Elsa von Durant: to the Manor born..

To my best knowledge: this condensed short biography is a first attempt.

The artist Eva Tischner-von Durant is not mentioned in any of the Artist Lexicons or adress books. 

All help and further information by readers is appreciated and welcomed. 

Elsa von Durant (1876-1958) was born in Breslau in 1876 as the oldest daughter of Baron Hans von Durant (1837-1907) and Baroness Eugenie von Hahn (1858-1900). To be more precise as: Freiin (Baroness) Elsa Emma Charlotte Henriette Kornelie Adelheid Christiane von Durant de Sénégas. Her 3 nobel brothers and her youngest sister were all born at her  fathers and ancestral Prussian estate and all given six or seven names, at palace Baranowitz in Upper Silesia (then Prussia now Poland). 

It had once been one of the great Prussian estates ("Gut"). Most of these estates today have fallen in ruin and neglect after the world had been on fire, maps were redrawn and populations were reshuffled in the aftermath: the Jews gone, the Germans out, communism in etc....   Although recent photo's show this palace at last has seen the beginnings of renovation.

Her ancestors had come from France, protestant nobility fleeing France after the Edict de Nantes (treaty guaranteeing some freedom of religion) was revoked in 1685. The male members in the generations before (I followed the Prussian von Durants to her great-grand-father) were all high ranking military, marrying happily members of other nobel families, sharing and securing fortunes, estates and palaces, while an aunt (sister of her grandfather) had been in the personal service and entourage of Empress/Tsarina Katharine the Great and in that of her son Emperor/Tsar Paul-I until he was assassinated in 1801, at the imperial court at Saint-Petersburg. 

But today she is a completely forgotten artist, and very undeservedly as this example proves. She is not mentioned in any of the Artist Lexicons nor in Dresslers Kunsthandbuch. She was born in great wealth (her sister Frieda (1883-1966) I found in Prussian millionaires listings, the Germans keen on meticulous book keeping) in a nobel family, gifted able and allowed to study painting in Munich and Paris around 1900 (no doubt in the "Damenakademie" and "Academie Colarossi"), meeting the impressionists, post-impressionist and modernists and fortunate enough to even collect their paintings (more later) and to pursue an artistic career. Elsa's name popped up unasked, in an Ebay queerie this week. And Googling I read about her in a newspaper article from a recent presentation by German art historian Ulrike Götze. Today sharing the first results of my investigation. 

She married ophthalmologist Dr.med Rudolph Tischner (1879-1961) in 1909 who besides his private "eye-care" praxis in Friesing (near Munich) was also to become the "Nestor of German Parapsychology" including, occultism, telekineses, homeopathy and several other disciplines we today describe as: quackery. She lovingly painted his portrait bent over his, no doubt one of his own many written books. When things were still OK.

She became the mother of their daughter, Elli in 1913 and enjoyed bringing her up sketching lovingly the embraceable and adorable young girl. They lived through WW-I. Somehow "change" set in: Mr. and Mrs Tischner divorced in 1919. 

Single mother and artist Elsa managed to survive the great Depression but not without being forced  to sell her beloved paintings in the 1920's (so much much for divorce settlements in the 1920's) and then saw the National Socialists rise to power. She survived WW-II, her house bombed and destroyed near the end in 1944 losing everything, then her daughter committed suicide (in 1944). She lived alone and forgotten in a wooden garden shed the last 10 of her 80 long years on the planet wondering: what the ..... has happened ?

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These are the 3 paintings once in the personal collection of the Baroness Elsa von Durant.

Paul Gauguin: "l'Invocation" painted in 1903 the year of his death and today in the collections of the National Gallery in Washington (USA)

Paul Cezanne:"Vue de l'Estaque à travers les arbres" (1878), sold in 2002 to a private collector for $ 4.4 M.  

Vincent van Gogh: "l'Arlesienne" (or Madam Ginoux) Vincents neighbour painted in 1890 after a drawing by his friend Gauguin, bought in happier times 1908-1912 of van Gogh’s sister-in-law Johanna van Gogh-Bonger1862-1925 (wife of Theo van Gogh (1857-1891) was bought for less then 13.000 DM and was auctioned in New-York in 2006 for a staggering $ 40 M.

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All examples of paintings (artwork) by Elsa von Durant and additional genealogical and family details are welcomed. 

All pictures borrowed freely from the Internet for friendly, educational and non commercial use only.