Women artists in all ages and countries

From Germany we now turn to the northern countries, to the Netherlands, and England, to glance at their female artists of the eighteenth century.

Few are found among the Scandinavian nations. Female talent had greatly aided to bring about the rise of literature in Sweden, as in the instance of Charlotte Nordenflycht and Ulrica Widström by their lyric poems, and Maria Lenngren by her dramatic productions; but only one artist of merit appears—the painter Ulrica Frederika Pasch, who, in 1773, was elected a member of the Academy at Stockholm.

In Denmark, where many women cultivated the muses, gaining celebrity for lyric and dramatic productions, a flower-painter, C. M. Ryding, and an engraver on copper, Alexia de Lodde, may be mentioned, as well as Margaretta Ziesenis, who devoted herself to painting portraits and historical pieces, and was somewhat famous for her copies in miniature, such as that of Correggio’s Zingarella.

A much richer harvest opens in the Netherlands, in which the number of women pursuing art as a profession was not less than it had been in the preceding century. Among the Belgians the name of the sculptress Anna Maria von Reyschoot of Ghent must not be omitted.

MARIA VERELST.

Maria Verelst was born in 1680, at Antwerp. She was the daughter of the painter Herman Verelst, and belonged to a family abounding in celebrated artists. She received instruction from her uncle, Simon Verelst, and was highly esteemed, not only for her very uncommon skill in small portraits, while she attempted historical pieces successfully, but also for her attainments in the languages and music. She went with her father to London, then, as before and afterward, the rendezvous of foreign talent, and died there in 1744.

Descampes mentions a curious anecdote of her proficiency in the languages. During her residence in London, one evening at the theatre, she chanced to sit near six German gentlemen of high rank. They were struck with her beauty and distinguished air, and expressed their admiration in conversation with each other, in the most high-flown terms which the German language could supply. The lady turned and addressed them in the same tongue, observing that such extravagant praise in the presence of a lady conveyed to her no real compliment. One of them soon after repeated his encomium in Latin. She again turned, and, replying in the same language, said, “It was unjust to deprive the fair sex of that classic tongue, the vehicle of so much true learning and taste.”

With increased admiration the strangers begged permission to pay their respects in person to a lady so singularly endowed. Maria answered that she was a painter by profession, and lived with her uncle, Verelst the flower-painter. They did not lose time in availing themselves of the opportunity of seeing the fair artist and her works. Each of the gentlemen sat for his portrait, for which he gave liberal compensation. The story spread abroad, and proved an introduction for Maria into the best society.

Walpole remarks of this artist that she painted in oil both large and small portraits, and drew small history-pieces. She spoke Latin, German, Italian, and other languages fluently.

In Protestant Holland women artists are found in still greater numbers. Here the same favorable circumstances which had in former ages brought art to early bloom existed with little change. As women assumed an influential position in literature, so they did in the pictorial arts.

The religious spirit that animated many breathed in the hymns and odes of Petronella Mocas, and in the didactic poetry of Lucretia van Merken; Elizabeth Wolff made herself known by her poetical epistles; and the national drama, the fair fruit of the seventeenth century, had a votary in the Baroness von Launoy, who made translations from Tyrtæus. In like manner did women show their enterprise in the branches of study which belong to our subject.

HENRIETTA WOLTERS.

Henrietta Wolters of Amsterdam gained no inconsiderable fame as a miniature-painter. She was the pupil of her father, Theodore van Pee, and was early accustomed to copy from Van der Velde and Vandyck. The miniature portraits afterward painted by her were so perfect in finish and execution, that the Czar Peter the Great, who seems to have become acquainted with her during his journey incognito through Holland, offered her a salary of six thousand florins as court-painter if she would remove to his capital. She received as much as four hundred florins for a single picture. She declined the imperial invitation, and remained in her home, where, having lived with her husband, the painter Wolters, since 1719, she died in 1741.

Passing over several of little note as artists, though among them are numbered the Princess Anna of Orange and Cornelia de Ryk, we may pause to mention Christina Chalon, who was born in Amsterdam in 1749, and received her education with another artist, Sarah Troost. She painted chiefly in gouache scenes from country life and family groups, and is said to have learned the engraver’s art so young that she engraved a picture when only nine years old. She died at Leyden in 1808.

