After her return home she applied herself again to portrait-painting, in order to obtain money sufficient for a tour to Italy, which was the great end of her ambition. She was fortunate enough to be able to accumulate in one year a thousand dollars. Out of this sum she furnished her brother with an amount large enough to secure his promotion to a doctor’s degree, as she wanted to have him accompany her as a traveling companion.
A journey to Italy was much opposed by all her relatives; a girl so young, fresh, and diminutive could not protect herself; she would inevitably encounter serious misfortunes. But her mind was made up; she packed her things, took leave of her friends, and one morning started off on the way to Vienna, directing her brother to follow her. She was never in want of friends; every where persons took an interest in her; without money one day, it was sure to come on the next; and her faith was never shaken by any accident or hardship. In Vienna she began her studies, seeking models in the streets, and taking them to her room. From Vienna she passed into Italy. Of her studious life in Italy many sketches bear witness.
The breaking out of the revolution in 1848 obliged Herminie to leave Italy, and as the route to Germany was unsafe, and she feared becoming a burden to her friends, she resolved to go to the United States. An opportunity presented itself to travel in company with a family in whose house she lived after her brother had been called home by the government. She rolled up her sketches, put them in a tin box, and repaired to Leghorn. When about to pay her passage, the draft she presented was refused. She sat weeping over the disappointment, with letters before her from friends in Rome and Germany, imploring her to abandon this suicidal plan of emigration; representing strongly the dangers of the journey, the hardships she would encounter in a foreign land, without money and without friends. She came down to supper. A traveler just arrived, observing her eyes red with weeping, was led to show an interest in her; she related her troubles, upon which the stranger examined the draft, and, finding it good, gave her the cash for it. This gentleman was an Italian, and she continued in correspondence with him. The next day she was on board a vessel bound for this country.
She arrived in February, 1849. The only letter of introduction she brought was to Mr. Hagedorn, of Philadelphia, in whom she subsequently found a friend and protector. She landed in New York, and at once began to paint. Her first pictures, representations of Italian life, exhibited in the Art Union, were much admired, and some of them were purchased by that institution. She found no difficulty in making friends.
Five months after her arrival she married Mr. Dassel. After her marriage she led a happy life, with cares and sorrows incidental to the care of a family, and to an arduous profession. She triumphed over all, however, and realized all the comforts which belong to success.
Mrs. Dassel was most successful in portraits in oil of children and pastel-portraits. Her painting of “Effie Deans” attracted much attention. Her latest works are copies of Steinbruck’s “Fairies” and the “Othello” in the Düsseldorf Gallery, which are unusually successful works of this class. She made steady progress in her art, and would have doubtless attained a prominent position had she lived to develop her powers by practice and study.
We should not be doing justice to this noble woman not to allude to the social virtues which endeared her to so many friends. With nothing to rely upon but her own exertions, with serious illness in her family, she was never so poor in time or money as not to interest herself in behalf of others more unfortunate than herself. Countless instances are known of her serviceable kind-heartedness. She exerted herself at the time of the dreadful shipwreck of the Helena Sloman, and obtained by personal efforts, in a few days, the sum of seven hundred dollars; and her ministrations among the poor were constant during the severe winter of 1853. She has, it is true, many peers in similar acts of benevolence, but few who practiced deeds of this kind in a position so little calculated to develop them.
Mrs. Dassel died on the 7th December, 1857, and was buried in Greenwood.
Jane Stuart was the youngest child of Gilbert Stuart, the eminent portrait-painter. Like many of her sisters in art, she inherited the genius she discovered in early life; but it was not till after her father’s death that the talent she had shown found development in the practice of art. She has resided for a long time at Newport, Rhode Island, in the enjoyment of the celebrity her talents have acquired.
Mrs. Hildreth of Boston deserves mention, especially for her portraits of children in crayon. Miss May painted landscapes in Allston’s style. Mrs. Orvis has been mentioned as a flower-painter of remarkable skill. Hoyt remarked that he knew nothing better in coloring than her autumn leaves and wild flowers. In this style, Mrs. Badger, of New York, has acquired reputation by her book of “The Wild Flowers of America,” published in 1859. The drawings were all made and colored from nature by herself.