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Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Salomée Halpir

b. 1718, Nowogrodek, Poland; d. after 1760, location unknown

The common name of this person is REGINA SALOMEA RUSIECKA.

Regina Salomea Rusiecka was married at the age of fourteen to the oculist Jakub Halpir, who took his young wife to Constantinople (Istanbul) where he had a thriving practice. There she studied medicine and assisted her husband, eventually becoming a successful oculist herself. She traveled extensively, to Saint Petersburg, Vienna, across Silesia and the Balkans, practicing medicine in a number of Turkish, Polish, and Austrian towns. Around 1760, she wrote her memoirs, Proceder podrozy i zycia mego awantur (My Life’s Travels and Adventures).