Antonie Brentano

Antonie Brentano (28 May 1780 in Vienna – 12 May 1869 in Frankfurt am Main; born Johanna Antonie Josefa Edle von Birkenstock, known as Toni) was a philanthropist, art collector, and arts patron.

Antonie was the daughter of Austrian diplomat, educational reformer, and art collector Johann Melchior Edler von Birkenstock (1738–1809) and his wife Carolina Josefa von Hay (born 1755 in Fulnek/Böhmen; died 18 May 1788 in Vienna). She had three siblings, two of whom died in infancy.

Her father was an Imperial advisor to Empress Maria Theresa and the reformist Emperor Joseph II. Through his wife, he was the brother-in-law of Joseph von Sonnenfels, the dedicatee of Beethoven's Piano Sonata in D-Major op. 28 (1802). Antonie von Birkenstock Brentano's mother was the sister of the Reformbischofs of Königgrätz Jan Leopold Ritter von Hay (1735–1794).

From 1782 until approximately 1784, the Birkenstock family lived in Frankfurt-am-Main, where Antonie's brothers Konstantin Viktor and Johann Eduard von Birkenstock were born and died in infancy. It is possible that Johann Melchior von Birkenstock became acquainted with the Brentano family at this time. In Vienna, the family lived in a forty-room mansion in the Landstraße suburb, located at Erdberggasse Nr. 98 (today, Erdbergstraße 19), which housed a large library and Birkenstock's sizable art collection.

Ten days before her eighth birthday, Antonie lost her mother to an epidemic and was sent to the school at the Ursuline convent in Pressburg.

In September 1797, prosperous Frankfurt merchant Franz Brentano (1765–1844), the half-brother of authors Clemens Brentano (1778–1842) and Bettina von Arnim (1785–1859), sent his half-sister, Sophie Brentano (1776–1800), and his stepmother Friederike Brentano née von Rottenhof (1771–1817) to Vienna to meet Antonie. Franz had met Antonie briefly at the end of 1796 or beginning of 1797. After a long negotiation with Antonie's father, Franz and Antonie were wed on 23 July 1798 at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. Eight days after the wedding, the pair departed Vienna for Frankfurt-am-Main. Antonie and Franz had six children:

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