Caroline Scheffer belongs to the close of this century. She was the daughter and pupil of a painter, Ary Lamme, and married another, J. B. Scheffer of Mannheim, with whom she lived long in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. After her husband’s death, in 1809, she went to Paris with her two sons, Ary and Henry, to give them the advantage of the best instruction in painting. They did credit to the care of this good and affectionate mother in the fame they acquired, and returned her devotion with due tenderness and filial love. She died at Paris in 1839.

To these names should be added those of several women who devoted themselves especially to landscape and flower painting—two branches in which Holland could boast artists of skill and renown. Among these are Elizabeth Ryberg, who lived in Rotterdam; Maria Jacoba Ommegank, and Alberta ten Oever of Gröningen, some of whose landscapes, in the manner of Ruysdael and Hobbema, were seen in the exhibition of 1818. Anna Moritz, Susanna Maria Nymegen, and Cornelia van der Myin, are named by Dr. Guhl.

Elizabeth Georgina van Hogenhuizen, a dilettante, born in Hague in 1776, became a disciple of Rachel Ruysch, and gave promise of attaining to a kindred celebrity, had not her life been cut short in the bloom of eighteen.

Among engravers on copper, who employed themselves with the pencil as well as the graver, may be mentioned Maria Elizabeth Simons; she engraved several pictures from Rubens and Van der Velde in the early part of the century.

In England, the political greatness of the nation and the appreciation of art among the nobility, more than any natural predisposition of the people, proved favorable to the progress of a cultivated taste, and rewarded talent from other countries. Corresponding to the improvement in the prospects of art, we find a number of women occupied diligently in its pursuit.

A writer in one of the British reviews observes: “The profession of the painter would seem, in many respects, peculiarly fitted for woman. It demands no sacrifice of maiden modesty nor of matronly reserve; it leads her into no scenes of noisy revelry or unseemly license; it does not force her to stand up to be stared at, commented on, clapped or hissed by a crowded and often unmannered audience, who forget the woman in the artist. It leaves her, during a great portion of her time at least, beneath the protecting shelter of her home, beside her own quiet fireside, in the midst of those who love her and whom she loves. But, on the other hand, to attain high eminence, it demands the entire devotion of a life; it entails a toil and study, severe, continuous, and unbroken.” There is enough in this twofold truth to account both for the number of women artists and the failure of many to reach the distinction they aimed at.

The assiduous cultivation of literature among ladies of the higher class in the eighteenth century is sufficiently attested by productions that yet remain for popular admiration. The names of Joanna Baillie, Mrs. Montague, Clara Reeve, Fanny Burney, Harriet and Sophia Lee, Mrs. Cowley, etc., posterity will not willingly let die; and the improvement in general education owes much to the beneficial influence of women who labored for this end, and strove also to introduce into society a less frivolous tone of manners and a more pervading respect for morality and religion. Mrs. Trimmer, Hannah More, Mrs. Barbauld, are remembered with gratitude as having done their part in the good work; as also Elizabeth Smith, who added to her literary acquirements extraordinary talents and accomplishments both in music and painting.

It was after the introduction of a new manner by artists who had partaken of the inspiration of Carstens—such as Flaxman and Fuseli, near the close of the century—that the greater number of English female artists came into notice. It is necessary to mention only the most prominent. One third, at least, of the entire body in England were distinguished chiefly as amateurs, while in France the contrary was true, very few having been noted among the artists of this period.

First let us pay some attention to the sculptors. In the early part of the century Mrs. Samon modeled figures and historical groups in wax. It is said that the world-renowned Siddons was accustomed to amuse herself occasionally by attempts in sculpture. Lady E. Fitzgerald, Miss Ogle, Mrs. Wilmot, and Miss Andross, were also noted for their attempts in sculpture. But the place of pre-eminence, above all who had appeared down to the later years of the eighteenth century, belongs to Mrs. Damer.

ANNE SEYMOUR DAMER.

A rarer honor it is to a nation to be able to boast of a successful artist of aristocratic origin than of a celebrated statesman. The subject of this sketch was descended from families of the best blood of England. Born in 1748, she was the only child of Field Marshal Henry Seymour Conway (brother to the Marquis of Hertford) and Caroline Campbell, only daughter of John, the fourth Duke of Argyle, and widow of the Earl of Aylesbury and Elgin. “Her birth entitled her to a life of ease and luxury; her beauty exposed her to the assiduities of suitors and the temptations of courts, but it was her pleasure to forget all such advantages, and dedicate the golden hours of her youth to the task of raising a name by working in wet clay, plaster of Paris, stubborn marble, and still more intractable bronze.”[2]

The foundation of a pure and correct taste was laid in her superior education. She devoted herself early to study, and acquired a knowledge of general literature rare among women; became well acquainted with the history and arts of the nations of antiquity, and with the standard authors of England, France, and Italy. Her cousin, Horace Walpole, was greatly pleased with her enthusiasm, and took delight in directing her studies.

