Women artists in all ages and countries

by E. F. Ellet

During the first half of the eighteenth century, the order of things differed not essentially from the close of the seventeenth; in fact, the same influences predominated, both in literature and art. The Pegnitzschäfer and other poetical orders were still in existence; the sacred poems composed by noble ladies had their imitations; female authors wrote after the established fashion, while they entered on a wider field, and partook of the new spirit breathed into German poetry. Women then became not only creators in the realm of fancy and imagination, but exercised a controlling influence, by their relations of friendship and intimacy with distinguished literary characters. Meta arose beside her Klopstock; Herder sought inspiration from his bride; by Wieland stood Sophie Delaroche; Schiller was aided by Caroline Wolzogen and Madame von Kalb; Goëthe by Madame von Stein. Princesses and the noble ladies of the land gave their patronage and protection to letters, and sought to gather round them the choice spirits of their day. This, in the beginning of the century, did Sophie Charlotte, the great Queen of Prussia; and Amalia von Weimar thus aided the richest development of German mind.

Though nothing new or striking can be said to have been accomplished in art by women during the first half of this century, the latter part witnessed a revolution in which they greatly aided to spread and deepen the growth of new ideas. It became necessary to the complete education of ladies of the higher classes, that they should possess some knowledge of art. Hagedorn mentions the fact that a teacher who could give instruction in drawing and painting could much more readily obtain a situation than one ignorant of those branches. Fashion and custom enjoined not only a degree of knowledge, but also of skill, on those who wished to be thought accomplished. There were many aristocratic dilettanti, and a few royal ladies emulated the fame of the princely dames of an older time in the pictorial crafts.

Among these may be mentioned, Anna Amalia, of Brunswick; the Archduchesses Charlotte and Maria Anna, of Austria; Duchess Sophia, of Coburg-Saalfeld; the Margravine of Baden-Durlach; the Princess Victoria, of Anhalt-Bernburg, and Elizabeth Ernestine Antonia, of Saxe-Meiningen; besides the excellent Elizabeth Christina, of Brunswick, who sought to promote the restoration of art and the advance of knowledge, for the love of Frederick, her royal husband, and who will ever be honored as the ornament of a house that henceforward showed itself ready to foster and appreciate the liberal arts.

We observe here, as before, that many painters of note had female pupils or assistants, who endeavored to carry out the ideas they originated. Dietrich, esteemed one of the best masters of the eclectic school of the eighteenth century, had his enthusiasm shared by his two sisters; Tischbein, who cultivated the French style, as Dietrich did the Dutch, found appreciative companions and co-laborers in his wife and daughter; and there were other women who strove to ennoble the eclectic system by greater purity of tone and a more ardent study of the antique. Oeser had several female pupils; and two sisters worked in modest retirement beside the greatest artist of this style—Antoine Raphael Mengs—having been taken through the same course of severe study and exercise by their pedantic father.

Carstens obtained and brought to perfection what Mengs toiled to reach and realize. The grand and comprehensive ideas of Winkelmann found in him a harmonious development. Averse to the reflective, which formed the chief characteristic of Mengs and Oeser, he was steeped in the inspiration caught from the antique ideal, and, without becoming a copyist of any style, was able to reproduce the seed from the fruitful soil of his own endowments. He may be called the founder of modern German art. His grand, bold, and ingenious style did not particularly commend itself to female talent; we do not find, therefore, that he had any disciples of the softer sex.

Between Carstens and Mengs, however, stands a lovely female form, in age midway betwixt them, as in the peculiar bent of her genius; less minute and reflective than Mengs, less grand and impressive than Carstens. It is Angelica Kauffman, the gem of all the women artists of this period; preserving the forms of the antique in her own delicate, elegant, and charming style; wielding her power with such gracious sweetness that all who behold are attracted to render the homage of heartfelt admiration.

It was now that fresh vitality was infused into German art by a contemplation of the antique, while the forms of humanity and nature were observed with greater freedom. Chodowiecki pursued this system, and was one of the most successful artists de genre; while his daughter, his pupil, Mademoiselle Bohren, and Kobell’s scholar, Crescentia Schott, were instrumental in preparing the way for the advance of painting in the style lately introduced.

If we turn now from a general and hasty survey to the notice of particular branches, it becomes a duty to record the names of some women who practiced the most difficult and laborious of the plastic arts. One of these was stamp-cutting. One who first evinced skill in this kind of work was Rosa Elizabeth Schwindel of Leipzig, who plied her art in Berlin at the commencement of the eighteenth century. A beautiful medal of Queen Sophia Charlotte, executed by her, is preserved. She was accomplished also in the cutting of gems and in modeling in wax. In wax-work, Elizabeth Ross of Salzburg, Dorothea Menn of Cologne, and Madame Weis, probably of Strasburg, were noted. As a stone-cutter, Charlotte Rebecca Schild of Hanau worked in Paris. Rosina Pflauder, in Salzburg, assisted her husband in stucco-work.

In the same kind of work, as well as in painting, Maria Juliana Wermuth of Gotha displayed both industry and skill. In cutting precious stones Susanna Maria Dorsch gained some celebrity. She was born at Nuremberg in 1701, and married the painter Solomon Graf, taking the noted painter and engraver, J. J. Preisler, for her second husband. The kind of work in which she excelled had been practiced by her father and grandfather, and her application was remarkable. A vast number of gems were cut by her hand, and her industry was not without its reward in the gaining of great reputation. Medals were stamped in honor of her.

Her daughters, Anna Felicitas and Maria Anna Preisler, employed themselves in the same kind of work, without possessing, however, the variety of talent or achieving the brilliant success of Barbara Julia, the daughter of Johann Daniel Preisler of Nuremberg. She was skilled in various branches of art; she could model in wax, and work in ivory and alabaster, and added painting and copper-engraving to the list of her accomplishments. She married a painter named Oeding, and died in Brunswick before 1764. Several women, who were well known at the time as modelers in wax, and who occupied themselves in engraving and stone-cutting, might be named. Amid a number of names, necessarily passed over, may be added those of the beautiful and variously-gifted Mary Anna Treu of Bamberg, and her relative, Rosalie Treu, the wife of the painter Dom, who afterward went to take the veil in a convent at Mentz, giving up her resolution four days before the completion of her novitiate, to return to the world and her native Bamberg.