Charlotte Buff

Charlotte Buff was a youthful acquaintance of the poet Goethe, who fell in love with her. She rejected him and instead married Johann Christian Kestner, vice-archivist and privy councillor to the Hanoverian court. The character of Lotte, in Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther, is partly based on her. Their relationship was characterized by heartiness and lack of constraint. Goethe bought the wedding rings for her and Kestner, in Frankfurt am Main. Charlotte and Kestner had four daughters and eight sons, among them August Kestner.