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.