#von korff

[ejbarnes]

What I hope is the final revision of the pencils for Page 002 of Spirits & Seekers. Rearrangement of the figures, some tweaking of the scenery.

Elisa von der Recke  embraces half-sister Dorothea von Medem (who has not been initiated as a Mason because of her age). Countess Seraphina di Cagliostro removes her ceremonial veil. Elisa’s stepmother Agnes von Medem and father Johann Friedrich von Medem embrace by the door. In midground, her aunt Anna von Medem and uncle Christoph von Medem embrace, while nearby her cousin Charles von Medem kisses his sister Louise von Medem. At right foreground, Count Cagliostro in his faux-military regalia is surrounded by (from left to right) Lord Hermann von der Howen, Chancellor Gotthard von Korff, legal assistant Jakob Friedrich Hinz, and Privy Councilor Sigismund Georg Schwander. At far left, Elisa’s teenaged half-brothers (also not initiated because of their age) drift about, confused and somewhat bored.  Is it clear that 17-year-old Karlchen is ogling Seraphina di Cagliostro’s, um, assets?

Later this same year, Elisa’s half-sister Dorothea will marry the much older Peter von Biron, Duke of Courland, a match so politically controversial that the von Medem family keeps the news as close to their chests as possible right up until the wedding.

[ejbarnes]

Photo Hell; Recent research developments

In case you were wondering why I've been so quiet lately, the camera I've been using has had some problems, and the photos I've been taking have become inaccessible.

That doesn't mean I've been idle.  I've finished the page breakdowns (24 pages) of Chapter 2 of "Spirits and Seekers", and have re-penciled 2 out of 3 pages that I penciled when I conceived of this project as only 48 pages total.  If I finish painting these three pages before I leave Rīga, I will also do a thumbnail of the wraparound cover of Chapter 1 and possibly Chapter 2.

Of course, I've also been doing more historical research.  Last week's visit to the Latvian National Historical Archive revealed the name of the person my secondary sources identified only as "Major von Korff", a kinsman of unspecified consanguinity to Elisa von der Recke on her mother's side, and a sufficiently close friend of the von Medem brothers that he was an Order of Strict Observance brother, and accompanied the von Medem family to Wilzen when Cagliostro led them on a merry chase for buried treasure.

This past week, I returned for a fourth visit to the archive, and found that the now-identified Johann Gotthard von Korff was a distant cousin -- not a child of the prolific Konstanzia von Korff (Elisa's grandmother), but a nephew of the moderately famous Johann Albrecht von Korff.  Alas, according to a document written by his brother, he died suddenly in 1784, only 5 years after Cagliostro's visit, at the age of 48.

I'm not even going to try to find a portrait of him, though.  Since in the last iteration of the script, I had him as Elisa's maternal uncle Nicolaus Ernst von Korff, age 45 in 1779, and I now know Johann Gotthard von Korff to have been 43 in 1779, I may as well keep the current character design, and simply change how the other characters address him.  Ah, the miracle of Illustrator!