Mathilde Block

Mathilde Block (born Auguste Betty Julie Mathilde Block) was a German painter and embroiderer.

Early Life

Mathilde Block was born on July 10, 1850, in Niendorf an der Stecknitz, Lauenburg, Germany. She was the daughter of Julius Friedrich Block (1806-1854), who was a pastor in a local Roman Catholic church and his wife Auguste Henriette Wilhelmine Block, née Rosa (1819-1908). When Mathilde was three years old, her father died. A small parsonage widow's house was built for her mother, Mathilde and her two siblings, into which they moved when it was finished creating.

Mathilde Block used to draw since she was kid. The oldest documented evidence of her early drawing skills are five portraits of Niendorf farmers, which she is said to have drawn at the age of twelve. Mathilde was tutored by her mother, supported by her father's successor, Pastor Fiedler. After confirmation, she was given to Ratzeburg for a year and a half , where she attended the first class of Johanna Kuss' secondary school. Back in Niendorf, at the age of sixteen she started her first job as a teacher for two and a half years. In order to be able to support her mother, who lived only on a small pension and some manual labor, she looked for a better-paid position as a tutor in Burg Stargard at Stargard Castle. She stayed there for four and a half years. During the following year and a half she was able to fulfill her long-awaited wish to devote herself to training in drawing. She received a scholarship.

Career

In October 1875, she moved to Berlin. She received a two-year freelance position from Crown Princess Victoria in the Viktoria-Pensionat or Viktoria-Stift from the Lette-Verein and attended the association's arts and crafts drawing school. At the same time, until July 1, 1877, she also took courses in the drawing school of the Vereins der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen (Association of Berlin Women Artists). One of their lecturers there was Professor Adolf Eybel . In recognition of her efforts and the successes she had already achieved, she received a silver medal from the Lette-Verein in January 1877. In September 1877, she applied to the Prussian Academy of Arts in Berlin for an appointment.