A pioneer in her field, ANGELICA KAUFFMAN was an early example of female ability and power in the art world, finds Amanda Hodges
NATIONAL TRUST COLLECTIONS (NOSTELL PRIORY, THE ST. OSWALD COLLECTION). PURCHASED BY PRIVATE TREATY WITH THE HELP OF A GRANT FROM THE HERITAGE LOTTERY FUND 2002.
RETROSPECTIVE
“THE MOST CULTIVATED WOMAN IN EUROPE.” This was the accolade bestowed upon Swiss 18th century artist Angelica Kauffman in her lifetime but, today, many may not recognise her name. A welcome retrospective at the Royal Academy – of which she was a founder member – hopes to remedy this, retracing her life in an exhibition encompassing years as a child prodigy to her career as one of Europe’s most acclaimed Neoclassical artists, celebrated for her portraits, historical paintings, engravings and interior designs.
Born in Chur, Switzerland in 1741, Maria Anna Angelika Kauffmann was passionate about both art and music as a girl, encouraged by her enlightened artist father for whom she worked as an assistant as they travelled Europe. Kauffman gained useful proficiency in several languages because of this itinerant lifestyle. After her mother’s early demise, she devoted herself wholeheartedly to the pursuit of art, a decision revisited in Selfportrait at the Crossroads between the Arts of Music and Painting (1794) painted in Rome as an adult. Assistant curator Rebecca Bray and curator Annette Wickham rate this “one of the most impressive [of her works] where s he looked back on her choice to pursue a career as an artist instead of becoming a musician, painting this moment as though with the grandeur of a scene from history or mythology.”
Although she was a talented artist, encompassing landscape and decorative art, Kauffman always considered herself primarily a history painter, a bold and ambitious choice. History painting was then perceived as the apotheosis of art, but ▸ Kauffman bravely reinvigorated the genre by frequently focusing on female protagonists (like Circe and Cleopatra) depicting scenes from classical history and mythology such as The Sorrows of Telemachus focusing on the adventures of the Greek hero Odysseus’s son.
Early in her career, Kauffman spent many years in Italy and then, courtesy of the influential patronage of Lady Wentworth, wife of the British consul in Venice, arrived in London in 1766. After painting renowned actor David Gar
