Helga von Cramm

Helga von Cramm (1840-1919), was a German and Swiss water-colourist and graphic artist.

Baroness Helga von Cramm lived in Britain, Switzerland (St. Moritz), Germany and Italy (1880 - 1892, and Florence, 1884).

In the United Kingdom, from 1877, she exhibited at the:

Her SWA showings: 1877 (x1); 1879 (x4); 1880 (x4); 1881 (x3); 1882 (x4); 1883 (x3); 1884 (x3); 1885 (x3); 1886 (x1); 1889 (x2); 1890 (x2); 1892 (x2); 1901 (x1); 1910 (x1).

Freiherrin/baroness (Freiin) Helga was the eldest child of Wolf Frederick Adolf Freiherr von Cramm-Burchard (Rhode, Landkreis Gifhorn, North Saxony 1812– Baden-Baden 1879), by his wife, Hedwig (1819- Wiesbaden 1891) daughter of Philipp Lebrecht von Cramm-Oelber (1819–1891). Helga's father, Wolf Frederick Adolf, son of Friedrich Karl August von Cramm, (1768-1816) by Charlotte Sophie , (1786-1858), having been brought up in the Court at Brunswick, educated at the court of knights, served in the Brunswick Cuirassiers (cuirvasser), was an equerry and an hereditary Chamberlain and Lord of the Kings Bedchamber (that of William VIII of Braunschweig). Later he retired to his estate at Rhode. Her brother Aschwin Thedel Adelbert Freiherr v. Sierstorpff-Cramm, (Lohndorf, Bavaria, 1846 - Woynowo 1909), is one of the four great-grandfathers of Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, 1980-2013, now Princess Beatrix, and mother of the present king, Willem-Alexande. Helga was thus a great-great aunt of the former Dutch Queen.

In 1885 aged about 45 and he c72 (only a year younger than her father), she married landed Brunswickian politician (Kammerpräsident & landwirtschaftlicher Politiker) Erich Griepenkerl (1813–88). Sadly, this son of (1782-1849) and brother of (1810-1868) died three years later.

Frances (Fanny) Ridley Havergal (1836-1879, aged 42) and her sister, Maria (1821-1887), met Helga (with a Miss Carmichael) in Champéry, in the south-western Swiss canton of Valais, late summer 1876.

This lead, 1879 - 1880, to v. Cramm illustrating collections of Havergal's poems.

The meeting is described in the Memorials of Frances Ridley Havergal.

This also resulted in a sonnet, addressed by Frances Ridley Havergal to her friend, Baroness Helga von Cramm.

To Helga. (September 19, 1876, Champéry)

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