She had long been accustomed to gaze with admiration on the few beautiful pieces of ancient sculpture which she had opportunity of seeing, and she felt in her own soul that inspiration which is almost always the prophecy of success. It is said the bent of her genius was discovered by an adventure with David Hume, the historian. When eighteen or twenty years old, Anne was walking with him one day. They were accosted by an Italian boy who offered for sale some plaster figures and vases. The historian examined his wares, and spent some minutes talking with the little fellow. Miss Conway afterward rallied Mr. Hume in company upon his taste for paltry plaster casts. He replied, with a touch of sarcasm, that the images she had viewed with such contempt had not been made without the aid of both science and genius, adding that a woman, even with all her attainments, could not produce such works. The young lady formed a determination from that moment to convince her monitor of his mistake.

She procured wax and modeling tools, worked in secret, and in a short time finished a head—some say a portrait of the philosopher, which she presented to him in no small triumph.

“This is very clever,” observed Hume. “It really deserves praise for a first attempt; but, remember, it is much easier to model in wax than to chisel a bust from marble.”

The persevering girl was resolved to compel the satirist to the admission that a woman could do more than he had supposed. Without any announcement of her design, she supplied herself with marble and all the necessary implements of labor. It was not long before she had copied out in marble, roughly perhaps, but faithfully, the head she had modeled in wax. She placed it before the historian, who was actually surprised into admiration, though he found something still to criticise in the want of fine workmanship and delicate finish. His fault-finding probably went far to stimulate her to new exertions. From this time the impulse of genius was strong within her, and she was firmly resolved even to seclude herself from the brilliant society by which she was surrounded for the purpose of devoting her life to the pursuit she found so congenial to her taste.

It could not long be concealed from the world of fashion that the admired Miss Conway had forsaken the mask and the dance, and was working, like any day-laborer, in wet clay; that she moved amid subdued lights; that her glossy hair was covered with a mob cap to keep out the white dust of the marble, while an unsightly apron preserved her silk gown and embroidered slippers; that her white and delicate fingers were often soiled with clay, or grasped the hammer and the chisel. The strange story ran like wild-fire among the circles of her acquaintance. Several titled ladies had wielded the pencil and the brush, but scarcely one could be remembered who had taken to sculpture. It may well be imagined that the spirited girl found pleasure in showing her independence, and that she was animated by a noble ambition to carve out for herself with the chisel a place among the honored among artists, worthy of a descendant of the Seymours and the Campbells. Works of genius seemed more than coronets to her; and noble actions, than Norman blood!

She now took lessons in modeling and the elemental part of sculpture, from Cerrachi—the same conspirator who was brought to the guillotine for plotting against Napoleon—while she perfected herself in the practical part of working in marble in the studio of the elder Bacon, and studied anatomy with Cruikshanks. She produced a number of ideal heads and busts, and some figures of animals, executed with skill; but her progress was slow, and she produced no work of note till seven years after her marriage.

At the age of nineteen she bestowed her hand upon the Hon. John Damer, the eldest son of Lord Milton, and the nephew of the Earl of Dorchester. This marriage proved a sad drawback to the improvement of our young artist. Damer—“heir in expectancy to thirty thousand a year—was at once eccentric and extravagant. Those were the days of silk, and lace, and embroidery, and he adorned his person with all that was costly, and loved to surprise his friends and vex his wife by appearing thrice a day in a new suit.” He furnished for Miss Burney, remarks Mrs. Lee, “in her celebrated novel of Cecilia, a character in real life—Harrington, the guardian of her heroine.” He became the prey of tailors and money-lenders in London; his extravagance daily increased, and he scattered a princely fortune in a few years. In nine years this unhappy union was terminated by the suicide of the husband, who shot himself with a pistol, in the Bedford Arms, Covent Garden, in August, 1776. His wardrobe, which was sold at auction, is said to have brought fifteen thousand pounds—perhaps half its cost.

The widow, left childless, availed herself of her recovered freedom to take journeys with the object of gaining new ideas in the art she loved. She traveled through France, Spain, and Italy, renewing her studies in sculpture. At this time it was the fashion for ladies to take a warm interest in politics. Mrs. Damer became an ardent partisan of the Whig cause, and active in helping to carry elections.

