This is one of two portraiture’s that hung over our family fireplace since I was a little girl.  The first photo (a topic for another blog), is a family member and is protected by glass.  This one has always been  a little bit more perplexing.  When I asked mom,  she wasn’t able to give me a definitive answer (and she knew everything about the family!)

Ironically, I was looking up Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (one of my inspirations)  last night and came across Charlotte Von Stein’s picture.  Now, putting many of the family photos into boxes (I have so much to share with you!), I came across this miniature again, and something clicked in my head (I hope I wasn’t having a stroke).

The miniature looks a lot like Charlotte Von Stein.  The only question that remains is, “why would my family put this woman’s picture in a frame and possibly try to pass her a relative?  If it was framed the same as the other picture, it might be as old as the early 1800’s- when Von Stein lived- but why?

Born on Christmas day in 1742, she was a literate woman and a lady in waiting to the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach.  She was a friend to both Friederich Schiller and Johann Von Goethe. She is credited with writing a play, “Dido.”

What interest did someone in my family have in this woman that they wanted to immortalize her with the rest of the family portraits? It is a mystery I must explore at a later date.

You must admit, the portrait certainly looks like the image I found!