Striking contrasts belong to the history of art in the seventeenth century. A moral, religious, and artistic contrast existed between the academicians and the naturalists; and one as remarkable may be noticed between the French and Spanish schools of painting, corresponding, in fact, to the civil struggle between the two nations for European supremacy. In Spain the enthusiasm for art harmonized with the passionate character of the people; in France, discretion and intellectual taste predominated. The sensuous and rudely natural in Spanish art was combined with the warmest glow of religious feeling.

Velasquez, a son of Andalusia, had a number of scholars in Madrid among ladies of high rank. Donna Maria de Abarca and the Countess of Vill’ Ambrosa were celebrated for their skill in taking likenesses, and were highly praised by the poets. The Duchess of Bejar, Teresa Sarmiento, and Maria de Guadalupe, Duchess of Aveiro—also an accomplished linguist and lover of letters—had considerable celebrity as painters. The admiration of Philip IV. for art rendered the instruction therein of the royal children and those of the nobility a necessary branch of education. The Duchess of Alba, celebrated for her beauty and intrigues, gave one of Raphael’s master-pieces as a fee to the family physician, who had cured her of a dangerous illness.

Maria Eugenia de Beer was an engraver in Madrid, and we may find in the choir-books of the cathedral at Tarragona creditable specimens of the talent of the painter Angelica, who painted the illuminations with great neatness and skill.

Every city in the south of Spain seemed to be able to boast of a female artist. In Valencia lived Doña Isabella Sanchez Coello, the daughter and pupil of “the Spanish Prothogenes”—Alonzo Sanchez Coello—the first of the great Spanish portrait painters, and the Velasquez of the court of Philip II. Born in 1564, she was the playmate of Infants and Infantas, and she acquired distinction both in music and painting. She married Don Francisco de Herrera, Knight of Santiago. Dying in Madrid in 1612, she was buried with her husband’s family in the church of San Juan.

Magdalena Gilarte was a noted painter, and worked in her father’s style with spirit and skill. Jesualda Sanchez carried on her husband’s business after his death, and painted small pictures of the saints for sale.

In Granada we find Doña Maria Cueva Benavides y Barrados an admired painter, and Anna Heylan an engraver in copper. In Cordova, Doña Francisca Palomino y Velasco, the sister of the painter and art historian of the same name. She flourished about the close of the century.

THE SCULPTRESS OF SEVILLE.

To the school of Seville, in which Spanish art reached its highest development, belongs a fair artist of repute. Luisa Roldan was known as an excellent sculptor in wood. She was born in 1656, and profited by her father’s instructions in art, acquiring great skill. After her mother’s death, she kept both her household and the studio in orderly operation, attending with successful management to the affairs of both, and keeping busy at work both her servants and her father’s pupils.

Roldan was indebted to her for valuable hints. He had carved a statue of St. Ferdinand for the Cathedral, which the canons rejected. Luisa suggested certain anatomical operations with the saw, which were perfectly successful. The canons took the work for a new one, and were satisfied; and the saint was peacefully installed in his chapel. Her chief productions were small figures of the Virgin, or groups of the Adoration of the shepherds, etc., and all were designed and executed with delicacy and grace. She sculptured a Magdalen supported by an angel, the statue giving an exquisite idea of an angel’s sweetness and protecting love. It is placed in the hospital at Cadiz. Her small pieces are full of expression.

She married Don Luis de los Arcos, and was invited to Madrid in 1692, through Don Cristobal Ontañon, who had presented several of her works to Charles II. The king was pleased, and ordered a statue of St. Michael, life size, for the church of the Escurial. This Luisa executed with great success, and to the admiration of the connoisseurs. The work elicited complimentary verses from a distinguished poet, and the artist was rewarded by the post of sculptress in ordinary to the king, with a salary of a hundred ducats, paid from the day she arrived at court.

When Charles II. died she had just completed a statue of our Saviour which he had ordered for a convent; its destination was then changed to a nunnery at Sisanto. She died at Madrid in 1704, leaving in the palace treasure a small group, modeled in clay, representing St. Anna teaching the Virgin to read, and attended by angels. Some of her works were placed in the Recolete Convent, and some in the Chartreuse of Paulan.

Doña Isabella Carasquilla was a painter, and married a miniaturist, Juan de Valdes Leal of Cordova. Their daughters Luisa and Maria were highly educated, and painted miniatures. The latter died in 1730, a nun in the Sistercian Convent at Seville.

Rosalba Salvioni, a painter of celebrity, was the pupil of Mesquida. Doña Inez Zarcillo evinced no small taste in drawing and modeling. She was the sister of a sculptor.

Maria de Loreto Prieto, an artist’s daughter, possessed extraordinary talent for painting and engraving. Her father was highly esteemed by Charles III., and had the oversight of all the coins for the purpose of improving the stamps.

Caterina Querubini, the wife of Preciado, a miniature-painter, enjoyed a pension from the Spanish court, and an honored place in the Academy de San Fernando.

Doña Isabella Farnese, the wife of Philip V., and Angela Perez Caballero, drew exceedingly well, and were members of the Academy in Madrid.

WOMEN ARTISTS IN FRANCE.

In France women had taken a position more prominent than in the preceding century. Even the gallantry prevailing in society, and the corruption of court manners, were promoted by feminine influence. Unworthy women were raised to power, and the history of court favorites from the reign of the knightly Henry IV. to that of the great monarch Louis XIV. forms the most important part of the annals of the empire.

