Anna Maria van Schurman (November 5, 1607–May 4/May 14, 1678) was a German-Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 painter, engraver, poet and scholar. She was a highly educated woman by seventeenth century standards. She excelled in art, music, and literature, and became proficient in 14 languages including contemporary European languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Syriac, Aramaic, and Ethiopian.

Life

Van Schurman was born in Cologne

Cologne

Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, a bright daughter of wealthy parents, Frederik of Schurman and Eva von Harff de Dreiborn. At 4 years old she could already read.

In 1613 after her father's death she moved to Utrecht

Utrecht (city)

Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...

 with her mother and two aunts. In the 1630s she learned engraving from Magdalena van de Passe

Magdalena van de Passe

Magdalena van de Passe , was an engraver and important member of the Van de Passe family of artists from Cologne who were active in the Northern Netherlands.-Biography:...

. In 1636 she studied as the first female student at the university. Women at that time were not permitted to study at a university, and for the lectures she attended she sat behind a curtain so that the male students could not see her. She had interests in literature and all kinds of sciences, but especially theology. She graduated in law.

Anna Maria also developed a wide variety of artistic interests. She produced delicate engravings by using a diamond on glass. She became expert in sculpture, wax modelling, and the carving of ivory and wood. She also painted, especially portraits.

In 1664 she met Jean de Labadie

Jean de Labadie

Jean de Labadie was a 17th century French pietist. Originally a Roman Catholic Jesuit priest, he became a member of the Reformed Church in 1650, before founding the community which became known as the Labadists in 1669...

, a Jesuit who had converted to Protestantism

Protestantism

Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...

. He had founded a contemplative religious sect known as Labadism. Anna Maria was fascinated by Labadie and his ideas and became his principal helper.
The sect moved to Amsterdam

Amsterdam

Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...

 but was not welcomed there and they moved again to Altona

Altona, Hamburg

Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...

 (then in Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 now Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

), where Jean de Labadie died in 1674. Thereafter the group moved again to Wieuwerd in Friesland

Friesland

Friesland is a province in the north of the Netherlands and part of the ancient region of Frisia.Until the end of 1996, the province bore Friesland as its official name. In 1997 this Dutch name lost its official status to the Frisian Fryslân...

, where Anna Maria herself died in 1678. Labadism became extinct 70 years later around 1750.

"Whatever fills the human mind with uncommon and honest delight is fitting for a human woman."

Published works

Incomplete list

• She published Whether the Study of Letters Is Fitting for a Christian Woman? In Dutch and was translated into French in 1646 and English in 1659; there is also a Latin version (Num feminae Christianae convenit studium litterarum), which is included in the collected edition of 1648 (see below).

This argued, using the mediaeval technique of syllogism

Syllogism

A syllogism is a kind of logical argument in which one proposition is inferred from two or more others of a certain form...

, that women should be educated in all matters but should not use their education in professional activity or employment and it should not be allowed to interfere in their domestic duties. For its time this was a radical position.

• Anna Maria published her last work "Eucleria" (1673) with Jean's support.

Her collected works, including correspondence in French, Latin, Greek and Hebrew, were published by the house of Elsevier

House of Elzevir

Elzevir is the name of a celebrated family of Dutch booksellers, publishers, and printers of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The duodecimo series of "Elzevirs" became very famous and very desirable among bibliophiles, who sought to obtain the tallest and freshest copies of these tiny...

 in 1648, edited by Friedrich Spanheim

Friedrich Spanheim

Friedrich Spanheim the elder was a Calvinistic theology professor at the University of Leiden.-Life:He entered in 1614 the University of Heidelberg where he studied philology and philosophy, and in 1619 removed to Geneva to study theology...

, another disciple of Labadie.

External links

Sources

• http://home.infionline.net/~ddisse/schurman.html
• http://www.pinn.net/~sunshine/march99/schrman2.html
• Female Firebrands and Reformers - Anna Maria van Schurman (Archived 2009-10-25)
• http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/cgi-bin/WebObjects.dll/CollectionPublisher.woa/wa/work?searchString=&searchField=&collectionName=&workNumber=NG1095