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Women Painters of the World
The Art and Life Library
EDITED BY
WALTER SHAW SPARROW.
VOLUME I.
The British Home of To-day
A BOOK OF MODERN DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE AND THE APPLIED ARTS.
(Published June, 1904. Out of Print).
VOLUME II.
The Gospels in Art
THE LIFE OF CHRIST BY GREAT PAINTERS FROM FRA ANGELICO TO HOLMAN HUNT.
(Published November, 1904).
VOLUME III.
Women Painters of the World
FROM THE TIME OF CATERINA VIGRI (1413-1463) TO ROSA BONHEUR AND THE PRESENT DAY.
Dedicated to Her Majesty Queen Alexandra.
(Published March, 1905).
HODDER & STOUGHTON, 27, Paternoster Row, London.
Higher resolution versions of all art images are available by clicking on the image.
British School, 1901
"JOY AND THE LABOURER."
REPRODUCED FROM THE ORIGINAL PICTURE IN THE COLLECTION OF W. A. CADBURY, ESQ.
Mrs. Mary Young Hunter, Painter
Women Painters of the World
from the time of Caterina Vigri 1413-1463
to Rosa Bonheur and the Present Day
Edited by Walter Shaw Sparrow
The Art and Life Library
H&S
1905
Hodder & Stoughton
27 Paternoster Row-London
DEDICATED BY GRACIOVS PERMISSION
TO
HER MAJESTY QVEEN ALEXANDRA
IN THIS YEAR of OVR LORD
ONE THOVSAND NINE HVNDRED & FIVE
Printed by
PERCY LUND, HUMPHRIES & CO., LTD.
The Country Press, Bradford.
British School, 1874
"MISSED!"
REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION OF CHARLES CHESTON, ESQ.,
FROM: THE ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR DATED 1874,
THE YEAR IN WHICH THE PAINTER'S FAMOUS "ROLL-CALL"
WAS PURCHASED BY QUEEN VICTORIA AT THE ROYAL ACADEMY.
Lady Elizabeth Butler, Painter
PREFACE
WHAT is genius? Is it not both masculine and feminine? Are not some of its qualities instinct with manhood, while others delight us with the most winning graces of a perfect womanhood? Does not genius make its appeal as a single creative agent with a two-fold sex?
But if genius has its Mirandas and its Regans no less than its infinite types of men, ranging from Prospero and Ferdinand to Caliban and Trinculo, its union of the sexes does not remain always at peace within the sphere of art. Sometimes, in the genius of men, the female characteristics gain mastery over the male qualities; at other times the male attributes of woman's genius win empire and precedence over the female; and whenever these things happen, the works produced in art soon recede from the world's sympathies, losing all their first freshness. They may guide us, perhaps, as finger-posts in history, pointing the way to some movement of interest; but their first popularity as art is never renewed. Style is the man in the genius of men, style is the woman in the genius of the fair. No male artist, however gifted he may be, will ever be able to experience all the emotional life to which women are subject; and no woman of abilities, how much soever she may try, will be able to borrow from men anything so invaluable to art as her own intuition and the prescient tenderness and grace of her nursery-nature. Thus, then, the bisexuality of genius has limits in art, and those limits should be determined by a worker's sex.
As examples in art of complete womanliness, mention may be made of two exquisite portraits by Madame Le Brun, in which, whilst representing her little daughter and herself, the painter discloses the inner essence and the life of maternal love, and discloses them with a caressing playfulness of passion unattainable by men, and sometimes unappreciated by men. Here, indeed, we have the poetry of universal motherhood, common to the household hearts of good women the wide world over. Such pictures may not be the highest form of painting, but highest they are in their own realm of human emotion; and they recall to one's memory that truth in which Napoleon the Great ranked the gentler sex as the most potent of all creative artists. "The future destiny of children," said he, "is always the work of mothers."
But some persons may answer: "Yes, but the achievements of women painters have been second-rate. Where is there a woman artist equal to any man among the greatest masters?" Persons who do not think are constantly asking that question. The greatest geniuses were all hustled and moulded into shape by the greatest epochs of ambition in the lives of nations, just as the mountains of Switzerland were thrown up to their towering heights by tremendous forces underground; and, as the Alps do not repeat themselves, here and there, for the pleasure of tourists, so the greatest geniuses do not reappear for the pleasure of critics or of theorists. And this is not all. Why compare the differing genius of women and men? There is room in the garden of art for flowers of every kind and for butterflies and birds of every species; and why should anyone complain because a daisy is not a rose, or because nightingales and thrushes, despite their family resemblance, have voices of their own, dissimilar in compass and in quality?
The present book, then, is a history of woman's garden in the art of painting, and its three hundred pictures show what she has grown in her garden during the last four centuries and a half. The Editor has tried to free his mind of every bias, so that this book, within the limits of 332 pages, might be as varied as the subject. The choice of pictures has not been easy, and a few disappointments have attended the many communications with the owners of copyrights; but only two invited artists have declined to contribute. It is not often that so much willing and generous help has come to an Editor from so many countries; and it is with gratitude that I acknowledge the assistance received from the contributors of to-day. Seven pictures are reproduced in colour-facsimile, thanks to the courtesy of the following artists and collectors: Mrs. Allingham, Miss Ann Macbeth, Mr. James Orrock, R.I., Mr. W A. Cadbury, Mr. Charles Cheston, Mr. Klackner, and Mr. Charles Dowdeswell.
The Dedication Page, the Initials Letters, the End Papers, are all designs by Miss Ethel Larcombe, while the [Title Page] and the [Cover] are the work of Mr. David Veazey. The [silhouettes] by Mlle. Nelly Bodenheim, used as tail-pieces, are published by permission of S. L. van Looÿ, Amsterdam.
This volume being the first illustrated history of the Women Painters of the World, Her Majesty Queen Alexandra has honoured it by graciously accepting the Dedication; and in this encouraging act is revealed the untiring interest and solicitude with which Her Majesty has ever followed the progress of women's work.
THE EDITOR.
SILHOUETTE BY NELLY BODENHEIM, HOLLAND.
