Dorothea Viehmann is related to Fuchs’ on his father’s Chilean-German side. She was born as Catharina Dorothea Pierson in Rengerhausen, near Kassel as the daughter of Jean Isaac Pierson, owner of a tavern and Martha Gertrud Spangenber. Her paternal ancestors were Huguenots who escaped from France to Kassel after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. As a child, she collected the stories and fairy tales she heard from visitors of her father’s tavern. She would later give these stories a second life. In 1777, Dorothea married Nikolaus Viehmann and moved to Niederzwehren. After the death of her husband she had to support her seven children selling the products of her garden at the local market.

Dorothea met the Grimm Brothers in 1813. She is known as being one of the main sources for their tales.

“Portraying Dorothea was specifically challenging when trying to imitate her hand gesture. The existing portrait placed tremendous priority on how she held herself. I particularly enjoyed how this turned out.”

Dorothea was related to the famous German philosopher and thinker, Johann Wolfgang van Goethe. She was also related to German Jurist Friedrich Carl von Savigny. The existing portrait of Dorothea was made by Ludwig Emil Grimm in 1813.