LILY M. SPENCER.
Mrs. Spencer’s high position among American artists is universally recognized in the profession. In her peculiar style, her executive talent is probably unsurpassed in the country. She has encountered many difficulties in her path to success, and a glance at her history will not be without encouragement to those who possess a portion of her energy and perseverance.
Her parents, whose name is Martin, were born in France, but removed to England soon after their marriage. They were persons of education, refinement, and good social standing. Mr. Martin taught French in academies in Plymouth and Exeter, and gave lectures at his own house on scientific subjects, especially optics and chemistry. Mrs. Martin at one time gave instruction in a ladies’ seminary in London. Lily owed all her proficiency to her parents’ judicious training, and never went to a school. Her talent for drawing began early to exhibit itself. One day, when she was about five years old, she got at some diagrams her father had prepared for a lecture on optics, and drew an eye so correctly that her turn for art was at once perceived.
She was the eldest of four children, and was not six years of age when her parents removed to New York, where Mr. Martin was induced, by Dr. Hosack and others, to open an academy. Mr. John Van Buren was one of his pupils. Lily’s drawings were much coveted by the little scholars, who begged them from her, and gave in return the most flattering expressions of admiration.
When between eight and nine, she was taken to the old Academy of Design. There she selected the “Ecce Homo,” as a special subject for imitation. The girl-pupils laughed at her taste, and Lily, abashed, burst into tears. Mr. Dunlap, then a teacher, came and asked what was the matter. When informed, he reproved the girls, and predicted that the young stranger would be remembered when they were all forgotten.
Her power of copying whatever pleased her childish fancy increased, though she did not then appreciate the necessity of a patient study of the elementary principles of art. Her health was at this time so delicate that her parents feared she would not live to reach maturity. The desire to afford her the advantage of country air and exercise, with the want of very attractive prospects for their enterprise in New York, determined them to go to the West. They purchased a farm in Ohio, a few miles from Marietta, where they soon had a picturesque Swiss cottage, with a beautiful garden, and a mineral closet filled with the presents of Mr. Martin’s former pupils.
Lily was enchanted with the change from a city life, and with the liberty she enjoyed of roaming at will through woods and fields, for, her health being the paramount object, no restraint was placed on the child. Her time was passed in working in her garden, playing and racing with other children, hunting for insects, shells, and minerals, often wet up to the waist in the search, while her drawing was forgotten. Thus constantly, like Rosa Bonheur, in the open air, she rapidly regained strength and health. One day, when about thirteen years old, she was walking in the woods with her father. A deer, frightened from his covert, dashed by them to leap a fence. Lily wanted a pet, and instantly ran after the animal. As he sprang over the fence she caught his hind legs and clung to them, while her father’s dog throttled the captive. Some men came up directly, and, seeing the girl with her face covered with blood, killed the deer, notwithstanding her entreaties that he might be spared.
On another occasion they were killing hogs at Mr. Martin’s place. A powerful young porker fled foaming and champing from the slayers of his brethren, and got over a fence into the orchard. Lily ran to stop his flight, and the desperate animal made at her. She tried to get a stick to defend herself, but her feet slipped on the apples that strewed the ground, and she fell, in the very gripe of the hog. The maddened creature might have injured her fatally, but her faithful dog sprang upon him, and diverted his rage to another enemy. Lily saw his teeth buried in the poor dog’s shoulder, and, resolved not to abandon her deliverer, struck the hog a violent blow and ran; the foe, still held by the dog, in swift pursuit. She was overtaken close to a drain, into which the three combatants tumbled together. At this juncture the men came running to the spot with three or four dogs, and rescued both her and her preserver, that to the last would not relinquish his hold of the porker. Lily’s first care was to pull into place the poor dog’s dislocated shoulder.
An illustration of her impulsive nature, and readiness to give assistance where it was needed, is an incident that occurred a few months later. Six or seven men were burning logs in a field. She saw them from the house making signals that they wanted one more hand to lift a log. Seizing a crowbar, the young girl ran to the spot, placed it under the log, and helped to raise it to the burning pile.
