Marie von Guaita - Philipp Veit

Marie is only in her early 20s and already a widow when she is painted by Philipp Veit. She was the daughter of Frankfurt's first Catholic mayor, Johann von Guaita. Her first husband, the silk merchant Johann Anton Berna, died the year after their wedding. 

Philipp Veit, who liked to have Frankfurt's upper middle classes portrayed at the time, shows her in three-quarter length in a wide black dress and silk-lined black pelisse, a fur-trimmed sleeveless cloak. Her shiny, unbraided hair is parted halfway down her cheek in accordance with Biedermeier fashion. She gazes directly at the viewer, appearing composed, almost a little shy, status-conscious and distinguished. Standing in front of a nearby brightly plastered wall with a cut pilaster with sculptural Renaissance tendrils, she rests her right hand lightly on a table covered with a green cloth. Her pose and the surroundings are entirely in the tradition of Baroque portraits of nobility and princes. Marie Berna married her cousin Ludwig Brentano in 1840.