Marie Anne Hencké was born as one of six children of an affluent family in the capital of Luxembourg, when the country still was a Duchy. She was going to witness the country’s significant political transitions of the early modern times.

Hencké’s family history and background are remarkable: Her father Henri-Ambroise Hencké hailed from the German town of Lennep (in Pre-Prussian times part of the Hanseatic League, nowadays a neighbourhood in the city of Remscheid in the federal state of North-Rhine-Westphalia). By the time he was granted the right to settle in the capital as “the first protestant” in 1769, he had already lived for several years in parts of Luxembourg—at that time a considerably larger country—that showed comparable tolerance toward non-Catholic inhabitants.

Hencké’s talent for national and international business and his promise to keep his religious beliefs private facilitated this extraordinary concession, following lengthy petitions and negotiations on the highest political levels. However, it was also the marriage with the Catholic Marie-Catherine Servais around the very same period, that contributed to Hencké being accepted into society. Furthermore, the protestant maintained an excellent relationship with the abbey of Orval and its monks beyond its destruction through the French revolutionary troops. Frère Abraham d’Orval (Brother Abraham of the Abbey of Orval), possibly assisted by his brother, Frère Jérôme, as well as Ignatius Millim, were among the painters whose works were present in the Maison d’Osbourg, the patrician house, which Hencké acquired for his family home (Mersch 642 ff.).

Not much is known about Marie Anne Hencké’s education and artistic creation. Her privileged upbringing, surrounded by art, likely encompassed an education common for upper-class women of her time, preparing her for marriage to a suitable husband – a path she realised in 1799 when she wed Jean François Maréchal. They had three children: Henri-Ambroise, Marie-Josèphe, and François (Mersch 647). Lambert Herr’s publication Anthologie des Arts lists Frère Abraham as Hencké’s painting teacher (147). While currently no other known sources confirm this education, it remains plausible that the monk, together with his colleague Ignatius Millim—the family portraitist—provided lessons to the young Marie Anne Hencké.

The only works in the MNAHA Collection currently attributed to Marie Anne Hencké feature delicate and detailed flower depictions, a subject common among female painters of her period, who were often excluded from anatomy lessons deemed inappropriate for women. The MNAHA acquired the works for its collection from Marie Anne Hencké’s great-granddaughter Louise in 1940. Louis was the daughter of Marie Anne Hencké’s grandson,  François F. Maréchal and his wife, Odile Athalie Thyes. To our knowledge, they represent the oldest art works by a Luxembourg female artist in the MNAHA collection.

Works Cited

Herr, Lambert. Anthologie des Arts au Luxembourg. Luxembourg: Editions Emile Borschette, 1992. Print.

Mersch, Jules. Biographie nationale du pays de Luxembourg depuis ses origines jusqu’à nos jours. Luxembourg: J. Mersch, 1947. Print.

"224. Hencké, Maria-Anna." Death certificate. FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HY-6MC6-CP?
view=index : Sep 26, 2025), image 880 of 150. Print.
Accessed 18.12.2025.