# Maria de Wilde

> Mediated Wiki article. Canonical URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Maria_de_Wilde
> Markdown URL: https://mediated.wiki/source/Maria_de_Wilde.md
> Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_de_Wilde
> Source revision: 1351647677
> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{Short description|Dutch artist, writer (1682–1729)}}
thumb|right|200px|Maria de Wilde, engraving ca. 1700
'''Maria de Wilde''' (7 January 1682 – 11 April 1729) was a Dutch [engraver](/source/engraver) and playwright of the [Dutch Republic](/source/Dutch_Republic). She was born and died in [Amsterdam](/source/Amsterdam), where she played an active part in the upper-class bourgeois world of artists and writers, and gained a reputation by engraving her wealthy father's art collection. Formerly credited also with four plays, modern scholars only ascribe a tragedy and possibly a comedy to her.

==Biography==
Maria de Wilde was one of eight children of [Jacob de Wilde](/source/Jacob_de_Wilde), a high-ranking official (collector-general) in the [Admiralty of Amsterdam](/source/Admiralty_of_Amsterdam) and Hendrina Veen;<ref name="molhuysen">{{cite book|editor=P.C. Molhuysen|others=P.J. Blok|title=Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek|url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/molh003nieu04_01/molh003nieu04_01_2078.php|volume=4|year=1918|publisher=A. W. Sijthoff|location=Leiden|page=1457|chapter=Wilde, Maria de}}</ref> on her mother's side she was descended from the religious leader [Jacobus Arminius](/source/Jacobus_Arminius), and the family continued the adherence to [Remonstrantism](/source/Remonstrants). Two of her siblings died young. The family was well-off and for a while rented a house on the [Keizersgracht](/source/Keizersgracht) canal, before they bought the building and the adjacent homes. De Wilde remained single until relatively late for her period; in 1710, she married Gijsbert de Lange (1677–1758?), also an official with the Admiralty. They had two children, one of whom reached adulthood; the other died shortly after birth.<ref name="oostrum">{{cite web|url=https://www.historici.nl/Onderzoek/Projecten/DVN/lemmata/data/Wilde|title=Wilde, Maria de (1682-1729)|last=Oostrum|first=W. R. D. van|year=2013|work=[1001 Vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis](/source/1001_Vrouwen_uit_de_Nederlandse_geschiedenis)|language=Dutch|accessdate=22 April 2013}}</ref> There appears to have been some doubt about her death date: earlier biographies list it as unknown,<ref name="molhuysen"/><ref name="schleijer"/><ref name="frederiks"/> as does de Jeu's 2000 study of women poets of the [Dutch Republic](/source/Dutch_Republic).<ref name="Jeu"/> Van Oostrum's 2013 article for the ''Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon van Nederland'', however, has 11 April 1729 as a death date; she was laid to rest in the family grave in the [Oude Kerk](/source/Oude_Kerk_(Amsterdam)) in Amsterdam.<ref name="oostrum"/>

thumb|right|200px|Engraving of Jacob de Wilde (left) and Peter the Great
Maria was well-educated and while not much is known of her life, all evidence indicates she was a cultured person with artistic talent; she was praised for her singing voice, her poetry, and her [harpsichord](/source/harpsichord) playing. She learned [engraving](/source/engraving) from [Adriaan Schoonebeek](/source/Adriaan_Schoonebeek).<ref name="Wes"/> Her father had an impressive art collection which brought many visitors including the Russian tsar [Peter the Great](/source/Peter_the_Great), who visited the de Wilde family to admire the collection on 13 December 1697.<ref name="Wes">{{cite book|last=Wes|first=Martinus A.|title=Classics in Russia, 1700-1855: Between Two Bronze Horsemen|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N9wviNiWb0EC&pg=PA14|year=1992|publisher=Brill|isbn=9789004096646|page=14}}</ref> Maria made an engraving of this meeting between the tsar and her father, which marks "the beginning of the West European classical tradition in Russia".<ref name="Wes"/> In 1717, on his second visit, she gave him a print of the engraving: he reciprocated by giving her a jewel.<ref name="oostrum"/><ref name="Reve">{{cite book|last=Driessen-van het Reve|first=J. J.|title=De Kunstkamera van Peter de Grote: de Hollandse inbreng, gereconstrueerd uit brieven van Albert Seba en Johann Daniel Schumacher uit de jaren 1711-1752|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hyb9OtG-di8C&pg=PA134|year=2006|publisher=Uitgeverij Verloren|isbn=9789065509277|pages=134–35}}</ref>

