Kamma Rahbek (1775-1829)

Karen Margarethe Heger, to give Kamma Rahbek her maiden name, grew up in the family brewery in Nørregade in Copenhagen, as the daughter of Judge Hans Heger and Anna Louise, née Drewsen. At a time when girls’ education must be said to have left much to be desired, especially her father made sure of challenges to his gifted and thoughtful daughter, who thus, among other things, studied botany and astronomy in addition to several languages. For instance, it was quite unusual for her to have mastered English by the age of ten. She was also passionately interested in literature, and her relationship with Knud Lyne Rabek, who was 15 years her senior and the friend of Kamma’s brother, Carl Heger, presumably started as a shared cultural interest. They were engaged in 1797 and married the following year. It was a happy marriage, but they had no children.

 

In Bakkehuset, Kamma Rahbek created a comfortable, hospitable home without any snobbish or trivial limitations. The circle of their friends was large and included the intellectual and cultural beaux-esprits and most outstanding personalities of the day. Their gatherings could develop into literary seances in which they played with classical texts and juggled with rhymes, verses, forms and contents. Especially the quite young generation of budding writers, the Golden Age poets of the 19th century, sought and received the support of Kamma Rahbek as equal intellectual sparring partners. Like the wise and humorous person she was, always ready for a discussion, every conversation with her was a charming experience that developed and educated the mind irrespective of the subject.

 

A large garden of some seven acres belonged to Bakkehuset in those days, and Kamma Rahbek devoted herself passionately and almost scientifically to cultivating rare plants and beautiful flowers. With its lawns and a small pond, this was one of the first Romantic gardens in Denmark. Here you could take short walks along the winding paths and while indulging in intellectual conversation enjoy the beautiful natural scenery as it was revealed. Rather unusually for that time, Kamme Rahbek picked the flowers and took them indoors, where she arranged them in bouquets or wove them into wreaths.

 

One of Kamma Rahbek’s interests was making boxes. This was a popular form of amusement for the middle classes of the time, and the boxes could be used to hold games, buttons, cigars and a host of other things. Kamma Rahbek developed the art to perfection: With luxurious paper materials usually bought in Hamburg, she conjured up fantastic, complicated boxes all on her own. With golden borders, lions’ feet, mirror effects and painted motifs or watercolours under glass in the lid and base, they must be considered individual works of art. The fine illustrations in the boxes together with larger drawings are evidence that the skilful Kamma Rahbek had the ability to draw and paint, and as a young woman she had indeed been taught drawing by the subsequently famous sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen before he went to Rome. Visitors to the house were gently commanded to take part in making the boxes – one such was the Norwegian Golden Age painter J.C. Dahl.

 

Kamma Rahbek was not an author, but she carried on a very extensive correspondence with several hundred pen friends, among who were Bishop J.P. Mynster and the librarian Christian Molbech. She wrote in a quite personal and lively style in which even insignificant matters were brought to life in sophisticated linguistic accounts. Large parts of this correspondence have been published in book form. They produce an amazingly modern impression of a talented and gifted woman who, on account of her human qualities, consorted 200 years ago in mutual respect with the most outstanding personalities of the time.