Personal data
Princess Maria Leopoldine of Anhalt-Dessau (ca. 1765)
Maria Leopoldine von Anhalt-Dessau
Born November 18, 1746  
at Dessau
Died April 15, 1769  
at Detmold

Princess of Anhalt-Dessau, daughter of Leopold II Maximillian of Anhalt-Dessau (1700-1751) and Giesela Agnes of Anhalt-Köthen (1721-1751). She married (1765) Simon August, Count of Lippe-Detmold (1727-1782), but died just a few years later. Her younger sister Kasimire married her widowed husband shortly after her death.

Boswell was introduced to Princess Maria Leopoldine at the court of Dessau on September 24, 1764. On September 27, he played the card game of Faro with the Princess and her brother, Johann Georg, as well as a Gentleman of Brandenburg (a canon of Halberstadt), afterwards noting that "I lost six écus. I am always unlucky at play, and always keen"1

He danced with her, and with her two sisters, at a ball on September 29, held by the Princess Wilhelmine in honour of the deposed Duke of Courland.

    Boswell on the Grand Tour I, 1764

    Unless otherwise noted, the source for a dated quotation of Boswell's is generally the corresponding volume of the Yale Trade Editions of Boswell's journals.