Elisabeth Deichmann-Schaaffhausen

Deichmann-Schaaffhausen was born in Cologne in 1811.^[1] Her father was the German banker Abraham Schaaffhausen [de] and her mother was his second wife Maria Therese Lucie (born de Maes).^[2] She was one of the last of their six children.^{[citation needed]} Her mother was active in public life supporting girls' schools and art societies in Cologne.^[2]

She married a wealthy banker, Wilhelm Ludwig Deichmann, and in 1853 they moved to a castle near Bonn called Schloss Deichmannsaue [de]. They had eleven children.^[3] She owned a number of artworks as a painting of hers by Nicolas-Antoine Taunay and another by Jean-Louis Demarne are known to have been in her collection.^[3]

Their home was a salon and the guests included the Crown Prince of Prussia and the composers Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms and Max Bruch.^[3] She remarkably became an ophthalmologist.

In 1878 she gained the citizenship of Liechtenstein.^[3]

In 1873 she was given the Royal Württemberg Order of Olga^{[citation needed]} and at that time she already had the Cross of Merit for Women and Girls^[4]

The violinist and musicologist Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski dedicated his 1869 book The Violin and its Masters to "Mrs. Lilla Deichmann née Schaaffhausen ... in grateful homage".^[5]

There was a biography and image of her published in 1875.^[6] Deichmann-Schaaffhausen died in Bonn in 1888.^[1]