Women artists in all ages and countries

by E. F. Ellet

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.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.

Two different Systems of Painting in the North.—The Flemish School represented by Rubens.—The Dutch by Rembrandt.—Characteristics of Rubens’ Style.—No female Disciples.—Unsuited to feminine Study.—Some Women Artists of the first Part of the Century.—Features of the Dutch School.—A wide Field for female Energy and Industry.—Painting de genre.—Its Peculiarities.—State of Things favorable to female Enterprise.—Early Efforts in Genre-painting.—Few Women among Rembrandt’s immediate Disciples.—Genre-painting becomes adapted to female Talent.—“The Dutch Muses.”—Another Woman Architect.—Dutch Women Painters and Engravers.—Maria Schalken and others.—“The second Schurmann.”—Margaretta Godewyck.—The Painter-poet.—Anna Maria Schurmann.—Wonderful Genius for Languages.—Early Acquirements.—Her Scholarship and Position among the learned.—A Painter, Sculptor, and Engraver.—Called “the Wonder of Creation.”—Royal and princely Visitors.—Journey to Germany.—Embraces the religious Tenets of Labadie.—His Doctrines.—Joins his Band.—Collects his Followers, and leads them into Friesland.—Poverty and Death.—Visit of William Penn to her.—Her Portrait.—Her female Contemporaries in Art.—Flower-painting in the Netherlands.—Its Pioneers.—Maria Van Oosterwyck.—Her Birth and Education.—Early Productions.—Celebrated at foreign Courts.—Presents from imperial Friends.—Enormous Prices for her Pictures.—Royal Purchasers.—The quiet Artist at work.—The Lover’s Visit.—The Lover’s Trial and Failure.—Style of her Painting.—Rachel Ruysch.—The greatest Flower-painter.—Early Instruction.—Spread of her Fame.—Domestic Cares.—Professional Honors.—Invitations to Courts.—Her Patron, the Elector.—Her Works in old Age.—Her Character.—Rarity of her Paintings.—Personal Appearance.

While the academicians and naturalists of the Italian schools contended through the seventeenth century, and while in France and Spain the works of art exhibited as great contrasts, modified in each country by national peculiarities, two different systems in the North came into notice. These, as in the time of Von Eyck, had great influence upon the development of art in other lands besides that where they originated. One was the Flemish school, represented by Rubens; the other the Dutch, in which Rembrandt was regarded as the mighty master.

The style of Rubens, brilliant, luxuriant, and full of vigorous life, it may be thought would commend itself peculiarly to the attention of women. This school, however, in which the healthy and florid naturalism of Flemish art reached its highest development, seems to have been without any female disciples of note. The passionate and often intensely dramatic character of the works of Rubens and his scholars, and the physical development of his nude figures, were, indeed, scarcely suited to feminine study, though their fullness of life and warmth of coloring afterward won to imitation an artist like Madame O’Connell. We may also mention Micheline Wontiers, a portrait painter in the first half of the seventeenth century. An engraving was made from one of her productions by Pontius, who busied himself with the works of Rubens. The name of Catherine Pepyn, too, is found inscribed as a portrait painter in the St. Luke’s Society of Artists at Antwerp, about 1655.

In Holland, on the other hand, the new school of painting owed its marked features to the political and religious revolution that had been the fruit of the reformed doctrines. This change offered a wide field for the exercise of female energy and genius. With the progress of the new faith kept pace the rapid advance of literature; the great questions at issue and the more earnest domestic life of the Hollanders furnishing ample materials for thought and description. Painting came under the same influence, and this was evident when the depth and power of feeling in his works marked Rembrandt as one of the greatest masters of all time.

A novel species of the art was called painting de genre. Herein life was represented in all its rich and varied forms, and the world and real humanity became objects of attention where hitherto only idealized representations had been tolerated. A new arena was thus opened, in which there was promise of noble achievement, and the rudest and meanest aspects of common life soon appeared capable of being invested with an ideal fascination. The painter de genre, armed with the wand of humor, often succeeded in such attempts, and success led to the adoption of that wonderfully poetical chiar’ oscuro in coloring, which, till this period, had never attained the same degree of favor either in the North or the South.

