Maria Tesselschade Visscher

engraving by Hendrick Goltzius

Maria Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, also called Maria Tesselschade Roemersdochter Visscher or Tesselschade (March 25, 1594 – June 20, 1649) was a Dutch poet and engraver.

Life

Tesselschade was born in Amsterdam, the youngest daughter of Roemer Visscher. She got the name Tesselschade ("Damage on Tessel"), because her father lost a ship near the Dutch island Texel on the day of her birth.

She and her sister Anna Visscher were the only two women members of the Muiderkring, the group of Dutch Golden Age intellectuals who met at Muiden Castle. She is often characterised as a muse of the group, and attracted the admiration of its members such as its organiser Hooft, Huygens, Barlaeus, Bredero, Heinsius, Vondel and Jacob Cats.

In their correspondence, she is described as attractive, musically talented, and a skilled translator and commentator from Latin, Greek and Italian.^[1] They also praised her skill at singing, painting, carving, etching on glass and tapestry work.^[2] The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has an example of her engraving work, a römer drinking glass engraved with the motto Sic Soleo Amicos ("this is how I treat my friends").^[3]

In 1623, she married a ship's officer, Allard Crombalch. After he died in 1634, Huygens and Barlaeus proposed marriage to her, offers she rejected.

In remembrance of Tesselschade there are several streets named after her, such as the Tesselschadestraat or Tesselschadelaan in Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Zwolle, Leiden and Leeuwarden.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ The Embarrassment of Riches: an Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age, Simon Schama, HarperCollins, 1987, ISBN 000217801X
2. ^ History of Holland, George Edmundson, Cambridge University Press, 1922 ebook, ebooksread.com
3. ^ Römer, Roemers Visscher, Maria Tesselschade masterpieces

External links

• Maria Tesselschade Visscher - digital version of several poems
• M. Tesselschade Roemers Visscher, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• Visscher, Tesselschade Roemersdr., Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland (in Dutch)
• The Muidren Circle, Essential Vermeer

Persondata
Name	Visscher, Maria Tesselschade
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	March 25, 1594
Place of birth
Date of death	June 20, 1649
Place of death