School of British Water-Colour, Contemporary
AN ENGLISH HEBE.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL DRAWING
H.R.H. The Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
CONTENTS
| [Preface:] | "On the Scope of the Present Volume." By the Editor. |
| [Chapter I:] | "Women Painters in Italy since the Fifteenth Century." By Walter Shaw Sparrow |
| [Chapter II:] | "Early British Women Painters." By the Editor. |
| [Chapter III:] | "Modern British Women Painters." By Ralph Peacock. |
| [Chapter IV:] | "Women Painters in the United States of America." By the Editor. |
| [Chapter V:] | "Of Women Painters in France." By Léonce Bénédite. Translated into English by Edgar Preston. |
| [Chapter VI:] | "Women Painters in Belgium and in Holland." By N. Jany. Translated into English by Edgar Preston. |
| [Chapter VII:] | "Women Painters in Germany and Austria, in Russia, Switzerland and Spain." By Wilhelm Schölermann. Translated into English by Wilfrid Sparroy. |
| [Chapter VIII:] | "Some Finnish Women Painters." By Helena Westermarck. |
FACSIMILE PLATES IN COLOUR
| [1.] | Mrs. Mary Young Hunter. "Joy and the Labourer" | Frontispiece |
| PAGE | ||
| [2.] | Lady Elizabeth Butler (Elizabeth Thompson). "Missed!" | 9 |
| [3.] | H.I.M. The Empress Frederick of Germany (1840-1891). "The Akropolis, Athens: from the Balcony of the Crown Prince's House" | 56 |
| [4.] | Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, A.R.W.S. "Youth and the Lady" | 73 |
| [5.] | Miss Ann Macbeth. "Elspeth" | 97 |
| [6.] | Mrs. Helen Allingham, R.W.S. "A Cottage near Crocken Hill" | 109 |
| [7.] | Helen Hyde. "Day Dreams" | 145 |
REMBRANDT PHOTOGRAVURES
| [1.] | Rosalba Carriera. "Portrait of a Lady Unknown" | 20 |
| [2.] | Madame Vigée Le Brun. "Herself and her Daughter" | 166 |
| [3.] | Madame Adèle Romany. "Portrait of Gaëtano Apollino Baldassare Vestris, Dancer" | 171 |
| [4.] | Mademoiselle Marie Amélie Cogniet. "Portrait of Madame Adélaïde D'Orléans" | 189 |
| [5.] | Rosa Bonheur. "Shepherd Watching his Sheep" | 205 |
| [6.] | Francine Charderon. "Sleep" | 229 |
MONOCHROME PLATES
| [1.] | H.R.H. the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. "An English Hebe." | 13 |
| [2.] | Sophonisba Anguisciola. "Her Three Sisters Playing at Chess" | 25 |
| [3.] | Artemisia Gentileschi. "Mary Magdalene" | 31 |
| [4.] | Rosalba Carriera. "Charity and Justice" | 37 |
| [5.] | Elisabetta Sirani. "The Dream of St. Anthony of Padua" | 43 |
| [6.] | Signorina Elisa Koch. "The Little Sister" | 49 |
| [7.] | Catharine Read. "The Lady Georgiana Spencer" | 61 |
| [8.] | Angelica Kauffman, R.A. "The Sibyl" | 67 |
| [9.] | Mrs. Stanhope Forbes, A.R.W.S. "The Fisher Wife" | 85 |
| [10.] | Mrs. William De Morgan (Evelyn Pickering). "Flora" | 91 |
| [11.] | Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, A.R.W.S. "To-day for me" | 103 |
| [12.] | Miss Cecilia Beaux. "Mother and Child" | 121 |
| [13.] | Miss Kate Greenaway. "A. for Apple Pie: E. eat it" | 127 |
| [14.] | Mrs. Annie L. Swynnerton. "The Sense of Sight" | 133 |
| [15.] | Mrs. Anna Lea Merritt, R.B.A. "Love Locked Out" | 139 |
| [16.] | Miss Cornelia W. Conant. "The End of the Story" | 151 |
| [17.] | Mary Cassatt. "Baby's Toilette" | 157 |
| [18.] | Helen Hyde. "The Bamboo Fence" | 163 |
| [19.] | Madame Vigée Le Brun. "Herself and her Daughter" | 177 |
| [20.] | Berthe Morisot. "Portrait of a Young Woman Seated" | 211 |
| [21.] | Madame Jacqueline Comerre-Paton. "Mistletoe" | 217 |
| [22.] | Madame Eva Gonzalès. "Portrait of a Lady" | 223 |
| [23.] | Madame Fanny Fleury. "The Pathway to the Village Church" | 235 |
| [24.] | Madame Vallet-Bisson. "The Departure" | 241 |
| [25.] | Mlle. Consuélo Fould. "Will You Buy?" | 247 |
| [26.] | Judith Leyster. "The Merry Young Man" | 257 |
| [27.] | Mevrouw Bilders van Bosse. "Landscape near Oosterbeek" | 267 |
| [28.] | Mlle. Thérèse Schwartze. "The Children of Mr. A. May, Amsterdam" | 273 |
| [29.] | Madame Henriette Ronner. "The Last Move" | 279 |
| [30.] | Mlle. Marie Bashkirtseff. "A Meeting" | 293 |
| [31.] | Mlle. Ottilie Roederstein. "Le Mois de Marie" | 311 |
| [32.] | Antonia de Bañuelos. "The Little Fishers" | 321 |
| [33.] | Mary Cassatt. "Childhood in a Garden" | 327 |
| [34.] | Mary Cassatt. "Mother and two Children" | 327 |
DUPLEX PLATES
| [1.] | Mrs. Marianne Stokes. "The Queen and the Page." Duplex Plate | 79 |
| [2.] | Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch, R.B.A. "Labourers of the Night." Duplex Plate | 115 |
| [3.] | Madame Benoits. "Marie Pauline, Princesse Borghese." Duplex Plate | 183 |
| [4.] | Rosa Bonheur. "Study of a Bull." Duplex Plate | 195 |
Owing to various reasons, the work of several well-known painters could not be obtained until this book had passed through the press, and a supplement of pictures has therefore been placed between page [324] and page [325]. It includes work by Lady Alma-Tadema, Mrs. Seymour Lucas, Mrs. Marrable, Miss Maud Earl, Miss Julia B. Folkard, Miss Maude Goodman, Miss Flora M. Reid, Miss Blanche Jenkins, and Madame Arsène Darmesteter.
It is hoped that the Women Painters of To-day may be studied again in a second volume. In the present book, dealing with 450 years of work, the living painters could not be fully represented, for there are thousands of ladies who now win a place in the art exhibitions of Europe and America.
WOMEN PAINTERS REPRESENTED
| PAGE | |
| Abbéma, Mlle. Louise | [237] |
| Abran, Madame | [243] |
| Allingham, Mrs. Helen, R.W.S. | [109], [137] |
| Alma-Tadema, Miss Anna | [156] |
| Anderson, Mrs. Sophie | [105] |
| Angell, Mrs. Coleman | [102] |
| Anguisciola, Sophonisba | [25], [36], [39] |
| Angus, Christine | [64] |
| Art, Mlle. Berthe | [276] |
| Bakhuyzen, Mme. C. J. van de Sande | [266] |
| Bañuelos, Antonia de | [320], [321] |
| Barton, Miss Rose, A.R.W.S. | [143] |
| Bashkirtseff, Mlle. Marie | [293], [315] |
| Bauck, Jeanna | [300], [301] |
| Bauerlë, Miss A., A.R.E. | [132] |
| Beale, Mary | [81] |
| Beauclerk, Lady Diana | [82] |
| Beaux, Miss Cecilia | [121], [162] |
| Benoits, Madame | [183] |
| Bilders van Bosse, Mme. | [267], [269], [272] |
| Bisschop-Robertson, Mme. Suse | [278] |
| Blatherwick, Lily (Mrs. A. S. Hartrick) | [155] |
| Blau-Lang, Frau Tina | [306], [308] |
| Bodenheim, Mlle. Nelly | [12], [72], [292], [332] |
| Bonheur, Rosa | [195], [205], [209], [210], [214], [215] |
| Bouillier, Mlle. | [194] |
| Bourbon, de, Infante Paz | [318], [320] |
| Bovi, Madame | [90] |
| Boznauska, de, Olga | [316] |
| Breslau, Mlle. Louise | [304], [314] |
| Brickdale, Miss E. Fortescue, A.R.W.S. | [73], [103], [114], [126], [141], [142] |
| Brockmann, Doña Elena | [319] |
| Brownscombe, Miss Jennie | [161] |
| Butler, Lady Elizabeth | [154] |
| Byrne, Anne Frances | [94] |
| Cameron, Miss Katharine | [124] |
| Cameron, Miss Margaret | [131], [155] |
| Capet, Marie Gabrielle | [197] |
| Carpenter, Mrs. Margaret | [96], [100] |
| Carpentier, Madeleine | [244] |
