When in Rome...
Autograph letter (unsigned) to her mother Lea, incorporating a drawing and an autograph manuscript song.
4to (250 x 203 mm). 4 pp. on bifolium. In German. Opening with a small drawing of a child in a cradle, and an autograph music manuscript, 32 bars on six staves, some lettering heightened in liquid gold, ending with two postscripts signed by her son, Sebastian, and husband, Wilhelm Hensel. Paper blindstamped "Superfine Bath".
A birthday drawing, song and letter to her mother during her Italian journey. The music is for a trio of two sopranos and an alto, on a text beginning, "Sage mir, was mein Herz begehrt".
The letter opens with warm birthday wishes to her mother, counting on her sister Rebecka Dirichlet, née Mendelssohn (1811-58), and the Woringen family to deliver a birthday serenade, and proceeds to give an enthusiastic description of the Carnival in Rome, which exceeds even her expectations, being enjoyed especially by her nine-year-old son Sebastian. She skips any formal description of the Carnival, pointing out that Goethe provided one fifty years ago, and instead describes how she and her family joined the celebrations, watching from balconies, parading on foot and by wagon. She prefers the latter, as it affords a comfortable and safe means to navigate the crowds and join the Carnival "war", which involves the throwing of gypsum, sweets, and flower bouquets. Flour, she points out, is forbidden as "ammunition" - a fact not preventing its sale and use everywhere and by everyone, including the brother of the King of Naples, the Prince of Syracuse, who apparently poured an "inexaustible gush" of flour off his balcony, making it impossible to pass by underneath. Among the most impressive carnival floats she describes is one driven by a couple of physicians equipped with large forceps holding "colossal" skulls, molars, and entire sets of teeth as well as a rectal syringe shooting bouquets of flowers. The letter concludes with some astonishment at herself for enjoying the hustle and bustle of carnival for hours on end, adding that it would be unbearable if it were not for the fresh air.
Fanny Hensel was more than three years older than her brother Felix Mendelssohn, to whom she was very close. Although herself a gifted pianist and composer, she rarely performed in public, and few of her works were published during her lifetime. Her visit to Rome with her husband and nine-year-old son in 1839/40 was the fulfillment of a long-harboured wish. The family stayed in Rome from November 1839 to June 1840, enjoying the lively community around the Académie de France at Villa Medici, where Fanny's private performances brought her a degree of recognition. The trip inspired several compositions over the following years.
Sotheby's, 29 November 1985, lot 159.