She earned a national reputation as an engraver with the work she did for the catalogs of her father's collection. Fifty-five engravings of Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculptures were published in ''Signa antiqua e museo Jacobi de Wilde'' in 1700, and ''Gemma selecta antiqua e museo Jacobi de Wilde'' (1703) contained 188 engravings of coins and [engraved gem](/source/engraved_gem)s. One of her admirers was the German lawyer and poet [Andreas Lange](/source/%3Ade%3AAndreas_Lange), who found her at work in her father's house and became enamored with her. A Latin poem praising her was translated into Dutch.<ref name="oostrum"/> She was also praised in poetry by the scholar, cartographer, and philologist [Adriaan Reland](/source/Adriaan_Reland).<ref name="schleijer">{{cite book|editor=P. G. Witsen Geysbeek|title=Biographisch anthologisch en critisch woordenboek der Nederduitsche dichters|url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/wits004biog06_01/wits004biog06_01_0063.php|volume=6|year=1827|publisher=C. L. Schleijer|location=Amsterdam|pages=502–503|chapter=Maria de Wilde}}</ref>

==Drama==
De Wilde was formerly often credited with four plays in verse,<ref name="frederiks">{{cite book|editor=J. G. Frederiks|others=F. Jos. van den Branden|title=Biographisch woordenboek der Noord- en Zuidnederlandsche letterkunde|url=https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/bran038biog01_01/bran038biog01_01_4544.php|date=1888–1891|publisher=L. J. Veen|location=Amsterdam|page=886}}</ref> all translations or adaptations of existing works.<ref name="Jeu">{{cite book|last=Jeu|first=A. de|title='t Spoor der dichteressen: netwerken en publicatiemogelijkheden van schrijvende vrouwen in de Republiek (1600-1750)|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sqDFxR-X1MsC&pg=PA223|year=2000|publisher=Verloren|isbn=9789065506122|pages=223–24}}</ref> Her first play, ''Abradates en Panthea'', was published anonymously with the motto ''Sine Pallade nihil'' ("nothing without Pallas") on the title page, a phrase with which she became associated.<ref name="oostrum"/><ref>{{cite book|last=Haeghen|first=Ferdinand François E. van der|title=Dictionnaire des devises des hommes de lettres, imprimeurs, libraires, bibliphiles, chambres de rhetorique, sociétés littéraires et dramatiques. Belgique & Holland, par F.V.H.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ry8BAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA79|year=1876|publisher=F. J. Olivier|page=79}}</ref> While contemporaries (and some modern critics<ref name="Jeu"/>) considered it a translation of [François Tristan l'Hermite](/source/Fran%C3%A7ois_Tristan_l'Hermite)'s ''Penthée'' (1637), it may well be inspired by [Xenophon](/source/Xenophon)'s ''[Cyropaedia](/source/Cyropaedia)''.<ref name="oostrum"/> While her name was left off the title page, the dedicatory poems clearly identified her by name.<ref name="Jeu"/>

After her marriage she stopped publishing, and while she may have died in 1729, a farce, ''Het zwervende portret'', appeared in 1742 with her name and motto on the title page; the play is an adaptation of [Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps](/source/Pierre-Fran%C3%A7ois_Godard_de_Beauchamps){{'}}s ''Le portrait''.<ref name="Jeu"/> Two further plays published in 1755 have the motto in it: the comedy ''De bekroonde Boere-rijmer'' (possibly a translation of a 1726 German play) and the farce ''Don Domingo Gonzales of de Man in de maan''. Whether the 1742 play is de Wilde's or not is a matter of dispute, with van Oostrum's biography stating that the motto appears in a poem written after de Wilde's death and that spelling variations between the four occurrences also point to different authors.<ref name="oostrum"/> That the other two are hers is currently denied by critics.<ref name="oostrum"/><ref name="Jeu"/>

==References==
{{Commons category}}
{{Reflist}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilde, Maria de}}
Category:1682 births
Category:1729 deaths
Category:18th-century Dutch engravers
Category:18th-century Dutch women writers
Category:18th-century Dutch women artists
Category:17th-century Dutch women artists
Category:18th-century Dutch dramatists and playwrights
Category:Engravers from Amsterdam
Category:Burials at the Oude Kerk, Amsterdam
Category:Dutch women dramatists and playwrights
Category:Dutch women engravers

---
Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Maria de Wilde](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_de_Wilde) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_de_Wilde?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.