| Carriera, Rosalba | [20], [37], [48], [51] |
| Cassatt, Miss Mary | [157], [327] |
| Cazin, Madame Marie | [227], [239] |
| Charderon, Francine | [229] |
| Chase, Miss Marian, R.I. | [130] |
| Chatillon, de, Mme. Laure | [219] |
| Chaudet, Elisabeth | [202] |
| Cheviot, Miss Lilian | [143] |
| Claudie, Mlle. | [252] |
| Cogniet, Mlle. Marie Amélie | [189] |
| Colin-Libour, Madame | [325] |
| Comerre-Paton, Mme. J. | [217] |
| Conant, Miss Cornelia | [151] |
| Cool, de, Mme. Delphine | [232] |
| Coomans, Mlle. Diana | [228] |
| Cosway, Maria | [96] |
| Curran, Miss A. | [90] |
| Danse, Mlle. Louise | [278] |
| Davids, Fräulein | [300] |
| Davin, Madame | [207] |
| Dealy, Jane M. (Mrs. Lewis) | [144] |
| Demont-Breton, Madame | [226], [233] |
| De Morgan, Mrs. Evelyn | [91], [117], [123] |
| Destrée-Danse, Madame | [282] |
| Dieksee, Miss Margaret Isabel | [112] |
| Dolci, Agnese | [47] |
| Dubos, Mlle. Angèle | [216] |
| Dubourg, Mme. Victoria | [240] |
| Dufau, Mlle. | [231], [240], [243] |
| Duffield, Mrs. William | [118] |
| Ellenrieder, Anna Marie | [298] |
| Empress Frederick of Germany | [56] |
| Enault, Madame Alix | [225] |
| Fanner, Miss Alice | [135], [156] |
| Fanshawe, Catherine Maria | [89] |
| Fautin-Latour, Mme. (Victoria Dubourg) | [240] |
| Fichel, Mme. Jeanne | [216] |
| Filleul, Madame | [186], [187] |
| Fleury, Mme. Fanny | [235] |
| Fontana, Lavinia | [39], [40], [41] |
| Forbes, Mrs. Stanhope | [85], [147], [149] |
| Fould, Mlle. Achille | [250] |
| Fould, Mlle. Consuélo | [247] |
| Frampton, Mrs. George | [136] |
| Gardner, Elizabeth | [234], [238] |
| Gentileschi, Artemisia | [31], [42], [45] |
| Ghisi, Diana | [39] |
| Gilsoni-Hoppe, Madame | [266] |
| Godefroid, Mlle. Marie E. | [203] |
| Gonzalès, Eva | [223], [231] |
| Gow, Miss Mary L., R.I. | [107] |
| Granby, Marchioness of | [142] |
| Greenaway, Miss Kate | [119], [127] |
| Gutti, Rosina M. | [53] |
| Guyard, Madame | [185], [188] |
| Hammond, Miss G. Demain, R.I. | [135] |
| Hart, Miss Emily | [113] |
| Havers, Miss Alice | [108] |
| Heitland, Miss Ivy | [107] |
| Hemessen, Catharina van | [263] |
| Heming, Mrs. Matilda | [95] |
| Herford, Mrs. John | [95] |
| Herland, Mlle. E. | [249] |
| Hilda, Mlle. E. | [245] |
| Hitz, Dora | [302], [303] |
| Hobson, Miss A. M., R.I. | [118] |
| Hogendorp, Baronne van | [266] |
| Holroyd, Lady | [150] |
| Hotham, Amelia | [88] |
| Houdon, Mlle. M. J. A. | [202] |
| Houssay, Mlle. Joséphine | [251] |
| Houten, Mme. Mesdag van | [269] |
| Houten, Mlle. Barbara van | [270], [275] |
| How, Miss Beatrice | [142], [148] |
| Hunter, Mrs. Mary V., Frontispiece, | [126], [130] |
| Hyde, Miss Helen | [145], [163] |
| Jensen, Frau Marie | [303] |
| Jopling, Mrs. Louisa, R.B.A. | [120] |
| Kauffman, Angelica, R.A. | [67], [83], [87] |
| Kemp-Welch, Miss L. E., R.B.A. | [115], [125] |
| King, Miss Jessie M. | [159] |
| Koch, Elisa | [49] |
| Kollwitz, Fräulein Käthe | [302] |
| Laucota, Fräulein Herstine | [307] |
| Larcombe, Miss Ethel, | [Dedication Page], [End-papers], [Initial Letters] |
| Le Brun, Madame Vigée | [166], [177], [191], [192], [193], [198], [200], [201], [204] |
| Leleux, Madame Armand | [220] |
| Le Roy, Madame | [252] |
| Lescot, Madame Haudebourt | [208] |
| Leyster, Judith | [257], [264] |
| Longhi, Barbara | [41] |
| Louise, H.R.H. Princess, Duchess of Argyll | [13] |
| Lucas-Robiquet, Mme. | [251] |
| Macbeth, Miss Ann | [97] |
| Macdonald, Miss Biddie | [123] |
| Macgregor, Miss Jessie | [148] |
| Marcotte, Mlle. E. | [272] |
| Martineau, Miss Edith, A.R.W.S. | [111] |
| Maupeou, Caroline von | [299] |
| Mayer, Constance | [199] |
| Mee, Mrs. Anne | [93] |
| Meen, Mrs. Margaret | [94] |
| Merian, Maria S. | [295], [296] |
| Merritt, Mrs. Anna Lea, R.B.A. | [139] |
| Meunier, Mlle. Georgette | [282] |
| Morin, Eulalie | [187] |
| Morisot, Berthe | [211], [213] |
| Moser, Mary, R.A. | [94] |
| Nicolas, Mlle. Marie | [222] |
| Normand, Mrs. (Henrietta Rae) | [153] |
| Offor, B. (Mrs. F. Littler) | [160] |
| Oppenheim, Mlle. A. | [246] |
| Parlaghy, Frau Vilms | [316] |
| Paymal-Amouroux, Mme. | [232] |
| Petiet, Mlle. Marie | [219] |
| Phillott, Miss Constance, A.R.W.S. | [138] |
| Prestel, Maria C. | [297] |
| Réal del Sarte, Mme. | [251] |
| Ragnoni, Barbara | [35] |
| Read, Catharine | [61], [84] |
| Reis, Maria G. Silva | [301] |
| Robertson, Mrs. J. | [93] |
| Roederstein, Mlle. Ottilie | [305], [311] |
| Romani, Juana | [54] |
| Romany, Mme. Adèle | [171] |
| Rongier, Mlle., Jeanne | [320] |
| Ronner, Mme. Henriette | [279], [281] |
| Rothschild, de, Baroness Lambert | [277] |
| Rude, Mme. Sophie | [207] |
| Ruysch, Rachel | [265] |
| Salanson, Mlle. Eugénie | [228] |
| Salles-Wagner, Adelaïde | [299] |
| Sawyer, Miss Amy | [159] |
| Schjerfbeck, Helene | [310], [313] |
| Schurman, Anna Maria | [296] |
| Schneider, Mme. Félicie | [222] |
| Schwartze, Thérèse | [270], [271], [273], [275] |
| Sindici, Doña Stuart | [317] |
| Sirani, Elisabetta | [43], [46] |
| Sister A, Sienese Nun | [34], [35] |
| Sister B, Sienese Nun | [34] |
| Smythe, Miss Minnie, A.R.W.S. | [150] |
| Sonrel, Élisabeth | [237] |
| Spencer, Lavinia, Countess | [90] |
| Staples, Mrs. (M. E. Edwards) | [120] |
| Starr, Louisa (Mme. Canziana) | [106] |
| Stokes, Mrs. Marianne | [79], [129] |
| Strong, Mrs. Elizabeth | [113] |
| Subleyras, Maria Tibaldi | [52] |
| Swon, Mrs. J. M. | [159] |
| Swynnerton, Mrs. A. L. | [133] |
| Tavernier, de, Mme. E. | [227] |
| Templetown, Viscountess | [94] |
| Thesleff, Ellen | [314] |
| Valory, de, Mme. Caroline | [192] |
| Vallet-Bisson, Mme. | [241] |
| Vanteuil, de, Mlle. | [185] |
| Vigri, Caterina | [33] |
| Waterford, Louisa Lady | [99], [101] |
| Waternau, Mlle. Hermine | [221] |
| Watson, Caroline | [89] |
| Wentworth, Mrs. Cecilia | [160] |
| Wesmael, Mlle. E. | [283] |
| White, Miss Florence | [124] |
| Wiik, Maria | [309], [313] |
| Wolfthorn, Frau Julie | [304] |
| Wytsman, Mme. Juliette | [284] |
| Youngman, Miss A. M., R.I. | [118], [119] |
| Zappi, Lavinia Fontana | [39], [40], [41] |
| Zillhardt, Mlle. Jenny | [221] |
Venetian School. 1675-1757
PORTRAIT OF A LADY UNKNOWN.
AFTER THE PASTEL IN THE MUSÉE DE CHANTILLY,
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
Women Painters in Italy since the Fifteenth Century
By Walter Shaw Sparrow
OLDER than the authenticated history of Greek art is a tradition that connects a girl's name with the discovery of a great craft, the craft of modelling portraits in relief. Kora, known as the virgin of Corinth, and daughter of a potter named Butades, sat one evening with her betrothed in her father's house; a torch burned, a fire of wood bickered in a brasier, throwing on the wall in shadow a clear silhouette of the young man's profile; and Kora, moved by a sudden impulse, took from the hearth a charred piece of wood and outlined the shadow. When the girl's father, Butades, saw the sketch which she had made, he filled in the outline with his potters' clay, forming the first medallion.
