Illuminating the Old Masters and Enlightening the British Public: Anna Jameson and the Contribution of British Women to Empirical Art History in the 1840s

Abstract

This article investigates and contextualizes a less-studied aspect of Anna Jameson’s writings on art — her lobbying for the systematic acquisition, display, and dissemination of information about the old masters at the National Gallery, London. It also sets this aspect of Jameson’s scholarship within a broader context of her later art writings to tease out important common, abiding threads, not least her focus on areas that were not mainstream fields of art history at the time; her employment of an empirical research methodology, inspired by innovative Continental scholarship; and her tone of voice, carefully chosen to engage a non-specialist readership. Jameson’s work will be compared too with that of other women art writers of her generation, notably Maria Graham (later Lady Callcott) and Mary Merrifield, to assess what was distinctive about their work, especially in relation to what their male peers were producing. Particular mention will be made of Charles Eastlake, secretary of the Fine Arts Commission from 1841 and keeper of the National Gallery from 1843, and the fruitful working association he enjoyed with all three women, especially during the 1840s, before his marriage, in 1849, to Elizabeth Rigby, who herself thereafter went on to make her name as a writer on art historical matters.