Mrs. Lee observes: “Gentlemen have no objection to ladies being politicians if they take the right side: to wit, that to which they themselves belong; and Mrs. Damer conscientiously adopted the opinions of the Whig party. At that time Great Britain was waging war with her American colonies. She took the part of the rebellious subjects, warmly espoused our cause, and bravely advanced her opinions.” She was a warm friend of Fox.

Walpole thus speaks of his cousin’s works, which soon acquired her fame as a sculptor: “Mrs. Damer’s busts from the life are not inferior to the antique. Her shock dog, large as life, and only not alive, has a looseness and softness in the curls that seemed impossible to terra-cotta; it rivals the marble one of Bernini in the royal collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of equal merit with their human figures—viz., the Barberini goat, the Tuscan boar, the Mattei eagle, the eagle at Strawberry Hill, and Mr. Jenning’s dog—the talent of Mrs. Damer must appear in the most distinguished light.” Cerrachi gave a whole figure of Anne as the Mùse of Sculpture, preserving the graceful lightness of her form and air.

The poet Darwin says:

“Long with soft touch shall Damer’s chisel charm;
With grace delight us, and with beauty warm.”

After 1780, she produced several fine specimens of sculpture, both in marble and terra-cotta. She made a group of sleeping dogs, in marble, for the Duke of Richmond, her brother-in-law, and another for Queen Charlotte. She presented a bust of herself, in 1778, to the Florentine Gallery, and executed several of her titled lady relatives, which were esteemed as works of great merit, and still adorn the galleries of noble connoisseurs. Two colossal heads of her workmanship, representing Thames and Isis, were designed for the keystones of the bridge at Henley.

Envy was busy, as it generally is, in disputing the claims of this noble lady to the entire authorship of her celebrated productions; but, though they exhibit a varied character, there was no proof that she availed herself of more assistance than is usual for all sculptors, both in modeling and marble-work. Subordinate hands are always employed in preparing the model and removing the superfluous material.

Mrs. Damer complied with the fancy of the day in idealizing the portraits of some of her friends into muses and deities. To please her fast friend, Horace Walpole, she presented him with two kittens in marble, wrought by herself, as an addition to the curiosities of his villa. Still more endearing than their relationship was her agreement with him in political opinions.

She had lost her father at the time she went abroad in 1779. The seas were filled with the armed vessels of France, America, and Great Britain, and there was some danger in crossing the Channel. The sculptress was protected, it is true, by her sympathy with the Transatlantic “rebels” and by her character of artist. However, the vessel in which she sailed encountered a French man-of-war, with which a running fight was kept up for four hours. But “the heroic daughter of a hero” manifested both sense and coolness. The French prevailed; the packet struck its colors within sight of Ostend; but Mrs. Damer was not detained in captivity.

She now devoted herself more assiduously to the study of classic authors, with the view of entering more fully into the feeling and character of antique sculpture. She kept notes of her reflections as she contemplated the works of art in Italy, with the remarks of critics. She was bent on accomplishing some great work, the glory of which should eclipse the lustre of her hereditary dignity. She had more ambition to become distinguished as a sculptor than as the descendant of the high aristocracy of Britain.

Returning from Italy and Spain, she took part in the election that terminated in the triumph of Charles Fox. Mrs. Crewe and the lovely Duchess of Devonshire joined her in canvassing for their favorite, the Whig candidate, “rustling their silks in the lowest sinks of sin and misery, and, in return for the electors’ ‘most sweet voices,’ submitting, it is said, their own sweet cheeks to the salutes of butchers and barge-men.”

An old elector said to Cunningham: “It was a fine sight to see a grand lady come right smack up to us hard-working mortals, with a hand held out, and a ‘Master, how d’ ye do?’ and laugh so loud, and talk so kind, and shake us by the hand, and say, ‘Give us your vote, worthy sir—a plumper for the people’s friend, our friend, every body’s friend.’ And then, sir, if we hummed and hawed, they would ask us for our wives and children; and if that didn’t do, they’d think nothing of a kiss—ay, a dozen on ’em. Kissing was nothing to them, and it came all so natural.”