It is a pretty, chivalrous tradition, and it recalls to one's memory the fact that the ancient Greeks had really some women artists of note, like Aristarete, daughter and pupil of Nearchus, celebrated for her picture of Aesculapius; or like Anaxandra (about B.C. 228), daughter of the painter Nealces, or like Helena, who painted the battle of Issus, about B.C. 333.
Passing from Greece to ancient Rome, we find only one woman painter, Lala by name, and she was a Greek by birth and education. Lala lived and laboured in the first century before the birth of Christ. She went to Rome during the last days of the republic, and won for herself a great reputation by her miniature portraits of ladies.
As the early Christians turned away from all luxury and adornment, the influence of Christ's life was very slow in gaining its benign ascendency in the arts; but among the civilisations which were founded on the ruins of Rome's decline and fall, there were some women who still deserve to be remembered for their patronage of art. Amalasontha, daughter of Theodoric the Great, Theodelinda, Queen of the Lombards, Hroswitha, in her convent at Gandershein, and Ava, the first German poetess, these ladies, and many others, made colonising names, names that visited distant lands and gave ambition to other women.
Briefly, the Renaissance was heralded by a long, troubled dawn; but it came at last, and its effects on the destinies of women were immediate and far-reaching. In Italy, one by one, the Universities were opened to the fair, that of Bologna leading the way in the 13th century, when Betisia Gozzadini studied there with success, dressed as a boy, like Plato's pupil, Axiothea. And a line of girl graduates connects Betisia Gozzadini with the women lecturers who became so famous at Bologna in the 18th century: Anna Manzolini, Laura Bassi, Clotilde Tambroni, Maria Agnesi, and Maria Dalle-Donne.
It is not easy to explain why the Italian towns and universities gave so much encouragement to the higher aspirations of girls. In poetry, in art, in learning, that encouragement was equally remarkable, and I am tempted to assign its origin to the martial temper of the Middle Ages, which drew many young men from the universities to take part in the exercises of the tilt-yard or in the perils of the battlefield, leaving the fields of learning in need of zealous labourers. Women, on the other hand, exposed their hearts, but not their lives, to the hazards of duels, tournaments and wars; they lived longer than men, as a rule, and hence it was worth while to encourage publicly those gifts of the female mind and spirit which had long been cultivated privately for the benefit of peaceful nunneries.
Still, whatever the origin of it may have been, the pride taken by the Italians in their gifted women is among the most important facts in the history of their Renaissance. But for that pride, the scores of ladies who became noted in the arts would have remained unknown in their homes, and the story of those times would lack in its social life a counterpart of that radiant chivalry that cast so much tenderness and sanctity about the Motherhood of Mary and the Infancy of Jesus Christ.
As this chapter is nothing more than a brief introduction to the study of a very important subject, I can say only a few words about the different groups of painters into which the women artists of Italy are divided, beginning with the early nuns, whose art was not so much a craft as a confession of faith.
Caterina Vigri was the earliest of these nuns, and the picture by which she is represented on page [33], "St. Ursula and her Maidens," was painted in the year 1456. Not only is it typical of the young Bolognese school, but, despite the primitiveness of the drawing, it has two qualities in which the swift temperaments of women, so truth-telling in their emotions, commonly manifest themselves in art: the first is a certain naturalness of gesture and of pose; the second is an evident wish to impart life and liveliness to the faces, even although that liveliness and life may not accord with the subject in its higher spiritual significance. It is this natural wish of women to be homely and attractive that so frequently brings their art nearer to the people's sympathies than the work done by men; and if we study the four illustrations on pages [34] and [35], representing pictures by the Sienese nuns of Santa Marta, we shall see how motherly in tenderness was the feminine ideal of Christ's infancy. I can gain no information about Barbara Ragnoni and the two other sister nuns, whose names have passed into Time's limbo of forgotten things, and whom I have ventured to describe as Sister A. and Sister B. They were true artists, each one having a sweet graciousness of her own, playful, yet devout and reverent, devotional but not austere. In these pictures the maternal instincts are at play; the painters are so happy in their subject that their whole womanhood responds to it, making it a holy experience of their own glad hearts. There is much to admire also in the way in which the figures are grouped and co-ordinated; and how charming is that glympse of country painted by Barbara Ragnoni in her "Adoration of the Shepherds."
These were not the only gifted and gracious nuns in the early history of Italian art. There was Plautilla Nelli, who formed her style on that of Fra Bartolommeo; she became prioress of a convent in Florence, the convent of St. Catherine, and died in 1588, aged sixty-five. Barbara Longhi of Ravenna, another painter of the same period, was not a nun, but I mention her now in order that attention may be drawn to a painter having a genuine sympathy and style (see page [41]).
We pass on to a little bevy of emigrants, women painters who visited foreign courts where they met with great successes. Sophonisba Anguisciola, born of a noble family in Cremona, was enriched by Philip II. of Spain; Artemesia Gentileschi came to London with her father and found a patron in Charles I.; Maria La Caffa (17th century), a flower painter, came upon her Mæcenas in the Court of Tyrol; it was in German Courts that Isabella del Pozzo (17th century), like Felicita Sartori (18th century), plucked bay leaves and laurels; and Violanta Beatrice Siries, after making for herself a name in Paris, returned home to Florence and painted many famous persons of the 18th century. Then we have Rosalba Carriera, whose career ended in blindness and loss of reason, and whose whole life is a touching story. As a child she made Point of Venice lace; at the age of fourteen or fifteen she painted snuff boxes with flowers and pretty faces; then miniatures of well-known persons kept her brushes busy; but this minute art tried her eyes so seriously that Rosalba adopted pastels instead, and soon became the most famous pastellist of her period. She journeyed pretty well all over the Continent, winning an extraordinary success wherever she went, as well as a place in all the Academies of note, from the Clementina at Bologna to the Royal Academy at Paris. Rosalba Carriera arrived in Paris in April 1720; she kept a diary of her experiences, and students of French history should read it in the edition annotated by Alfred Sensier. But here we are concerned with the art alone of Rosalba Carriera, an art rich in colour, swift and nervous in drawing, full of character, and modelled always with vigour and with ease.
Returning now to an earlier traveller, Sophonisba Anguisciola, we meet with another portraitist of real merit, more self-contained than Rosalba, less impetuous, but fresh, witty, sincere and charming. It is probable that she was born in 1533. After studying for some time at Cremona, under Bernardino Campi, Sophonisba Anguisciola began to make fun of the little girls of the period. Vasari set the greatest store by one of these satirical sketches, representing a boy with a lobster clawed to his finger, and a small girl laughing at his nimbleness. The subject of another skit was an old woman studying the Alphabet, much to the amusement of a baby girl.
School of Cremona, XVI Century
THREE SISTERS OF SOPHONISBA ANGUISCIOLA PLAYING AT CHESS.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL
AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE RACZYNSKI COLLECTION.
VASARI SAW THIS PICTURE AND SAID THAT "THE FIGURES WANTED ONLY VOICE TO BE ALIVE."
Sophonisba Anguisciola or Angussola, Painter
1533(?)-1626
That Sophonisba Anguisciola was very young when she first attracted notice from the great, is proved by the fact that she sent a likeness of herself—a likeness now at Vienna—to Pope Julius III., who died in 1555. It was in her twenty-seventh year that she made her way, with ten attendants, to the Spanish Court, there to paint a history in admired portraits of the great age of the auto-da-fé: a history which tempus edax has devoured, leaving us only those works which Sophonisba turned out in her native country, far away from the dark tragedies of the Escorial. Philip the Second married his protegée to a wealthy Sicilian noble, Don Fabrizio de Monçada, giving her a huge dowry of 12,000 ducats, a pension of 1,400 scudi, and a dress loaded with pearls, besides other presents.
