Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805 - 1847)

Like her brother, Felix Mendelssohn, Fanny Hensel received piano lessons and studied composition from an early age. Though her father and her brother considered composition an inappropriate pursuit for a woman of position, Fanny continued to compose. Encouraged by her mother and her husband, Prussian court painter Wilhelm Hensel, Fanny began to publish her works in 1846, and left over 500 pieces at the time of her death.