It’s very trendy right
now to ‘discover’ women artists. But how lost were they, really?
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Mary Moser, c.
1770-71, George Romney, courtesy National Gallery
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I’m in Edinburgh finishing a portrait this week. My subject bought
me a copy of The Lady. This
is one of Britain’s longest-running magazines. Founded in 1885, it was where
the gentry advertised for domestic servants. Between the nanny ads and the
horoscopes, there are some pieces of surprising interest, including a biography
of 18th century painter Mary Moser.
Moser is best remembered for her decorative painting at Frogmore House, an English
country house within the Home Park at Windsor.
Started in 1680, it was largely renovated by Queen
Charlotte, whom Americans know as the wife of King George
III.
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A Vase of Flowers, 1792-97,
Mary Moser, Frogmore House, courtesy Royal Collection Trust
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But the Queen was much more than that. Among other things, she
was a champion of women artists and a keen amateur botanist who
helped expand Kew Gardens. It was this interest in botany that led
to her hiring Moser to decorate the South Pavilion at Frogmore House.
The house was more than a century old when Queen Charlotte purchased it in 1792. She used it as a retreat
from nearby Windsor Castle, where she and her daughters could practice their hobbies of “painting,
drawing, needlework, japanning, reading and ‘botanising’.” The Queen had borne
15 children (13 of whom lived to adulthood) and had a mentally-ill husband, so
it’s perhaps understandable that she then built another retreat within the
gardens of this retreat. That’s Frogmore Cottage,
where the Duke and Duchess of Sussex now live with their new baby.
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Queen Charlotte, 1761,
studio of Allan Ramsay
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Moser was already well-regarded as a floral painter when she
took up the commission at Frogmore House. She had been trained by her father, an enamellist
and himself a drawing tutor to George III. She was one of 36 artists who joined
together to form the Royal Academy of Arts. At the age of 24, she was the
youngest Academician and one of just two women among the founders. The other
was Angelica Kauffman.
Moser did not marry until later in life. By convention, a
woman’s professional life ended upon marriage. “[P]erhaps there was no man
worth giving it all up for,” suggested The
Lady.
Moser carried on an affair with miniaturist Richard Cosway. He was well-known
as a libertine, and “commonly described as resembling a monkey.” (His wife was,
in turn, getting
it on with Thomas Jefferson.) In his notebooks, Conway made lascivious
comments and “invidious comparisons between her and Mrs Cosway,” implying that Moser
was more sexually responsive than his wife. He died insane, just in case you’re
wondering if there’s cosmic justice.
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A Bunch of Flowers, 1792-97,
Mary Moser, Frogmore House, courtesy Royal Collection Trust
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Moser married at age 49. Bowing to social pressure, she
retired and began exhibiting as an amateur under her married name. She’d
made a pile of money as a painter; the Frogmore commission alone earned her
£900, which is equivalent to £100,000 today. She left most of her wealth to
women: relatives, friends, and the wives of other artists.
It’s very trendy right now to ‘discover’ women artists. But
how lost were they in the first place? Artemisia
Gentileschi, for example, may not have been a household name twenty years
ago, but was well-known to students of the Baroque.
The problem wasn’t so much with their own times, but with
the peculiar blinders of the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Moser’s membership in the Royal Academy was circumscribed to some degree by her
gender; she could not attend nude sketch sessions, for example, and some meetings were closed to her. But all in all,
she had a happy and complete life as a painter.