It is recorded, also, that Mrs. Damer was fond of private theatricals, and recited poetry and personated characters in plays performed at the Duke of Richmond’s and elsewhere. Her talents in high comedy won deserved applause, and many of our actresses would be eclipsed by her performance in the standard old pieces. But though she took part in such entertainments for the pleasure of others, her own delight was in sculpture alone. Her busts in bronze, marble, and terra-cotta became ornaments to the rich collections of her friends. Her statue of the king in marble was established in the Edinburgh Register Office. She consecrated a monumental bust to the memory of the countess her mother, whose pieces of needle-work had equaled the finest paintings. She formed a design to perpetuate the memory of a noble act by Lord William Campbell, her uncle, he having once leaped from a boat into the Thames, and dived down sixteen feet, to save the life of a drowning man. This work was never finished in marble.

Mrs. Damer’s heroes, out of her own family, were Fox, Nelson, and Napoleon; and she was acquainted with them all. She executed the busts of the first two, and it was one of her fancies to record in a small book the remarks of “the Napoleon of the waves” during his conversations with her. During her visit in France she formed a friendship for the Viscountess Beauharnais; and many years afterward a French gentleman brought her a letter from the wife of the First Consul, with a splendid present of porcelain. She was invited to Paris by her former friend, who desired to present her to Napoleon. The latter asked her for a bust of Fox, which Mrs. Damer brought to the emperor on a subsequent visit to Paris. The emperor presented her with a splendid snuff-box and his portrait set with diamonds.

Walpole died in 1797, bequeathing to this daughter of General Conway for her life, his Gothic villa of “Strawberry Hill,” with its rich and rare contents—books and artistic curiosities—and two thousand pounds a year to keep the place in repair. It has “become famous from its connection with the studies of the accomplished author of the Castle of Otranto.” Here Mrs. Damer was happy in entertaining her friends, not only with feasts of good things at her table, but with private theatrical performances, in which she often took part. Joanna Baillie, the matchless Siddons, Mrs. Garrick, Mrs. Berry and her daughters, were among her chosen companions. The classic villa, however, had been entailed upon Lord Waldegrave, and Mrs. Damer was induced to give it up to him ten years previous to her own death. She purchased York House in the neighborhood, the birth-place of Queen Anne. This was her summer residence, her winter house being in Park Lane.

As she approached the close of life, and saw the heroes of her early enthusiasm pass away, her love of sculpture increased. She thought the art might be made to render important aid in the civilization and religious improvement of Hindostan and the Indian isles, and often talked with Sir Alexander Johnston of substituting Christian subjects in sculpture for the idols of heathenism in those regions. She was, unfortunately, no longer young enough for such an enterprise; yet the idea was a noble one. She executed the bust of Nelson in marble for a present to the King of Tanjore—a Hindoo sovereign of power and influence in the south of Asia. That specimen of her skill may have tended to disseminate in that remote nation a desire for statuary by British artists.

A list of thirty of her works has been published. A beautiful bust of herself, executed by her in marble, was in the collection of Richard Payne Knight, and was bequeathed by him to the British Museum. Her group of “The Death of Cleopatra,” represented the closing scene of Shakspeare’s tragedy. The Queen of Egypt, having failed to excite the pity of Octavius Cæsar, and resolved to follow her departed love, has applied the “venomous worm of Nile” to her breast. The words

“Come, mortal wretch,
With thy sharp teeth this knot intrinsicate
Of life at once untie,”

are embodied in the expression.

This tasteful composition was modeled in basso-relievo, and was engraved by Hellyer as a vignette title to the second volume of Boydell’s Shakspeare.

Mrs. Damer’s health declined in the spring of 1828, and on the 28th of May she departed this life, in her eightieth year. She left to her relative Sir Alexander Johnston all her works in marble, bronze, and terra-cotta, and her mother’s needle pictures, with directions that her apron and tools should be buried in her coffin, and that her manuscript memoranda and correspondence should be destroyed. She was interred in the church of Tunbridge, Kent.

Whatever difference of opinion there may be respecting the genius and works of this sculptress, there can be none in pronouncing her an extraordinary woman. She would have been called “strong-minded” in our day, for she sent a friendly message to Napoleon on the eve of Waterloo, canvassed an election for Fox, and entertained Queen Caroline during her trial! In her estimation, genius and generous impulse were above the conventionalities of birth and fashion. It is difficult to estimate fairly the productions of a favored child of wealth and splendor, and one eminent for learning and wit. Her works have been severely criticised, and those who most admire her independent career, are disposed to deny her the possession of great originality and such a practical knowledge of art as would enable her to finish with a good degree of perfection. It has been remarked, however, that her conception was generally superior to her execution.