Christiane Goethe

Goethe, Christiane (Weimar, 1765-1816, Weimar), was married to J. W. von Goethe in 1806. As Christiane Vulpius, a good-looking, warm-hearted young woman working at an artificial flower factory in Weimar, she attracted the attention of Goethe after his return from Italy in 1788. The sensual poetry of the Römische Elegien (1790) relates in part to her. Goethe took her into his house, and she lived with him as his mistress and bore him five children, only one of whom, August (see Goethe, Julius August Walther von), survived infancy. When Weimar was occupied by French troops after the battle of Jena on 14 October 1806, her resolute conduct and presence of mind saved Goethe from possible injury or death. Five days later Goethe regularized the union in a service of marriage in the court chapel at Weimar. She died on 6 June 1816. Her brother C. A. Vulpius wrote popular novels.