Sophie von Kühn

Her image famously appears in Novalis’ Hymns to the Night, a foundational text of the literary movement known as German Romanticism.

Although Novalis's love for Sophie has assumed mythic proportions, their time together was short and uneventful.

The loss of Sophie brought about a deep period of mourning and suffering in Novalis' life.

Ludwig Tieck's biography of Novalis describes Sophie, saying: "Even as a child, she gave an impression which--because it was so gracious and spiritually lovely--we must call superearthly or heavenly, while through this radiant and almost transparent countenance of hers we would be struck with the fear that it was too tender and delicately woven for this life, that it was death or immortality which looked at us so penetratingly from those shining eyes; and only too often a rapid withering motion turned our fear into an actual reality.

"[citation needed] von Kühn and Novalis' relationship is the focus of the 1995 novel The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald.