Read Online Magpies, Squirrels and Thieves by Jacqueline Yallop - Free Book Online
Authors: Jacqueline Yallop
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pieces of European treasure were to be extracted from their hiding places, then Charlotte and her husband needed to trust to theirown resources. But, for Charlotte, the open display of too much scholarship was not without its own problems. As we have seen, at a time when the intellectual and social activities of respectable women were constantly being scrutinized and judged, those who seemed too learned risked blurring the boundaries between an amateur hobby, which was acceptable, and a professional undertaking, which was not.
Charlotte was in the potentially awkward position of needing to acquire scholarly knowledge to make her collecting a success, and needing to obscure it to retain her social standing. Like collecting, art criticism remained a staunchly male domain, and there were few women willing to challenge this convention. Those who did had to be prepared to stand out from the crowd and have their names associated with a wide range of feminist causes. One of the best known of these was Emilia, Lady Dilke, who attended the South Kensington Art School in the 1850s before beginning to publish in a range of journals, becoming a contributor to the
Saturday Review
in 1864 and fine art critic for
Academy.
By the end of the century, she had published several major works of art history, including two volumes on
The Renaissance of Art in France
(1879), a critique of
Art in the Modern State
(1888) and a series of works exploring French architecture, sculpture, engraving and furniture.
But Emilia was a controversial woman, the subject of much discussion in polite Victorian society. During her unhappy first marriage to Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and a reputable scholar, she was publicly and frequently unfaithful, as a result of which several thinly veiled portrayals of adulterous wives and cuckolded husbands appeared in popular novels of the time. Her second marriage, to Charles Dilke, also carried a hint of scandal: they were married very shortly after Dilke was publicly named in a divorce case which ended his influential political career. In addition, Emiliaâs closeassociation with the trades unions â in particular the Womenâs Trade Union League, of which she was president â and with feminist causes such as womenâs enfranchisement meant that she continually courted controversy. Certainly, her behaviour provided plenty of ammunition for those in the establishment who wanted to argue that female scholarship led to a breakdown of social order and the undermining of accepted values.
Another of the rare female art critics was Anna Jameson, who made her way from the twilight existence of a governess to become a woman of letters. In 1842, she wrote a
Handbook to the Public Galleries of Art in and near London
, and two years later she published
A Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London
. Between 1843 and 1845, she contributed over forty essays on Italian painters to journals. Her work was clever, analytical and original. She gained widespread respect for her knowledge and her ability to convey her ideas accessibly: âher contemplation of the great works of the great schools was more intelligent than that of men in many ways more learned than sheâ, observed one later commentator in 1879. 7 For her series on
Sacred and Legendary Art
, which appeared from 1848 until after her death in 1860, she had lengthy discussions with Charles Eastlake, who had been working on a similar theme. Eventually, in a rare act of scholarly magnanimity and as a clear indication of his respect for her work, Eastlake gave her all the material and references he had collected himself. Despite such achievements, however, Anna had to make her writing non-polemical and uncontroversial, weeding out phrases that seemed too explicitly feminist in an effort to get readers, both male and female, to take her views seriously. To sell her books to a wide public, it was critical that she
Charlotte was in the potentially awkward position of needing to acquire scholarly knowledge to make her collecting a success, and needing to obscure it to retain her social standing. Like collecting, art criticism remained a staunchly male domain, and there were few women willing to challenge this convention. Those who did had to be prepared to stand out from the crowd and have their names associated with a wide range of feminist causes. One of the best known of these was Emilia, Lady Dilke, who attended the South Kensington Art School in the 1850s before beginning to publish in a range of journals, becoming a contributor to the
Saturday Review
in 1864 and fine art critic for
Academy.
By the end of the century, she had published several major works of art history, including two volumes on
The Renaissance of Art in France
(1879), a critique of
Art in the Modern State
(1888) and a series of works exploring French architecture, sculpture, engraving and furniture.
But Emilia was a controversial woman, the subject of much discussion in polite Victorian society. During her unhappy first marriage to Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford, and a reputable scholar, she was publicly and frequently unfaithful, as a result of which several thinly veiled portrayals of adulterous wives and cuckolded husbands appeared in popular novels of the time. Her second marriage, to Charles Dilke, also carried a hint of scandal: they were married very shortly after Dilke was publicly named in a divorce case which ended his influential political career. In addition, Emiliaâs closeassociation with the trades unions â in particular the Womenâs Trade Union League, of which she was president â and with feminist causes such as womenâs enfranchisement meant that she continually courted controversy. Certainly, her behaviour provided plenty of ammunition for those in the establishment who wanted to argue that female scholarship led to a breakdown of social order and the undermining of accepted values.
Another of the rare female art critics was Anna Jameson, who made her way from the twilight existence of a governess to become a woman of letters. In 1842, she wrote a
Handbook to the Public Galleries of Art in and near London
, and two years later she published
A Companion to the Most Celebrated Private Galleries of Art in London
. Between 1843 and 1845, she contributed over forty essays on Italian painters to journals. Her work was clever, analytical and original. She gained widespread respect for her knowledge and her ability to convey her ideas accessibly: âher contemplation of the great works of the great schools was more intelligent than that of men in many ways more learned than sheâ, observed one later commentator in 1879. 7 For her series on
Sacred and Legendary Art
, which appeared from 1848 until after her death in 1860, she had lengthy discussions with Charles Eastlake, who had been working on a similar theme. Eventually, in a rare act of scholarly magnanimity and as a clear indication of his respect for her work, Eastlake gave her all the material and references he had collected himself. Despite such achievements, however, Anna had to make her writing non-polemical and uncontroversial, weeding out phrases that seemed too explicitly feminist in an effort to get readers, both male and female, to take her views seriously. To sell her books to a wide public, it was critical that she
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