblad, A.G. Schröder, A. Andersson, P.D. Rudelius, I. Tollin, R. Wollin, 1832.
- Om Stat, Statsförfattning och Representation med afseende på Sverige, 1834
- Bibliografisk handbok till Sveriges historia,
- De ingenti Franco - Gallorum regis , Henrici IV:ti consilio, vulgo: Le grandessein de Henri IV. P. I - V, 1835

(1369A and 1369B)

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