Lili Parthey (real name Elisabeth Parthey (1800 – 1829) was a German author whose diaries are regarded as important historical testimonies to the
Biedermeier era.
Life
Parthey was a granddaughter of
Friedrich Nicolai and a sister of
Gustav Parthey. She received singing lessons from
Amalie Sebald[1] and married
Bernhard Klein in 1825. The marriage produced a daughter.[2] Parthey's diaries were printed in 1926 by her grandson
Bernhard Lepsius [
de]. These notes give a vivid picture of the bourgeois lifestyle of their time.[3] The diaries written between 1814 and 1829 are owned by her family. They were shown in 2007 as part of the exhibition Biedermanns Abendgemütlichkeit at the Berlin Stadtmuseum; parts of them, read by Blanche Kommerell, were available in individual rooms of the exhibition.[4][5]
A portrait of Parthey from the time around 1825 by
Friedrich Wilhelm Schadow shows her in the typical Biedermeier fashion with almost shoulderless dress, unadorned neck, centre parting, curly canes and
chignon;[6] On 23 July 1823,
Goethe dedicated these verses to her:
Du hattest gleich mir's angethan, Doch nun gewahr ich neues Leben; Ein süßer Mund blickt uns gar freundlich an, Wenn er uns einen Kuß gegeben.[7]
Further reading
Rudolf Danke: Eine Berlinerin bezaubert den alten Goethe. Den Tagebuchaufzeichnungen Lili Partheys nacherzählt,[8] in Jahrbuch "Der Bär von Berlin", published by
Verein für die Geschichte Berlins [
de], volume 12, Berlin 1963.