Maria Aurora von Königsmarck

1662 - 1728

Sweden

Maria Aurora von Königsmarck was the daughter of Conrad Christofer von Königsmarck and Maria Kristina Wrangel and lived in Sweden from 1680 to 1692, where she was a central figure in the pious circle connected to Queen Ulrika Eleonora the elder.

In 1684, she aroused interest when she staged Racine’s play Iphigénie en Aulide at Court. She did not wish to marry, but for a period of time was the mistress of Augustus the Strong of Poland, by whom she had a son, Maurice de Saxe, raised by herself. In 1698, she moved to Quedlinburg, a home for unmarried ladies of rank, where she became prioress two years later.

Maria Aurora von Königsmarck collected poetry written by herself and by her woman-friends, which was mostly spiritual in nature, in the manuscript entitled Der Nordischer Weihrauch, kept at Uppsala University Library. In Les Divertissements de Medevi, 1682, she describes in epistolary form the French-inspired life of pleasure and amusement led by the noble classes at the Medevi medicinal spring and shows herself to be a witty letter writer.