Sophonisba retired with her husband to Palermo, where she soon became a widow. Then Philip and his Queen wished her to return to Madrid; but the artist pleaded an excuse, the excuse of homesickness, and set sail for Italy. The captain of the galley of war, Orazio Lomellini, was a handsome man of good family, a native of Genoa; his gallantry had suffered a sea-change, was altogether breezy, sailor-like, delightful; and Sophonisba not only fell in love with him, she took him at a leap-year advantage, and soon changed her "weeds" for a bridal dress.
When Van Dyck met her at Genoa (1622), and painted several members of her husband's family, Sophonisba was upwards of eighty-seven years old, and quite blind; but the blithe old lady still went on painting so well in her familiar conversations that Van Dyck said he had learnt more from her talk than from his other teachers. Had Steele an inkling of this magnificent compliment when he said that to love the Lady Elizabeth Hastings was a liberal education? Addison may have heard of it in Italy, and in turning over his thoughts before Master Richard, may have dropped it generously. But, however this may be, Stirling gives too much point to Van Dyck's words; for he says boldly, in The Annals of the Artists of Spain, that my painter's portraits are little inferior to those by Titian. "Of this evidence is afforded," says he, "by that beautiful portrait of her, which is now no mean gem of the galleries and libraries of Althorp."
Perhaps one may defy critics to name a single latter-day "realist" among the fair who has attained to Artemisia Gentileschi's masterful and singular ruthlessness, as in the several pictures of Judith that she painted. One of these pictures will be found on page [45]. It is the least relentless of the series, but it shows clearly enough the grip of Artemisia's hand in tragedy. Curiously, the suave Guido was Artemisia's first teacher, but she learnt more from Domenichino, and more still from the years she passed at Naples, then known as "the sink of all iniquity." But Artemisia Gentileschi is sometimes kind in her work, and gentle; she does not always remind us of that Artemisia who fought so well at Salamis, causing Xerxes to cry: "Behold! the men behave like women, and the women like men!" In her excellent portraits, and in pictures like the "Mary Magdalene," on page [31], she blends some graciousness of thought with vigour and variety of technique.
Lavinia Fontana and Elisabetta Sirani were the ablest women painters whose travels did not extend beyond Italy. The first was a member of the old Roman Academy, and Pope Gregory XIII. made her his portraitist in ordinary. She was born of good family in Bologna, anno 1552. It was her father that shaped the laggard talents of Lodovico Carracci, and from him came the girl's first lessons in drawing. Lavinia spent most of her life in Rome, where, for close on two generations, she held society by the austere truth of her portraiture. Ladies of high rank vied with one another to become her sitters, and a long red line of cardinals sat to her. Pope Paul the Fifth was among Lavinia's models; very high prices were paid readily for her work, and not a few noblemen wished to marry her; but the artist remained true to the young Count of Imola, Giovanni Paolo Zappi, a good, kind, simple-hearted fellow, an aristocratic Barnaby Rudge. Him she married, and it was her ill-hap to see his simplicity repeat itself in one of their two sons, a lad who kept the Pope's antechamber merry.
My artist's style, though modelled to some extent on that of the Carracci, has a distinction of its own. Even the arid Kügler gives Lavinia his rare good word, reckoning her a better artist than her father, and adding: "Her work is clever and bold, and in portraiture, especially, she has left good things."
Does Elisabetta Sirani take precedence of Lady Waterford? Perhaps they may be regarded as two equal queens in the world of woman's art, each with a beautiful artistic intellect. Even at the age of nineteen, as old Bartsch admits, Elisabetta etched exquisite plates; and, before she was twenty-three, her paintings were sought after by all the patron-critics of her country. Yet her male rivals hinted that she was dishonest, that she did not paint her own pictures, but had "ghosts" to win fame and fortune for her—especially her father, a poor "ghost," afflicted with inherited gout. Elisabetta happily soon turned the sneer against her rivals. This she did by working before an audience of distinguished persons, like Cosimo, Crown Prince of Tuscany, who on May 13th, 1664, stood by whilst she painted a likeness of his uncle, the Prince Leopold.
Malvasia gives in his spirited monograph a list of 150 pictures by Elisabetta Sirani; and Lanzi deemed it marvellous that one who died so young should yet have brought to completion so many hopeful efforts of real genius. The brilliant girl painted with great rapidity. One of her finest achievements—the "Baptism of Christ"—is a very large picture, and the story of its conception is noteworthy. Elisabetta was little more than twenty at the time, and the clergy who had been sent to order the work for the Church of the Certosini at Bologna, looked on whilst she, radiant with inspiration, made her first impulsive sketch in pen-and-ink. The beholders were enchanted, and the huge picture, differing little in essentials from the sketch, was painted almost as rapidly as Dumas repeopled the distant past. In brief, Elisabetta Sirani, like all women of genius, worked under an intuitive rather than technical guidance; and in her art, consequently, as in Lady Waterford's, we find those blemishes and beauties which belong to a native habit of spontaneous workmanship.
As to her private life, it is full of heroic virtues. The noble girl kept the whole family: her mother, who was stricken with paralysis; her father, who suffered intolerably from the gout; and her two sisters, whom she educated with a large class of girl art-students. Then Cupid came, saw, and was overcome, and Elisabetta, by way of celebrating this unkind victory, painted the little god in the act of crowning his victor. But the pity of it all was this: the girl had so many taut strings to her bow that the frail bow could not but break. Elisabetta's health gave way, a painful disease of the stomach assailed her; and yet to the last day but one of her short life—i.e., August 27th, 1665—she remained true to her colours, and was one of art's truest soldiers. "The best way not to feel pain is not to think of it," said she, and then went slowly back to her studio.
The present book contains adequate examples of the work of Elisabetta Sirani, of Lavinia Fontana Zappi, of Artemisia Gentileschi, of Sophonisba Anguisciola, of Rosalba Carriera; and there is a good drawing by Diana Ghisi, the painter-engraver, an excellent copy by Maria Tibaldi Subleyras, and two characteristic pictures by Agnese Dolci, sister of Carlo Dolci and his equal in talent. These painters and the early nuns, Caterina Vigri and the three sisters of Santa Marta, Siena, are enough to represent the old Italian schools; while three characteristic pictures by Elisa Koch, Juana Romani, and Rosina Gutti, unite the present with the far-distant past, a past separated from the present day by four hundred and fifty years.
WALTER SHAW SPARROW.
Bolognese School, XVII Century
"MARY MAGDALENE."
AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE PITTI GALLERY FLORENCE.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDERSON, ROME
Artemisia Lomi, called Artemisia Gentileschi, Painter
1590-1642
Bolognese School, XV Century
SAINT URSULA AND HER MAIDENS.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS, VENICE
Santa Caterina Vigri di Bologna, Painter
1413-1463
Sienese SchooL, XVI Century
ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE AT SIENA IN THE PROVINCIAL INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS
Sister A., Convent of Santa Marta, Siena, Painter
THE HOLY FAMILY WITH JOHN THE BAPTIST.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE AT SIENA IN THE PROVINCIAL INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS
Sister B., Convent of Santa Marta, Siena, Painter
About 1500
Sienese SchooL, XVI Century
THE ADORATION OF THE SHEPHERDS.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE AT SIENA IN THE PROVINCIAL INSTITUTE OF FINE ARTS
Sister Barbara Ragnoni, Painter
About 1500
MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST CATHARINE AND OTHER SAINTS.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PICTURE AT SIENA IN THE PROVINCIAL INSTITUTE
Sister A., Convent of Santa Marta, Siena, Painter About 1500
School of Cremona, XVI Century
PORTRAIT (PAINTED BY HERSELF) OF SOPHONISBA ANGUISCIOLA OR ANGUSSOLA,
FAR-FAMED IN HER TIME AS ONE OF THE LEADING ITALIAN ARTISTS;
SHE DID MUCH WORK FOR PHILIP II. OF SPAIN.
WHEN SHE WAS VERY OLD AND BLIND, VAN DYCK MET HER AT GENOA,
AND SAID THAT HE HAD LEARNT MORE FROM HER TALK THAN FROM HIS OTHER TEACHERS.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDERSON, ROME,
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING AT MILAN IN THE POLDI-PEZZOLI COLLECTION
Sophonisba Auguisciola or Angussola, Painter
1533(?)-1626
Venetian School, XVIII Century
CHARITY AND JUSTICE.
AFTER THE PASTEL IN THE ROYAL GALLERY DRESDEN.
FROM A CARBON PRINT BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
Italian School XVI Century
MARRIAGE OF ST. CATHARINE,
AFTER AN ETCHING BY N. MUXEL
Lavinia Fontana Zappi, Painter
1552-1614(?)
PORTRAIT OF A LADY.
AFTER AN ETCHING BY N. MUXEL
Sophonisba Anguisciola, Painter
1533-(?)1626
A VICTOR IN HIS TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT.
AFTER THE DRAWING IN THE PRINT ROOM OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM,
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY W. E. GRAY
Diana Ghisi, called Mantuana, Painter-Engraver
1530-1590
Bolognese School, XVI Century
PORTRAIT (EXECUTED BY HERSELF) OF LAVINIA FONTANA ZAPPI,
PAINTER IN ORDINARY TO POPE GREGORY XIII.
FROM A CARBON PRINT BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS,
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE
Lavinia Fontana Zappi, Painter
1552-1614(?)
Bolognese School, XVI Century
JESUS CHRIST TALKING WITH THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM, NAPLES.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI
Lavinia Fontana Zappi, Painter
1552-1614(?)
MARY AND THE CHILD JESUS IN THE ACT OF CROWNING A SAINT.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE LOUVRE, PARIS,
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MESSRS. W. A. MANSELL & CO.
Barbara Longhi, Painter
End of 16th Century
Bolognese School, XVII Century
PORTRAIT: (EXECUTED BY HERSELF) OF ARTEMISIA GENTILESCHI,
WHO LIVED FOR A TIME IN ENGLAND AND WORKED FOR CHARLES THE FIRST.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN EARL SPENCER'S COLLECTION
Artemisia Lomi, called Artemisia Gentileschi, Painter
1590-1642
Bolognese School, XVII Century
"THE DREAM OF SAINT ANTHONY OF PADUA."
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDERSON, ROME,
AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE PINACOTECA IN BOLOGNA
Elisabetta Sirani, Painter
1638-1665
Bolognese School, XVII Century
JUDITH AND HER MAID WITH THE HEAD OF HOLOFERNES.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE PITTI GALLERY, FLORENCE
Artemisia Lomi, called Artemisia Gentileschi, Painter
1590-1642
Bolognese School, XVII Century
THE MADONNA WEEPING.
FROM AN ORIGINAL ETCHING DATED 1657 IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Elisabetta Sirani, Painter-Etcher
1638-1665
THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.
FROM THE ORIGINAL ETCHING IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM
Elisabetta Sirani, Painter-Etcher
1638-1665
Florentine School, XVII Century
MARY AND THE CHILD JESUS.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN, CLEMENT & CO., PARIS,
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE BESANCON MUSEUM
Agnese Dolci Painter
Died about 1686
"JESUS TOOK BREAD AND BLESSED IT..."
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS,
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING IN THE LOUVRE
Agnese Dolci Painter
Died about 1686
Venetian School, XVIII Century
PORTRAIT STUDY OF A LADY WITH HER PET MONKEY.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LÉVY &SONS
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PASTEL IN THE LOUVRE, PARIS
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
PORTRAIT STUDY OF CARDINAL DE POLIGNAC.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDERSON
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PASTEL IN VENICE
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
Italian School, about 1889
THE LITTLE SISTER.
REPRODUCED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH
BY PERMISSION OF BRAUN, CLEMENT & CO., PARIS
Signorina Elisa Koch Painter
Venetian School, XVIII Century
PORTRAIT STUDY OF A GIRL.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY LÉVY & SONS, PARIS,
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PASTEL IN THE LOUVRE
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
PORTRAIT OF ROSALBA CARRIERA,
THE MOST FAMOUS PASTELLIST OF HER TIME.
FROM ANDERSON'S PHOTOGRAPH OF THE ORIGINAL PASTEL IN ROME
Rosalba Carriera, Pastellist
1675-1757
Roman School, XVIII Century
MARY MAGDALENE AT THE FEET OF JESUS CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF SIMON THE PHARISEE.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ALINARI
AFTER THE PAINTING IN ROME IN THE GALLERIA CAPITOLINA.
IT IS A COPY AFTER A PICTURE BY THE ARTIST'S HUSBAND, PIERRE SUBLEYRAS,
A PICTURE NOW IN THE LOUVRE, PARIS.
MARIA TIBALDI SUBLEYRAS PRESENTED THIS COPY TO POPE BENEDICT XIV,
WHO SENT HER A THOUSAND SCUDI,
AND PLACED HER WORK IN HIS COLLECTION AT THE CAPITOL
Maria Tibaldi Subleyras, Painter
Born 1707
Italian School, Contemporary
THE PEACEMAKER.
REPRODUCED AFTER THE ORIGINAL DRAWING
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY THE AUTOTYPE CO.,
NEW OXFORD STREET, LONDON
Rosina Mantovani Gutti, Artist
Italian School, Contemporary
STUDY FROM A MODEL.
AFTER THE ORIGINAL PAINTING
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS
Juana Romani, Painter
School of English Water Colour, XIX. Century
"THE AKROPOLIS, ATHENS:
FROM THE BALCONY OF THE CROWN PRINCE'S HOUSE."
FROM THE WATER-COLOUR DRAWING IN THE COLLECTION OF JAMES ORROCK, ESQ., R.I.
H.I.M. The Empress Frederick of Germany, R.I.
1840-1901
Early British Women Painters
EVERYBODY knows that it has fallen to England's lot to gem the remote seas with shining repetitions of herself. But everybody does not remember that she has done this quite at haphazard, just as the winds carry seeds from a garden to a waste ground. In herself, with fitful moments of purposeful energy, England has been self-critical and self-distrustful, disinclined to value her own doings or to take precautions when in the midst of dangers. But for the individual enterprise of her children, which she has often disowned and punished, her colonies would have been the Isle of Man and the Isle of Wight. And it is singular to note also that the history of England's genius in art has followed the traditional character of her devious makeshifts in commerce and in war. Despite all inherent weaknesses, she has achieved at random a recognised greatness in art, and is so surprised at it that she hesitates always to encourage the gifts of her own craftsmen, preferring rather to have confidence in the work which she can buy from men of genius in other countries. From the time of Henry VIII. to the coming of the school of Reynolds, she allowed her own painters to starve in order that she might employ strangers; and to-day, as in the past, she butterflies from foreign school to foreign school and treats her own native arts to side-glances and half-friendly nods.
Now, as this has ever been England's disposition, it is not surprising to find that Englishwomen, as well as Englishmen, long hesitated to follow the arts professionally. At a time when Italy and France had scores of women painters, England had scarcely one. Perhaps the earliest of any note, if we except Susannah Penelope Gibson, a miniature painter, was Mrs. Mary Beale, daughter of a Suffolk clergyman named Cradock. She lived between the years 1632 and 1697. After modelling her style on that of Lely, she worked with great courage, showing much real talent, particularly in quiet portraiture. She painted broadly and well, drew with force and discrimination, and although she told the truth plainly at a time when other painters flattered and fawned, she yet achieved success, and was encouraged by the highest in the land, from King Charles the Second to Archbishop Tillotson. Time has robbed her colour of its first freshness, but the character remains, and the portraits on page [81] represent Mary Beale in a characteristic manner.
The next English women painters in order of merit were Lady Diana Beauclerk, an amateur with much untutored talent, and Catharine Read, a distinguished professional artist of the Reynolds period. That she was appreciated in her day is proved by the fact that her portraits were engraved, side by side with those of Reynolds and Gainsborough. To-day she is forgotten, and very little can be learnt about her life or about the present owners of her pictures. Catharine Read lived near St. James's and sent frequently to the exhibitions. In 1770 she went to the East Indies, but in a few years returned to London, where she died in or about the year 1786.
