^ $525.- V ^ T R /S. / / \ * t {/<•/dti '/’rlk- Printed lor Hob'.Saryer.N?^ in Fleet Street ■ ENGLISH 'EMALE ART < rn us. Ei.LSK C. G) aYXO v A' £HOR Of •' QUi'JBKir OF 80N0 ' !,'TO. • • • VOL f. LONDON; ! OTHERS, S CATHERINE ST.. SXRAN I) 187C. (A'ii *1 ijkti r ;,d) * ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS. lBY ELLEN C. CLAYTON, AUTHOR OF “QUEENS OF SONG,” ETC. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I. I- LONDON: TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8 CATHERINE ST., STRAND. 1876. (All rights reserved.) TO (gHsabftlt Sltompisian THIS BOOK, A ROLL CALL OF HONOURABLE NAMES, is BY PERMISSION INSCRIBED, IN TESTIMONY OF ADMIRATION FOR HER GENIUS. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Susannah Hornebolt. Lavinia Teerlinck ... ... ... 1 CHAPTER II. Anne Carlisle. Artemisia Gentileschi. The Sisters Cleyn 14 CHAPTER III. Anna Maria Carew. Elizabeth Neale. Mary More. Mrs. Boardman. Elizabeth Creed ... ... ... ... 35 CHAPTER IY. Mary Beale ... ... ... ... ... ... 40 CHAPTER Y. Susan Penelope Rose ... ... ... ... ... 54 CHAPTER VI. Anne Killigrew ... ... ... ... ... ... 59 CHAPTER VII. Maria Varelst ... ... ... ... ... ... 71 VI CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. PAGE Anne, Princess of Orange. Princess Caroline. Agatha Van- dermijn. Sarah Hoadley 78 CHAPTER IX. Elizabeth Blackwell 91 CHAPTER X. Mary Delany 96 CHAPTER XL Frances Reynolds 146 CHAPTER XII. Maria Anna Angelica Catherine Kauffman 233 CHAPTER XIII. Mary Moser 295 CHAPTER XIV. Maria Cecilia Louisa Cosway 314 CHAPTER XV. Amateurs: Temp. George the Third 336 CHAPTER XVI. The Close of the Eighteenth Century 359 CHAPTER XVII. The Earlier Years of the Nineteenth Century ... 379 CHAPTER XVIII. Mary Harrison. Anna Maria Charretie. Adelaide A. Maguire 410 LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL AUTHORITIES CONSULTED FOR THE FIRST VOLUME. Annual Registek. Abt Joubnal. Athene um. Geo. Ballaed.—Memoirs of several Learned Ladies of Great Britain. Peteb Bayle.—Historical and Critical Dictionary. J. Boswell.—Life of Samuel Johnson. Various Editions. Beitish Plutabch. Henby Bbomley.—Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits. Michael Beyan.—Dictionary of Painters. Feances Bueney.—Diary and Letters. Catalogues.— Various. Alexandee and Thomas Chalmees.—General Biographical Dictionary. Robeet Chambees.—Biographical Dictionary. Allan Cunningham.—Lives of the most Eminent British Painters. James Dallaway.—Anecdotes of the Arts in England. Geoege Dawe.—Life of G. Morland. Edwabd Edwaeds.—The Fine Arts in England. Mes. Ellet.—Women Artists in all Ages and Countries. James Elmes.—The Arts and Artists. John Evelyn.—Diary and Correspondence. Fbedk. Wm. Faieholt.—Homes, Works, and Shrines of English Artists. Joseph Faeington.—Memoirs of the Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Vlll AUTHORITIES FOR VOL. I. John Forster. —Life and Times of Oliver Goldsmith. A. Gilchrist.—Life of William Blake. John Gorton.—A General Biographical Dictionary. Mrs. Matthew Hall.—Royal Princesses of England. Haydn.—Universal Index of Biography. Wm. Hazlitt.—Criticisms on the Arts; Essays on the Fine Arts. Mrs. Jameson.—Visits and Sketches at Home and Abroad ; Companion to the most celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London; Com¬ panion to the Public Galleries. G. Keate.—Epistle to Angelica Kauffman. J. Knowles.—Life and Writings of J. H. Fuessli. Chas. Leslie and Tom Taylor.—Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Lady Llanover.—Life and Letters of Mary Granville (Mrs. Delany). Edmund Malone.—Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. James North cote.—Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds. Henry Ottley.—Biographical and Critical Dictionary of Painters. Samuel Pepys.—Diary. Matthew Pilkington.—General Dictionary of Painters. Richard and Samuel Redgrave.—A Century of Painters of the Eng¬ lish School. Samuel Redgrave.—A Dictionary of Painters of the English School. Miss Reynolds.—Recollections (at the end of Croker’s Boswell). W. Roberts.—Memoirs of the Life of Mrs. Hannah More. Giovanni G. de Rossi.—Vita di A. Kauffman. William Sandby.—History of the Royal Academy. William Smith.—Life and Times of Nollekens. Mrs. Thrale.—Autobiography, Letters, etc.; Anecdotes of S. Johnson. John Timbs.—English Eccentrics and Eccentricities. Walter Thornbury.—Haunted London ; British Artists. Dr. Waagen.—Treasures of Art in Great Britain. H. Walpole.—Anecdotes of Painting in England; Journal of the Reign of King George the Third; Private Correspondence. Ralph N. Wornum.—Life of Holbein ; Epochs of Painting. ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS. CHAPTER I. iCtoviuia frmUuck. | R T I S T S, especially English artists, and above all, English Female Artists, as a rule lead quiet, uneventful lives, far more so than authors. In the majority of instances, their daily existence flows tranquilly on within the limited precincts of the studio, only casually troubled by anxious meditations respecting the fate of those minor works irreverently designated by a distressingly vulgar nickname, or by the unkind slights of a hanging committee. Eminently respectable, they affect little display ; they leave surprisingly few honmots or per- VOL. i. B 2 ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS. sonal anecdoteana for the benefit of future biographers. Even the old' rollicking days of the traditional art student are extinct as the age of Bob Sawyer and Jack Johnson; no more do wild legends of eccentric pranks, queer idiosyncracies, a thousand and one whims and oddities, linger about the schools, the public galleries, or private studios. Our native paintresses, as the old-fashioned art critics and compilers of biographical dictionaries quaintly term them, have left but faintly impressed footprints on the sands of time. They do not glitter in the splendour of renown, like their sisters of the pen or of the buskin. It is a difficult task to obtain a sparse list of their original works, or glean any scattered remarks on their most valued copies of great masters. Even the most romantic or admired of these fair dreamers on canvas or ivory have scarce an inci¬ dent beyond the commonplace in the brief record of their public or private career. The attempt to trace out the early history of art in England, if a curious, is yet a thankless task. In point of fact, before the days of Henry the Eighth, no school of art existed in this country. Some beautiful pictorial work was created, but only by isolated effort. There was little demand for it, except in one direction —that of illumination, as applied to books. An artist occupied an odd position: a jack-of-all-trades, some¬ times only a degree or two above the household EARLY ENGLISH ART. 8 menials—at once architect, sculptor, carpenter, gold¬ smith, armourer, jeweller, saddler, tailor, and painter. The perpetual unrest, the constant clash and clang of arms, afforded scant leisure for the cultivation of, perhaps, the most exquisitely refined human pursuit. Now and again, an Edward or a Henry would found a cathedral, and enrich it with statuary, frescoes, grandly painted or stained glass windows, all chiefly designed by foreign ecclesiastics, and executed by native subor¬ dinates. The turbulent knights required sometimes devices more or less elaborate on their shields, or symbolic emblazoned pictures on their banners. The wealthy nobles occasionally gave orders for painted walls, ceilings, or wainscots, in their gloomy halls and castles, or rich enamelling on gold and silver cups and beakers. The most arduous research throws only a fitful ray of light on the history of English art as it existed in the Middle Ages: the waifs and strays of an artist’s name, a dry date, the moneys paid for so many weeks’ labour in painting, are all that reward the diligent explorer. The illuminators of missals, Gospels, books of anthems, psalters, romances, and legends of chivalry, were the only artists really valued. They were principally monks and friars, with their clerks, some¬ times toiling alone, but more frequently in companies, in the scriptorium, a species of large work-room attached to every monastery of importance. 4 ENGLISH FEMALE ARTISTS. During these epochs, we range the fields of art history in vain for the most fleeting record of a female artist, or even illuminator. The reason for this is clear. In those rude, rough ages, females could not work beyond the boundary of their own homes, or the walls of their convent. The more needy class were not sufficiently educated to be capable of any descrip¬ tion of art workmanship. Possibly they might assist male relatives ; most certainly they could not, unaided, produce original works. Princesses, and ladies of gentle birth, were marvellously skilled with their needles, but obviously were never by any chance trained in the use of the pencil. Not one solitary instance exists before the sixteenth century of an Englishwoman who attempted any pictorial work except tapestry. It seems strange for a moment that it should have been the hand of Henry the Eighth, of all others, which should at once bar the way, and yet, as it were, loose the prison doors of art within his realm. On the one side, he patronized right royally native and foreign talent: on the other, he sent forth a little locust-like army of iconoclasts, to sweep from off the face of the earth the rich harvest of work left by the loving labours of five or six centuries. He scattered the most alluring invitations broadcast among Italian or German masters, and was the first who adorned the royal palaces with pictures upon classical subjects, while despatching emissaries all over his EARLY ENGLISH ART. 5 kingdom charged strictly to burn or sell as waste- paper all those “superstitious books” now, in this fastidious nineteenth century, so highly prized, re¬ garded as no longer to be equalled for quaintness of design or beauty of finish. Magnificent in his tastes, revelling in luxury and superficial refinement, keenly appreciative of all that was graceful and splendid, eagerly ambitious of emulating his superb rivals, Francis the First and Charles the Fifth, his Majesty yet set his face like a flint against the stately, solemn Gothic piles, sculptured and painted “ images,” storied windows, priceless altar pieces; and by his mandate all such were torn down, burnt, or broken.