Cella Thoma

Cella Thoma was born in Landshut^[1] or Munich.^[2] She came from a family of farmers and craftsmen and had been a model for the painter Victor Müller in his Munich studio since 1869. There she met Hans Thoma; she soon became his model and, a year later, a painting pupil. On 19 June 1877, she married Hans in Säckingen and moved into a flat with him and his mother and sister Agathe in Frankfurt/Main.^[3] As the marriage remained childless and Thoma cared for her niece Ella, they adopted her in 1878.^[4] Together, the four of them moved to Kronberg im Taunus in 1899, where Hans became a member of the Malerkolonie there. When he received a call to Karlsruhe in 1901, the flat was given up. Thoma only lived in Karlsruhe for a short time, as she succumbed to the consequences of appendicitis while travelling in Constance in the same year.

Thoma continued to devote herself to art after her marriage and was known as a flower and still life painter. On 23 November 1901, she died in Constance at the age of 43.