Childhood She was born in
Nuremberg to a copper engraver named Johann Michael Stock (1737–1773). Stock had in 1756 married a widow five years his senior—Maria Helen Endner, née Schwabe (1733–1782)—who already had a son, Georg Gustav, by her previous marriage. Dora was the first of two surviving children born to this marriage; two years later her younger sister Anna Maria Jakobina, called Minna (11 March 1762 – 1843), was born. When Dora was five years old, her father took up a position in
Leipzig working as an engraver and illustrator for the
Breitkopf printing and publishing firm, and his family followed him to Leipzig a few months later. The Stock family was not well off. They lived in fifth-floor attic rooms in a building whose lower floors were occupied by Breitkopf printing facilities. The father worked in the front room, where there was ample window lighting, surrounded by his family. Her father however had no such intentions, and Dora assiduously learned the arts of drawing and engraving at his workbench; she was evidently his star pupil. Later Dora studied with
Adam Friedrich Oeser and (perhaps)
Anton Graff, both painters. After the death of her father in 1773, Dora was able to help keep the family afloat, along with her older half-brother, by continuing the family's business relationship with Breitkopf. however, rather than making the marriage possible, it led to its cancellation: Huber embarked on a relationship with
Therese Forster, the abandoned wife of
Georg Forster, which Dora found out about only in 1792. Following this event, which Siegel characterizes as devastating, Dora made no further plans to marry and remained single for the rest of her life.
Stock and the Körners Throughout her life Dora was very close to her younger sister Minna. Minna was engaged to
Christian Gottfried Körner shortly after he finished his university degree. Minna and Körner were unable to marry due to the strenuous objections of Körner's well-off father, who could not bear the thought of his son Gottfried marrying a "shop-keeper's girl". In 1785 Körner's father died, leaving his son a substantial inheritance. This made it possible for Gottfried and Minna to marry. They did so on 7 August, and moved to
Dresden, where Körner had earlier taken up a junior legal position (he eventually rose to a senior rank,
consistorial councillor). Following their honeymoon, Dora moved in with them, occupying a small bedroom and setting up her painting apparatus in the common living area. Gottfried, Minna, and Dora soon had made their home into an important cultural center. Robert Riggs writes: The Körner household in Dresden ... became a literary and musical salon. Plays and essays were read;
Singspiele and chamber music were performed; and lectures on art were given. Guests and participants included
Johann Gottfried von Herder, Goethe,
Wilhelm von Humboldt, the Schlegel brothers,
Ludwig Tieck,
Novalis, and the musicians
Johann Naumann,
Johann Hiller,
Karl Zelter,
Mozart, and
Weber. The Körners had two children who survived past infancy. Both had short but high-achieving lives:
Emma Körner (1788–1815), who became a skilled painter, and
Theodor Körner (1791–1813), who became a renowned soldier-poet. Dora helped raise and educate both children, and painted portraits of them. In 1785 he visited the group and vacationed with them in
Loschwitz, a rural village outside Dresden, eventually living for two years in the Körner household and remaining a lifelong friend. Dora produced three Schiller portraits. In the Körner home Gottfried had built a small theater for family theatrical productions, which according to Siegel were good enough to attract professional theater people to the audience. Since Schiller was a close friend, this theater served as the venue for the (private) premieres of a number of his yet-unpublished plays; Siegel notes that Theodor Körner was the first to play the part of
William Tell, and Stock herself was the first Joan of Arc (in
The Maid of Orleans). Stock also served as "director, stage manager, and the children's coach."
Artistic life Dora Stock's art consisted almost entirely of portraits. Stock's biographer Linda Siegel describes and assesses these paintings in detail; in outline, she judges them as deeply thoughtful works, notable for their honesty and realism and not always flattering to their subjects. An anonymous reviewer of Siegel's book says of Stock that she "recoiled from vanity or exaggeration, values that are evident in her extremely competent and brutally honest portraits." . He is shown in his
Freikorps uniform, standing under an oak. Stock worked with three favorite media: pastels, oils, and
silverpoint. She was a gifted copyist, and according to Siegel "could not keep up with the number of requests for copies of works in the Dresden Paintings Gallery." She was a member of the
Dresden Academy of Art; her work was exhibited there five times during the years 1800–1813. Stock's nephew Theodor, who had volunteered for the
Freikorps to fight against Napoleon, died in action (1813); and niece Emma died of a short illness two years later, leaving the Körners childless. Stock, who had been like a second mother to her sister's children, was as devastated as Minna and Gottfried were. Finally, Gottfried fell into conflict with
Frederick Augustus, the ruler of Saxony, and lost his job. In 1815 the three moved to
Berlin, where Gottfried had found a position as a civil servant, and there she spent the remainder of her life. She ceased to paint or draw after about 1821, due to illness. ==The Mozart portrait==