This state of things was eminently favorable to female enterprise, and we find, accordingly, in a number of fair artists, evidences of the energetic industry and careful minuteness for which the women of Holland have been particularly noted. However, in the earliest efforts at painting de genre, wherein the Flemish artists stood opposed to the schools of Italy, women took no share. These trial specimens usually consisted of some rough piece after nature, such as the drunken boors and rustic women of the elder Breughel, and for a long time the prevailing taste ran on the low, coarse, and fantastic in the models selected. There was more to disgust than to attract cultivated women in such a fashion, and, notwithstanding their alleged fancy to run into extremes, this will account for the fact that they did not choose to be numbered among those who delighted in such a copying of nature. One we hear of, Anna Breughel, seems to have been a kinswoman of a younger painter of that name.

The earnestness, depth, and intensity given to this species of art by Rembrandt seemed to lie as little within the compass of female fancy, which rather delighted in pleasing delineations of more superficial emotion, than in the concentration of the deepest feelings of nature. Thus few women were found among the immediate disciples of Rembrandt.

But as painting de genre accommodated itself more pleasingly to representations of ordinary life and circumstances, and the delicacy of detail that formed the peculiar charm of this species of art was lavished on attractive phases of character, the school became more and more the nursery of female talent.

Literature, at this period, experienced a similar change; and it is interesting to see the same persons pursuing both branches of study. This was the case with the two painters, Tesselschade-Visscher—called the “Dutch Muses,” on account of their poetry—with Elizabeth Hoffmann, and the dramatic poet, Catharina Lescaille; also with one of whom we shall presently speak, whose fame traveled far beyond the boundaries of her native land.

Among the older artists of the Dutch school we may mention, in passing, the fruit and flower painter, Angelica Agnes Pakman; Madame Steenwyk, a designer in architecture; and the portrait-painter, Anna de Bruyn. Anna Tessala was eminent as a skillful carver in wood. Concerning Maria Grebber, a pupil of Savary, Van Mander remarks that she was well skilled both in perspective and in building plans. Maria and Gezina Terburg were sisters of Gerard, and, like him, skillful in genre-painting.

Gottfried Schalken, who introduced a simpler method, and surprising effects of light, was not more celebrated than his sister and pupil, Maria, for productions remarkable for delicacy of execution and tender expression. Eglon van der Neer shared his fame with his wife, Adriana Spilberg. She was born in Amsterdam, in 1646, and was taught by her father, an eminent painter. She excelled in crayons or pastels, though she often painted in oil. Her portraits were said to be accurate likenesses. They were delicately colored, and executed with neatness and care. She was much patronized at the court of Düsseldorf.

Caspar Netscher, one of the best and most pleasing masters in this peculiar style, had a disciple in Margaretta Wulfraat, whose historical paintings—a Cleopatra and a Semiramis—are to be seen in Amsterdam, and who died at a great age early in the eighteenth century.

A still greater interest attaches to artists who also took an active part in the elevation of Dutch literature. Anna and Maria Tesselschade—the daughters of Visscher, already mentioned—belonged to this class; they were also celebrated for their fine etchings on glass. Their literary culture brought them into association with the most eminent scholars of that day.

With them may be ranked Margaretta Godewyck—born at Dort, in 1627, and a pupil of Maas—who attained celebrity both in painting and in her knowledge of the ancient and modern languages. She was called “the second Schurmann,” and many praised her as “the lovely flower of art and literature of the Merwestrom;” that is, of Dortrecht. She painted landscapes and flowers, and embroidered them with great skill. She died at fifty.

Catharina Questier, who resided at Amsterdam, was distinguished for painting, copper-engraving, and modeling in wax, besides having no small consideration accorded to her poetry. Two of her comedies, that appeared in 1655, evince her skill in at least three branches; for the drawings and engravings that illustrated the dramas were entirely her own design and execution.