Her love of sketching soon began to revive. In her fourteenth year she took a fancy to see the effect of a new style of costume which she thought would be very becoming to herself. She drew a lady’s figure, thus attired, with black crayons and coarse chalk, on the wall of her bedroom. Pleased with her creation, it occurred to her that the lady ought to be attended by admiring beaux, and she added the figures of two gentlemen. The group was delineated one day when the other members of her family were absent, and, fearing that her mother would be displeased at her for daubing the walls, she hung her dresses over the sketch, so as to screen it from observation.
The next day her young brothers were playing ball in her room, and chanced to discover the group on the wall. Full of boyish mischief, they decided that the richly-dressed lady would make a fine target, and, in spite of their sister’s remonstrances, they commenced throwing their balls at her. Lily, in great distress at the menaced destruction of her work, complained to her mother; and instead of being reprimanded for defacing the wall, was told to go on with her sketch, while the boys were reproved, and forbidden to enter her room. Encouraged by the praise she received, Lily worked on diligently. She drew a colonnade behind her figures, then added other groups, representing persons enjoying themselves at a place of fashionable amusement. The background was a landscape of hill and valley, rock and sea. This picture being much admired, she went on covering the walls of her room from floor to ceiling with the creations of her romantic imagination. Columns and statues, fountains and grottoes, appeared in her scenes of luxury and magnificence; and her landscapes were as charming as the forms with which she enlivened them. In every panel was a distinct picture. All her leisure hours, after milking the cows and hoeing the corn, were devoted to this amusement. It was true of her, as Halleck says it was doubtful of his Wyoming maiden, that she worked in the field “with Shakspeare’s volume in her bosom borne;” with Sismondi also, and volumes of history from her father’s splendid library.
The farmers in the neighborhood, and the ladies and gentlemen of Marietta, came to see the curious sketches, both on the walls and on canvas, of which they had heard. Saturday afternoons were appointed for the reception of visitors. The fame of Lily’s talents began to spread rapidly, and she was mentioned with praise in several newspaper notices. At her father’s persuasion she tried to study perspective and anatomy, but it was more agreeable to her impetuous nature to sketch from her own glowing fancy, than to pore over the dry bones and plates of different parts of the human frame. In coloring, also, she would trust to her intuitive perceptions rather than to a regular course of study. Her father procured her muslin for her experiments, and, after covering many yards, she became fully aware of her own deficiencies, which she resolved to conquer. Her unwillingness to be taught arose from the self-reliance of an independent character, and not from an inflated idea of her own acquirements.
Her parents became more and more solicitous to give her all the advantages they could procure; and a letter from a wealthy gentleman of Cincinnati, describing the opportunities that would be offered for studying in that city, determined them to leave the farm and remove thither.
Miss Martin’s pictures were exhibited in Cincinnati, and attracted the attention of connoisseurs. They were large, as her figures of life size best enlisted her own sympathies. Her battle with the world now commenced in earnest. The jealousy of rival artists was awakened by the certainty that a rising genius had come among them. Flippant critics pleased others and their own vanity by decrying her productions. But she continued to paint, and sometimes had good fortune in disposing of her pictures, practicing her art with undiminished industry and enthusiasm, even while discouraged by the want of patronage.
On one occasion she was in company with Lord Morpeth. Addressing him as “Mr. Morpeth,” she was reminded apart by her father that she ought to say “my lord.” “No, indeed,” replied the young lady; “I never saw a man I would call ‘my lord’ yet.”
Miss Martin was married in Cincinnati to Mr. Spencer. When surrounded by the cares of a young family she continued to paint, but her style changed. At first her pictures had been poetical and semi-allegorical. She liked to embody some suggestive idea, or a whole history, in a group, as in several of her scenes from Shakspeare. Her “Water Sprite,” representing the escape of Spring from Winter, is of this class. After she became a mother, her taste was more for bits of domestic life, and she found matter-of-fact pictures more salable than her cherished ideals.