Women took eminent places in every department of literature; in the drama Catherine Bernard was the disciple of Racine, and Mademoiselle de Scudery had many imitators in her poetical romances; while Madame de la Fayette took the lead in a more modern style of fiction. Madame Dacier became celebrated as “the most learned and eloquent of women,” and her example helped to spread a love of knowledge and classical attainment among the French ladies. Even theological pursuits had a Jeanne de la Mothe-Guyon to represent mysticism in conflict with the orthodoxy of the court and the state.

In art the ascendency of woman was by no means so great. We may, however, name, as prominent in portrait and miniature painting, Antoinette and Madelaine Herault; the latter, in 1660, married Noel Coypel. She joined noble virtues to her extraordinary talents. Henriette Stresor and Catherine Perrot may also be mentioned. Catherine Duchemin, a flower-painter, married the famous sculptor Girardon.

Several women were noted as engravers on copper; among them Claudine Bonzonnet Stella has been called the first in France, and practiced the art with her two sisters. Jane Frances and Mary Ann Ozanne, the sisters of a French engraver, worked chiefly in engraving sea-side scenes.

ELIZABETH SOPHIE CHÉRON.

But she who occupies the highest place among all the artists of this period is Elizabeth Sophie Chéron. Born in Paris in 1648, she received instruction from her father in miniature and enamel painting, in which she attained such perfection that she may be regarded as the leader of the host of French artists who devoted themselves especially to this branch. At the age of twenty-six she was admitted a member of the Academy, at the proposal of Charles Le Brun. She was received with distinction; his portrait by her being her reception picture.

Her merits were a fine tone, exquisite taste and harmony in design, and finely-disposed draperies. She often made portraits from memory. Her portraits were so frequently treated in an allegorical manner they might be called historical; and her history-pieces were much admired. She designed much after the antique.

Her father had educated Elizabeth in the strictest principles of Calvinism; but her mother, Marie Lefevre, a Catholic, persuaded her to become a member of that church, after a year’s seclusion in the community of Madame de Miramion. The difference in faith did not impair her affection to her family. She supported her brother Louis for some time in Italy, whither he went to study painting.

This accomplished artist passed the maturity of life without any of the experiences, with which almost every young girl is familiar, of the tender passion. Her emotions seem to have been altogether spiritual. She translated many of the Psalms into French verse; and they were published with illustrations by Louis. She played admirably on the lute, and was accustomed to practice in the parlor with her nieces and pupils, who performed on different instruments. Louis XIV. gave her a pension of five hundred livres.

The most eminent scholars of the day were her friends and visitors; and in conversation she evinced the highest mental cultivation. Her portraits were chiefly painted as presents to her friends, or as ornaments to her own cabinet. “I have the pleasure,” she would say, “of seeing them in their absence.”

In spiritual lyrics she was the precursor of J. B. Rousseau, with whom in warmth of feeling she may be compared; and in narrative poetry she acquired much reputation. The Academy dei Ricovrati, in Padua, received her as a member in 1699, under the name of Erato. She possessed beauty and engaging manners, and to all the honors lavished on her she joined the crowning grace of modesty.

The attractions of this gifted being did not depart with the beauty of fleeting youth. At the age of sixty she fascinated the affections of the Sieur Le Hay, a gentleman about her own age, on whom she bestowed her hand, simply with the generous motive, it was said, of promoting his good fortune. Tradition reports that, when they came out of the church after the ceremony had been performed, the bride made a speech to her husband, implying that esteem, not romantic love, had influenced her choice. She is said to have alluded to him, under the name of Damon, in one of her poems.

As of Madame Dacier, it might be said of this artist—the traits of a great and manly nature might be discerned in her face. Her features wore an expression of decision and firmness. Her hair, in her portrait, curls from the top and floats in ringlets. She was remarkable for the modesty and simplicity of her dress. Her large and sympathizing heart made her the protector and benefactor of needy artists, while her social qualities drew around her the brilliant circles that habitually were found at her house, including many of the most gifted and illustrious of that day. Her death took place in 1711, at the age of sixty-three, and she was buried at St. Sulpice. She was lamented by Fermelhuis in a canto of praise. The Abbé Bosquillon wrote the following lines to be inscribed under her portrait:

“De deux talens exquis l’assemblage nouveau
Rendra toujours Chéron l’ornement de la France;
Rien ne peut de sa plume égaler l’excellence
Que les graces de son pinceau.”

For different gifts renowned, fair Chéron see,
Ever of France the ornament and pride;
Equaled by none her pen’s great works shall be,
Save when her pencil triumphs at their side.

Mademoiselle Chéron made many studies from Raphael and the Caracci. Among her historical tableaux are enumerated, “The Flight into Egypt”—the Virgin represented in a wearied sleep, with angels guarding the babe; “Cassandra inquiring of a god the doom of Troy;” “The Annunciation;” “Christ at the Sepulchre”—after Zumbo; with “The Demoiselles de la Croix”—her nieces and pupils; and a grand portrait of the Archbishop of Paris, placed in the Jacobin school of the Rue St. Jacques.

Madelaine Masson was the daughter of Anthony Masson, a celebrated engraver, and was born in Paris, 1660. She received instruction from her father, and engraved portraits in his fine style. Among these is the picture of Maria Teresa, Queen of France, and of the Infanta of Spain.

The Marchioness de Pompadour engraved and executed small plates after Boucher and others. She engraved one set of sixty-three prints, after gems by Gay.