Angelica Kauffman, R.A., though born at Coire, the capital of the Grisons, belongs to the British school, and holds in the early history of that school a position similar to that which has been assigned in France to Madame Vigée Le Brun. The art of the two ladies differs widely to be sure, that of Angelica Kauffman having less mirth, less wit, less sprightliness and homeful sincerity; it is quite artificial in spirit, with a strong bias towards the sentimental; but it has for all that considerable charm and ability, qualities, let us remember, that won the admiration of Reynolds and of Goethe. Turner, also, possessed two of her drawings, as I am told by his descendant, Mr Charles Mallord W. Turner. But in recent times Angelica Kauffman has been remembered for the romance of her personal life and treated with cool contempt in all that appertains to her work. Critics have searched in her pictures for manly qualities, and finding there the temperament of a sentimental woman, their judgment has failed them. The very men who would be astonished beyond measure if a prima donna sang to them in a voice like the leading tenor's, do not hesitate to complain when the voice in a woman's painting is one filled with womanhood.
In England, at the close of the 18th century, quite a number of ladies came to the front in art, like Caroline Watson, the admirable stipple engraver (page [89]), or like Catherine Maria Fanshawe, a painter-etcher who could put a body into a peasant's smock and could show in a rustic figure the mingled influences of Morland and Gainsborough, while keeping a tender sympathy of her own (page [89]). Amelia Hotham, too, in the native art of water-colour, attained to a broad and vigorous style in landscape, while taking far too many hints from the scenic pomp that Francis Nicholson made popular in outdoor scenes (page [88]). Nevertheless, Amelia Hotham's work has interest in the history of British water-colour, like that of three other ladies who followed her, the Viscountess Templetown (page [94]), Matilda Heming and Mrs. John Herford, the grandmother of Mrs. Allingham. Matilda Heming's picture on page [95], "Backwater, Weymouth, Dorset," is weak in the drawing of the hills, but the rest of the design is quite admirable, the boats particularly being very well drawn. We see, then, that during the last decades of the 18th century, and at the beginning of the nineteenth, a little band of Englishwomen studied landscape painting seriously; and this fact is worth remembering, as women have seldom been drawn in art to nature in the woods and fields. The gentler sex, as a rule, has not appreciated landscapes.
On the other hand, they have shown in art a great love for the beauty of flowers, the colour and the forms of insects, and the "other-naturalness" of many kinds of animals. Maria Sibylla Merian, Rachel Ruysch, Rosa Bonheur, Fidelia Bridges, Mrs. Coleman Angell, Madame Ronner, Mlle. E. Hilda, Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch—these ladies will not be forgotten, let us hope, as long as there are students who take delight in plants, flowers, birds and animals.
Among the flower and fruit painters in England, during the 18th century and the first few decades of the nineteenth, conspicuous places must be assigned to Mary Moser, R.A., Mrs. Margaret Meen, and Anne Frances Byrne, illustrations of whose pictures will be found on page [94]; and the reader will do well to compare this early work with that of Mrs. Coleman Angell, the female counterpart of William Hunt (page [102]).
Whilst these flower-painters were busy, another small group of ladies won considerable popularity by their little figure-subjects, such as the Countess Spencer's drawing on page [90], or again, like the fanciful miniatures by Mrs. Mee or the sentimental portraits by Mrs. J. Robertson, types of which are given on page [93]. Miss Curran's portrait of Shelley is a valuable portrait-sketch historically (page [90]), and it has something of the charm that distinguishes the able portraits drawn to-day by the Marchioness of Granby.
What can be said about Mrs. Margaret Carpenter? Is she not to be placed among those quiet, unpretentious portrait-painters whose thoughts are so wrapped up in their determination to be true that they never think of striving after exhibition-room effects? Margaret Carpenter gives us the character of her sitters, and not technical displays of her own cleverness. Born at Salisbury, in 1793, the daughter of Captain Geddes, this able painter came to London in 1814, and married, in 1817, William Carpenter, who for many years was Keeper of the Print Room in the British Museum. She exhibited often at the Royal Academy until 1864, and made a great reputation by her portraits. She died in 1872, leaving a son, William Carpenter (1819-1899), to continue the art tradition which she had herself carried on in her family.
English School, XVIII Century
PORTRAIT OF THE LADY GEORGIANA SPENCER.
AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE COLLECTION OF EARL SPENCER.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL
Catharine Read, Painter
Died about 1786
Some may think that Margaret Carpenter began the modern history of women painters in England; others may grant that distinction to the intuitive and radiant work of Lady Waterford, that most gifted of all amateurs. It seems truer to say that Margaret Carpenter is best described as a connecting-link between the old and the new, and that Lady Waterford is not only so faithful to herself but so spontaneous, that her good gifts belong to no particular school or period. They certainly owed much to the colour of the Venetian School, far more to that old source of inspiration than to any influence of the 19th century. But the main characteristics of Lady Waterford's appeal come to us from the painter's own heart and beautiful æsthetic intellect. The ease with which she composed, and the charming animation of all her designs, these were natural qualities uninfluenced by any teaching; and they won the ardent admiration of the late Mr. G. F. Watts. It is the spirit alone of Lady Waterford's art that we should admire; we must not look closely at the drawing, for Lady Waterford neither tried nor wished to perfect her faulty technical equipment. Most of her art-work was done after a day spent in other charities. It was Lady Waterford's joy to dole out alms herself, and it never occurred to her that she might do such good actions by proxy, just as Queen Charlotte picked up five old books in the booths of Holywell Street. The truth is that Lady Waterford valued practicalness more than imagination, as do the great majority of women; she longed to see the good she did, and she could not realise to herself that art has a permanent ethical influence. Closing her eyes to this truth, Lady Waterford wrote as follows to one of her friends:—
"I could never attain to even one work that I see in my mind's eye, and if I could it would be less than those of the great men of old, whose greatest works have not quelled evil or taught good.... I could not live for art—it would not be what I am put in the world to do. I do not despise art, but I should feel that it was not given for that. Two homes have been given me, and it is to try to do what I can in them that they are given for brief life."
Is not that pathetic? Is it not the very music of a woman's rationalism? What has "quelled evil?" But if our hearts and minds rise to an entire sympathy with Lady Waterford's sketches, we shall certainly feel that a noble spirit in art does indeed "teach good," is a spiritual almsgiving for all time, a charity that goes on ministering, through long generations, to that which is best in human nature.
WALTER SHAW SPARROW.
DESIGN BY CHRISTINE ANGUS.
Modern British Women Painters
By Ralph Peacock
IT is the privilege of man, in his youth, to ignore his limitations. For this ignorance he pays in failure the price of a possible success. In his wiser middle age he does not repent, he finds that it is only by some sort of an attack on his limitations that apparent results are attained, and he learns to take on faith the difference there is in fact between the attainment and the attempt. The experience of a woman is, I take it, very similar. It follows in no way that, because her limitations are different from, and in a physical sense greater than, man's, the brutal laws which go to produce results are in her case different. She is marching along the same road, and though she may have other stopping places by the way and perhaps may take up more modest quarters in the end, it is a journey and an arrival, an effort and a result, and the things seen by the wayside become of significance to her as the painted banners under which she seeks her way.
Englishwomen do not seem to have done much in painting before the generation or two that are just past. Public opinion was against them. The early Victorian conditions under which a woman like Charlotte Brontë produced her great results in another art are more or less familiar to all, and in the matter of painting the voice of prejudice has had still more to say. By these days it has croaked itself into the feeble hoarseness of a respectable and decent old age, and we can already look back to a succession of women painters who seem to have been conscious at first of their leading-strings, but who have shown a development more than corresponding to that of the conditions under which they worked. Kate Greenaway, who died only a few years ago, was no doubt a good example of the charming results to be obtained in leading-strings. To compare her with an artist who works in a similar field to-day is to note an advance, not only of a generation, but of the changing educational conditions within the generation. It is a far cry from Kate Greenaway to Miss Alice Woodward, for instance, and it is difficult to imagine that another age will say anything more, or less, of Miss Woodward than that she was a most distinguished artist. The leading-strings are gone.
