Johan Georg Schwartze was a painter, who grew up in the US, traveled to Germany, then in 1844 he arrived in Amsterdam. He managed to make a career there as a portrait painter, so he decided to stay. His daughter Thérèse, born December 20, 1851, had a talent for drawing and painting, so Johan Georg taught her. When Johan Georg died in 1874, started to take care of her extended family as a painter. By that time, she was already succesful painting portraits of the Amsterdam elite. By doing that,she became the first woman who maintained a family as an artist, a painter.
Her sister Georgina was a sculptor, her other sister, Clara, was not an artist. Their brother, Georg Washington Schwartze, was also a painter, the Rijksmuseum has a number of his paintings.
