“Our phœnix queen was portrayed too, so bright,
Beauty alone could beauty take so right;
Before, a train of heroines was seen,
In beauty foremost, as in rank a queen.”
THE ARTIST IN SILK.
Mademoiselle Rosée, born in Leyden in 1632, deserves a place among eminent artists for the singularity of her talents. Instead of using colors, with oil or gum, she used silk for the delicate shading. It can hardly be understood how she managed to apply the fibres, and to imitate the flesh-tints, blending and mellowing them so admirably. She thus painted portraits, as well as landscapes and architecture. Michel Carré, who saw one of her portraits, says, “It can scarcely be believed it is not done by the pencil.” One of her pieces brought five hundred florins. It represented the decayed trunk of a tree, covered with moss and leaves. On the top a bird has made her nest. The shading and the sky in the distance left nothing to be desired for coloring and truthful effect. The Grand-Duke of Tuscany purchased one of her finest pieces, which is yet preserved among the curiosities of his collection. She was never married, and died at the age of fifty, in 1682.
THE ARTIST OF THE SCISSORS.
Joanna Koerten Block is regarded by the Dutch as one of their most remarkable female artists. She was born in Amsterdam in 1650, and manifested a taste for the fine arts in her childhood. She learned music and embroidery, and how to model fruits and figures; she also understood coloring, and engraved with a diamond on crystal and glass with surprising delicacy. She also painted in oil and water colors in a novel manner. Possessing a rare art in blending colors, she copied pictures so wonderfully that they could hardly be distinguished from the originals. This faculty of imitation she carried to such perfection, that it was believed among her contemporaries that, had she devoted herself exclusively to this kind of work, she would have equaled the great masters. She gave up, however, after a while, the cultivation of this singular talent for the development of another still more extraordinary, for which she has obtained a place among the great artists of her country.
All that the engraver accomplishes with the burin, she was able to do with the scissors. Her cuttings were indeed astonishing. Country scenes, marine views, animals, flowers, with portraits of perfect resemblance, she executed in a marvelous manner. This novel style of making pictures out of white paper created not a little sensation, and ere long the matter became spread abroad widely, and excited the curiosity of all the courts of Europe. Even artists could not help admiring her skill in this strange art, and not one came to Amsterdam without paying her a visit.
The Czar Peter the Great, princes of royal blood, and nobles of the highest rank paid their respects to the simple Dutch maiden, and examined her works with pleased curiosity. The Elector Palatine offered a thousand florins for three small pieces cut by her, but the offer was declined as not liberal enough.
The Empress of Germany ordered a piece executed as a trophy of the arms of the Emperor Leopold I. The design showed the crown and imperial arms upheld by eagles, and surrounded by laurel wreaths, garlands of flowers, and appropriate ornaments. This was executed in a wonderful manner, and for it the fair artist received four thousand florins.
The portrait of the emperor, cut by Joanna, is preserved in his imperial majesty’s cabinet at Vienna. Queen Mary of England, and other royal personages, wished to decorate their cabinets with the works of this artist. She cut many portraits, with which the sitters were pleased and astonished. The Latin, German, and Dutch verses composed in her honor would fill a volume. She had in her working-room a volume in which were registered the names of her illustrious visitors, the princes and princesses and other great personages writing their own. It is the same curious register in which Nicholas Verkslie saw the portraits of illustrious persons, appended each to the proper signature. This interesting addition is said to have been made by Adrien Block, the artist’s husband. He published a series of vignettes from her pieces.
Joanna died in 1715, at the age of sixty-five. Her taste and design were marked by correctness and delicacy, and she was original and unique in the style of work to which she devoted herself. When her pieces were put over black paper, the effect was that of an engraving or pen-drawing. Neatness, clearness, and decision were her prominent characteristics.