It will always be a special field for women, the production of work in the first place for children, and it is unnecessary to spend time in emphasising or over-emphasising its importance. Art itself reckons little with motives and much with results. In a more general view it would, perhaps, be better to start this small article with some notice of the women painters of the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. There is Mrs. Mary Beale, who was a child when Cromwell was Lord Protector, and who later on painted a most excellent portrait of Charles II. There is some work of hers in the National Portrait Gallery, London, work of the quiet, genuine kind, and better than most of the painting that came for some time afterwards. Then there is Angelica Kauffman, R.A., who provides us with perhaps the only well-known name of the early periods, and there are some portrait-painters of interest, like Miss Catharine Read, of Reynolds' time, or like Mrs. Anne Mee, of the early part of last century. But it must be confessed that it would be a sorry list for a couple of centuries if it were a fact that women had had the same opportunities and no greater disabilities than the men of the period. It is not indeed until we reach such painters as Margaret Carpenter, the portrait painter, Mrs. Matilda Heming, the landscapist, and Lady Waterford, that more than charming amateur who might have done so much, that we begin to feel we have a reasonable genesis of the worker of to-day. These painters show to us now rather the influences of their time or the limitations of their opportunities, than personalities which are outside such considerations, but they nevertheless provide us with evidence of a very genuine and lively activity.
British School, XVIII Century
THE SIBYL.
AFTER THE PICTURE IN THE ROYAL GALLERY, DRESDEN.
FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY BRAUN, CLÉMENT & CO., PARIS
Maria Angelica Kauffman, R.A., Painter
1741-1807
The work of Mrs. Heming is interesting in a rather more special way. It is distinctly rare to find the ordinary landscapist of her time working with an eye to truth rather than to the making of a so-called composition of the period, rare enough in fact to place her quite above the ordinary.
It is at first sight a curious thing that more women painters have not even in these days been attracted by pure landscape. It is strange in the sense that they have among them such painters as Lady Butler and Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch. But no branch of art is more that of the specialists than landscape. It developed later in history than any other, and it calls to those who would tire of the didactic in human thought and who might find in the study of any obviously human affair something to remind them of a phase of experience they would, in paint, avoid. No doubt the Empress Frederick turned to landscape as an occupation of relief from the pressing human affairs in which her life was involved, and it is just in such a way that the natural landscapist turns from the human side of life to the more abstract emotions he finds in the garden of the Great Spirit.
Women, I believe, are more held by the personal than the abstract. Mrs. Allingham may be one of the exceptions. In any case Mrs. Allingham claims quite a special place for herself in any sketch-survey of the work of English women painters. Few women have shown a more definitely English sympathy in landscape than she has. Her method is simple, obvious and plain for all to see. For that reason it would fail to appeal in any way to the Eclectics, or to those among them, at any rate, who, in the words of a subtle Eclectic, confound the natural with the commonplace. A distinctly home-bred feeling, such as Mrs. Allingham has among women, or, in the grand manner, Fred Walker among men, is however a very rare thing and is becoming rarer. How far it may, in individual cases, change to other things may be seen in some of the more modern painters, in the remarkably strong work of Miss Margaret Cameron, Miss Biddie Macdonald, Miss Alice Fanner, and Miss Beatrice How. This latter painter has not merely been affected in matters of technique, but gives us, most delightfully, the very sentiment of the country people she paints. It is quite a little miracle of transplanted adaptability.
It has been said that every good woman has in her marching outfit a supply of adaptability which, in sum total, accounts for most of the happiness enjoyed by the human race at large. If so, it may be added that in its superior manifestations the affair is sub-conscious, artistic, most natural and not at all one of the commonplaces of life. It perhaps explains, or rather is illustrated by, the number of painters in the very first rank among women who have shown in their work the influence of some near relative. In any case, Lady Alma-Tadema for one has produced work so extraordinarily good in itself that it is easy to believe the similarity of her technique to that of Sir Laurence Alma-Tadema to be merely one of the happy chances of her life. A very similar thought arises in connection with the work of the late Miss Margaret Dicksee. It is easy to influence technique, but first causes are not set in action by human hands. If one who did not know her may say so, there is written on the canvases that Miss Dicksee has left behind the evidence of a most lovable nature.
Mrs. Stanhope Forbes, Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch and Lady Granby are isolated examples whose work has no connection in itself and shows very little affinity, beneath the surface, with the special influences of their time. The strong brushwork of Mrs. Stanhope Forbes, it is true, may be said to have arrived by way of Newlyn, but the fanciful sentiment underlying her work has an arrival quite of its own. Miss Lucy Kemp-Welch has made, and deserved, a place for herself the last few years, and she stands alone among women as an animal painter of power. Lady Granby, who is an amateur, is also an artist. Magna est ars et prevalet. Ave!
Miss Mary Gow, the late Alice Havers, Miss Jessie Macgregor, Miss Anna Alma-Tadema, Miss Lily Blatherwick, Miss Amy Sawyer, and Louisa Starr (Madame Canziana) also make a special appeal, each in her own way.
Mrs. Swynnerton is a lady who has given us a great deal of work of a very high order indeed. In the first place she has always something to say that is worth saying. Her work is exuberant with the joy of life, the joy of colour. Her very brush is surcharged with a high and lavish spirit. Blue eyes look out, so blue, from happy sunburnt faces, so sunburnt, that take their places on her canvases as in a drama to tell us something of her thoughts and of themselves. Mrs. Swynnerton, plus her faults, is genuine through and through. The work of another painter, Mrs. De Morgan, naturally comes into consideration when we turn to symbolism. More tenaciously in earnest and more austere in every way than Mrs. Swynnerton, her work is as the poles apart. The one romps, if the term be allowed, in a flower-spangled meadow, the other's province is the study; and, as is the way with students, her mind is often on the thought of the past rather than with affairs of the present. Before one of Mrs. De Morgan's pictures one thinks through, by way of Burne-Jones, to Botticelli and the great ancestors of art, and it is saying a very great deal for Mrs. De Morgan that in such case one can bless the passive hand that gives and the hand that receives.
Her work may very well lead us to a small band of artists, not definitely connected in themselves, but allied with each other in the sense that they work for somewhat similar ends: Mrs. Marianne Stokes, Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale and Mrs. Young Hunter. To these, perhaps, may one day be added a name very little known at present, Miss Milicent E. Gray. It is not unusual in speaking of the work of either of these first three artists, and more especially of Miss Eleanor Brickdale, to refer to the pre-Raphaelite influence in art. It is, however, extremely probable that the influence takes direct effect in these days more as a method than as a conviction. The great conviction itself has leavened Art, and the individualities of these painters are so strong that it becomes in their case a nearer interest to ignore all potters and regard the clay. Mrs. Young Hunter has a quaint flitting fancy that wanders over hill and dale and seizes from life subtle little touches that are full of the elusiveness of tales told after school hours.
Mrs. Marianne Stokes is made of sterner stuff. She has worked of late in that most stern and stubborn medium, tempera, and small things of hers in various exhibitions attract one always with the desire to know more of her most attractive work. Miss Eleanor Brickdale works, or plays, always with an idea. And the idea she is not satisfied to leave until it has taken on for other eyes a most cunning and beautiful bodily shape, in line, in form, in colour—above all in line. She is probably, without knowing it, as good an antithesis as may be found of the Impressionist, so-called. The Impressionist is the incarnation of the abstract in terms of paint, the Symbolist uses the material to convey definite abstractions in thought. It is, by contrast with music, the motive of symphony as compared to the motive of Oratorio or opera, and the apposite methods may be equally well, or badly, used or abused. Abuse may lead the militant Impressionist to an impasse of assertive agnosticism as pedantic in its way as the lucubrations of the most literary pedant in paint. On the other side of the lantern you may have Watts, and the painted canvases of a Whistler. So be it.
Art is a long lane with many turnings, and down each there may be found a little house with a fireside and human hearts thereby.
RALPH PEACOCK.
SILHOUETTE BY NELLY BODENHEIM
School of British Water-Colour, 1900.
YOUTH AND THE LADY.
REPRODUCED FROM THE ORIGINAL WATER-COLOUR,
BY KIND PERMISSION OF CHARLES DOWDESWELL, ESQ.,
THE OWNER OF THE PICTURE AND ITS COPYRIGHT.
Miss Eleanor Fortescue Brickdale, Painter