Cécilie Agassiz née Braun (1809-1848), natural history illustrator and first wife of Louis Agassiz
Self portrait of Cecile Braun aged 19, July 1829. From: A Agassiz & G R Agassiz (ed), Letters and recollections of Alexander Agassiz, with a sketch of his life and work, London: Constable & Co (1913). GSL Library collection.
Cécilie Braun was born in Carlsruhe on 29 July 1809, one of four children of Carl Braun who was the postmaster general of the Grandy Duchy of Baden. Braun devoted his spare time to the study of science. The family home housed a collection of plants and minerals, with Cécilie's brothers Alexander and Maximilian provided with worktables and microscopes. Cécilie (or Cecile as she preferred) grew up shy and sensitive with an artistic talent, studying under the German portrait and religious painter Marie Ellenrieder (1791-1863).
Through her eldest brother Alexander (who became a distinguished botanist) in 1826 Cecile met Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), his medical student friend from Heidelberg University. As it was too expensive to travel back to his home in Switzerland, Agassiz spent his holidays with the Braun family in Carlsruhe. By the time Alexander and Louis transferred their studies to the University of Munich in 1827, Cecile was already providing drawings for both Alexander’s botanical and Louis’ natural history interests.
When Cecile and Louis became engaged, her mother and brother Alexander were not keen on the idea, knowing all too well how devoted Agassiz was to his scientific work. It made no difference and the couple married in October 1833 and returned to Agassiz's hometown of Neuchâtel in Switzerland where he had been appointed professor of natural history.
Cecile was homesick immediately. Speaking very little French and used to the open green countryside in Carlsruhe, she found the muddy streets and high walled houses of Neuchâtel unappealing. She disliked the formal manners of the local populace and all of Agassiz's friends and acquaintances.
Portrait of Louis Agassiz aged 19, copied from a pastel drawing by Cecile Braun. Frontispiece to E C C Agassiz (ed), Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, London: Macmillan (1885). GSL Library collection.
Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles
Whilst at university, Agassiz had developed an interest in zoology, particularly the study of European freshwater fishes. In 1828 he published his first paper on the subject - a description of a new species of the genus Cyprinus (carp). The following year saw the issue of 'Selecta genera et species piscium quos in itinere per Brasiliam annis MDCCCXVII-MDCCCXX …', which contained descriptions of the species of fish found by the German naturalists Johann Baptist von Spix and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius during their expedition to Brazil between 1817-1820. On Spix's death in 1826, Martius had commissioned Agassiz to complete the work.
During Agassiz's next planned work on the natural history of the freshwater fishes of Europe, he began to compare the fossil forms found in Oeningen and Glarus, in Switzerland, and at Solnhofen, in Bavaria, that would develop his lifetime's fascination with fossil ichthyology. This would become his famous ‘Recherches sur les Poissons Fossiles’ (1833-1843/1844), a heavily illustrated work attempting to depict all known forms of fossil fish.
Agassiz had two artists working for him initially – Joseph Dinkel [1806-1891] and Charles Weber (1801-1875) – but he also utilised the (free) artistic services of Cecile in the first few years. It was an expensive undertaking as Agassiz had to financially support the artists and lithographers for the work himself after his publisher backed out of the project citing costs. The first parts were printed in Munich but in 1837 he set up his own chromo-lithographic printworks in Neuchâtel.
Watercolour of the fossil fish Tinca Leptosoma Agassiz from Oeningen, in the collection of Carlsruhe Museum, by Cecile Braun, 1831. (GSL Archive ref: LDGSL/613/6/7/1)
Watercolour study of the tooth of the fish Notidanus primigenius by Cecile Braun, 1832. From her brother Alexander's collection. Note that her maiden name Braun has been overwritten with 'Agassiz' in her signature. (GSL Archive ref: LDGSL/613/4/65/3)
As his staff of assistants and hangers on grew larger, a number of whom would be put up in Agassiz family home, things became so bad that Louis had to sell his own natural history collection to the local authorities at Neuchâtel. As well as covering the high production costs and supporting his staff, Louis also had to subsidise his loss-making publishing house.
The original artwork to 'Recherches sur les Poissons' was of no further use once converted to lithographic images, so it was also sold. The drawings were purchased by Lord Francis Leveson-Gower, later 1st Earl of Ellesmere, for £500 in 1843 and gifted to the Geological Society.
In the Society’s collection there are over 70 drawings by Cecile all undertaken between 1831-1835. After the birth of their first son Alexander in December 1835 and daughters Ida (b.1837) and Pauline (b.1841) Cecile all but lost interest in illustrating her husband’s scientific work.
Watercolour studies of various species of the fossil fish genus Cephalaspis by Cecile Agassiz, 1835. (GSL Archive ref: LDGSL/613/2/12/2).
‘Hotel Neuchatelois’ from E Desor, "Excursions et sejour de M. Agassiz sur la Mer de Glace du Lauteraar et du Finsteraar, en societe de plusieurs naturalistes", Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, NS vol XXXII (1841). (GSL Library collection: E Tract 49).
This lithograph shows Cecile and her sister Emmy Braun on a visit to ‘Hotel Neuchatelois’ in August 1840. Her four year old son Alexander is carried in the basket at the front on the shoulders of the Oberland guide Jacob Leuthold. ‘Hotel Neuchatelois’ was the nickname given to the base camp (built under the ledge of a massive block of micaceous slate) from which Agassiz and his assistants could study glaciers.
By 1845 Cecile had had enough. Her husband's obsession with his work meant long absences which included frequent trips to study glaciers. The resulting financial pressures and having to share her home with Agassiz’s assistants, who would take great pleasure in making uncouth jokes at the dinner table, meant she finally left with her daughters to go back to her family in Germany in May 1845. Now in poor health and in straitened circumstances (Agassiz had emigrated to America in 1846), Cecile and her children stayed in a small apartment in Freiburg where she taught them drawing and music. Cecile’s health continued to decline and she died on 27 July 1848.