After living some seven years in Cincinnati, Mrs. Spencer returned with her family to New York, stopping a year in Columbus, Ohio, where she painted portraits and fancy-pieces. In New York she visited the Academy for the purpose of improving herself by drawing after the antique, often going in the evening, as her labors and cares absorbed her during the day, and sitting among the male art-students. One, who noticed the quiet, modest-looking girl at work, undertook to point out the best models, but soon discovered he was trying to teach his superior. She was made a member of the Academy. Her “May Queen” and “Choose Between” were much praised in the Art Union Exhibition. “The Jolly Washerwoman,” sold by that institution, became celebrated. It was painted impromptu from a scene in the artist’s own kitchen. A connoisseur was so much pleased with one of her pictures that he insisted on paying more than was asked for it.
“The Flower Girl” and “Domestic Felicity,” exhibited in Philadelphia, elicited general admiration, and proved Mrs. Spencer’s possession of the highest order of talent. A connoisseur remarked that the latter picture excelled any other production that had appeared in the gallery since its first opening. Its vigor and freshness were as remarkable as its rich and harmonious coloring, while the drawing and composition were pronounced admirable. It represented a mother and father bending over their sleeping children, and several artists observed that they knew of no one who could surpass the painting of the mother’s hand. The managers of the Art Union in Philadelphia were so delighted with this picture that a few of their number privately subscribed to purchase it, the rules not allowing directors to expend the funds except for paintings selected by the prizeholders. It was afterward sold to an association in the West. The Western Art Union purchased several of Mrs. Spencer’s works, and had one engraved for their annual presentation plate.
Mrs. Spencer found her kitchen scenes so popular that she adopted that comic, familiar style in many of her paintings. “Shake Hands?” represents a girl making pastry, and holding out her floured hand with a humorous smile. This manner the artist has been obliged to adhere to on account of the ready sale of such pictures, while the subjects that better pleased her own taste have been neglected. Yet she has contrived to introduce a moral into every one of her comic pieces. “The Contrast” embodies a touching story. It is in two pictures: one showing a pampered, petulant little dog, barking at some intruder from his velvet cushion surrounded by silken draperies; the other, a meagre, skin-and-bone animal, creeping through the pitiless snow-storm in search of food for its young ones. Mrs. Spencer excels in her pictures of different animals.
Some time ago Mrs. Spencer made a series of original designs—twenty or thirty—illustrative of scenes in the volumes of “The Women of the American Revolution.” All these have not yet been published. Perhaps more of her paintings have been engraved than of any American artist. All are of her own composition, and most of them are domestic scenes. One called “Pattycake” shows a young mother, with her baby on her lap, teaching it to clap its hands; another, “Both at Play,” represents a father teasing his little girl by holding an air-balloon just out of her reach. These are done in the highly-finished German style adopted by Mrs. Spencer. She usually takes her own children for models.
“The Captive” exhibits a slave in market, her master lifting the veil that concealed her charms. Its touching expression is admirable. “Reading the Legend” shows a lovely lady listening to a reading within view of a noble castle; but we do not like the taste of either the costume or the attitude of the reader.
Mrs. Spencer encountered serious difficulties in New York before she acquired the fame she now enjoys. In 1858 she purchased a lovely place in a retired part of Newark, New Jersey, where she now resides with her happy family. Her studio is at the foot of her garden, a large building, with its walls covered by sketches, casts, etc., where the artist labors assiduously. Visitors from distant cities come here to see her paintings, and she usually has several in progress at the same time. “The Gossips,” a large painting de genre, with ten figures of women and children, has attracted much attention. The scene represents the yard of a tenement-building, where women are engaged in washing, preserving fruit, cooking, and other sorts of work. They have gathered into a group to listen to some tale of scandal from a stranger, with a basket of bread; and the children are getting into mischief the while. A little boy has fallen into the bluing-tub of clothes, while a younger girl is laughing violently at his mishap; a dog has laid hold of the meat a boy has forgotten to look after, and a cat in the window is skimming the pan of milk. The peaches in a basket in the foreground look as if they might be picked out and eaten, so rich and fresh is the coloring. The effect of light on one of the female figures is exquisitely beautiful. The whole picture is highly finished, and its merits are enough to make a reputation for any artist.
Mrs. Spencer’s pictures may be seen in many of the shops where works of art are for sale, and the prints engraved from them are very numerous. She has now a prospect of independence and success before her, and may achieve triumphs greater than any she has yet accomplished.