So you’ve confused Fanny and Cécile…
Confusing Cécile for Fanny is a common mistake.
Many articles, concert promotion materials, internet search results, and even album covers of Fanny Hensel’s music erroneously display Cécile’s Jeanrenaud’s portrait. Both women lived in Germany in the first half of the 19th century and had a connection to Felix Mendelssohn: Fanny was Felix’s older sister, and Cécile was Felix’s wife.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel
Musician and composer
Lived in Berlin
Her brother was Felix Mendelssohn
Cécile Jeanrenaud Mendelssohn
Not very musical, but a skilled painter
Lived in Leipzig
Her husband was Felix Mendelssohn
How did this happen?
Google’s complicity
Google images has long displayed images of Cécile mislabeled as Fanny. Here is an excellent look at the state of the situation in December 2020 by musicologist Marian Wilson Kimber.
I did my own informal investigation of Fanny’s impostors and tweeted about it here in March 2022. Things have improved somewhat since then, but Cécile’s portrait still appears among the top results in search results for Fanny Hensel.
Pretty privilege
Cécile fit the Western standard of beauty much more so than Fanny, who had more “Jewish” features.
The replacement of Fanny by the image of her sister-in-law reminds us of the perpetual expectation that, no matter what their accomplishments, women are supposed to be acceptable to the male gaze. Faced with an internet’s worth of imagery, we choose beauty over accuracy. Fanny Hensel the composer of over four hundred works becomes Fanny Hensel the beautiful woman.
Need an image of Fanny?
Here are some: