Our series of talks on Female Artists continued on 07 March 2025 with Jennifer talking about four ladies of the English Enlightenment period. The four artists she had chosen were Mary Delaney, Angelika Kauffman, Mary Moser and Anne Seymour Damer.
Mary Delaney had had a difficult start to adulthood, marrying a man 60 years old when she was just 17 in order to comply with the wishes of her family. After 7 years of married life, her husband died in his sleep. He had not updated his will after the marriage. Whilst nursing her husband, she developed her artistic skills, and became known for her botanical illustrations, and also for her images of flowers made from coloured paper. All present were amazed at the level of detail that she managed to achieve with a peony and with a physalis.
We then moved on to Angelika Kauffman (who had appeared earlier in our course) and Mary Moser. These two ladies were the first female academicians at the Royal Academy. However, even though they were full members, they were excluded from some of the activities, and we saw that in the Zoffany painting of the first academicians, Angelika and Mary could only appear as paintings on the wall to the right. Some thought that this was because that was a Life Class with naked male models!
Similarly, in Henry Singletons painting of the academicians in General Assembly, our two lady academicians were painted in at the back of the meeting afterwards. Possibly as a concession, two of their works also feature behind them in that painting.
Mary Moser RA specialised in paintings of floral displays, and over time was able to branch out into interior design. Jennifer had many illustrations of this including the Mary Moser Room at Frogmore House in the grounds of Frogmore Estate which lies within the the Home Park in Windsor.
We had seen some of the paintings by Angelika Kauffman RA earlier in the course, but as an academician she had painted several paintings of the muses, and this time Jennifer including works from the ceiling of the Royal Academy. Of the four works dealing with the visual arts – Invention, Composition, Design and Colour, we were surprised to learn that these were only shown as ceiling panels as they are significant works of art in their own right.
Our last artist before our break for coffee and tea was Anne Seymour Damer (1748-1828). She had been a successful sculptor (sculptress) in 18th Century, and had travelled to Naples in order to sculpt Horatio Nelson after his victory at the Battle of the Nile and before his death at Trafalgar. She had also had an unsatisfactory marriage, but coming from a wealthy family – she was related to Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister – she was able to continue her art. Her sculptures of dogs drew much appreciation from the members.
After our break, we returned for a brief look at the female nude in art, starting with The Rokeby Venus, originally the Toilet of Venus by Diego Velasquez. Jennifer explained the Rokeby Venus name, and was able to show us a photo of it in Co Durham before it was donated to the National Gallery Collection. We also saw graphic images of the damage that was done to the painting in 1914 by Mary Richardson – a Canadian Suffragette when several deep slashes were cut into the canvas. There had been another attempt with spray cans in 2023. Fortunately on that occasion the painting was protected by a sheet of glass! On a lighter note we finished with an Artificial Intelligence image of a cat assuming the same pose as in the original painting!
Our course will continue on Friday 21 March 2025 at 10:00 with a look at three French female artists, Adelaide Labille-Guiard, Marie-Victoire Lemoine and Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun.