Paris, and of the New Century Club, Philadelphia. Born in Philadelphia,
1859. Pupil of School of Design, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and
of St. Gaudens at Art Students' League; also six years in Paris schools.
This artist executed a portrait of General Beaver for the Smith Memorial
in Fairmount Park. She has made many portraits in busts and bas-reliefs,
as well as imaginary subjects and decorative works. "The Israelite" is a
life-size statue and an excellent work.
<b>COLLAERT, MARIE.</b> Born in Brussels, 1842. Is called the Flemish Rosa
Bonheur and the Muse of Belgian landscape. Her pictures of country life
are most attractive. Her powerful handling of her brush is modified by a
tender, feminine sentiment.
I quote from the "History of Modern Painters": "In Marie Collaert's
pictures may be found quiet nooks beneath clear sky-green stretches of
grass where the cows are at pasture in idyllic peace. Here is to be
found the cheery freshness of country life."
<b>COMAN, CHARLOTTE B.</b> Bronze medal, California Mid-Winter Exposition,
1894. Member of New York Water-Color Club. Born in Waterville, N. Y.
Pupil of J. R. Brevoort in America, of Harry Thompson and Émile Vernier
in Paris. This artist has painted landscapes, and sent to the
Philadelphia Exposition in 1876 "A French Village"; to the Paris
Exposition, 1878, "Near Fontainebleau." In 1877 and 1878 she exhibited in
Boston, "On the Borders of the Marne" and "Peasant House in Normandy."
[_No reply to circular_.]
<b>COMERRE-PATON, MME. JACQUELINE.</b> Honorable mention, 1881; medal at
Versailles; officer of the Academy. Born at Paris, 1859. Pupil of
Cabanel. Her principal works are: "Peau d'Ane, Hollandaise," in the
Museum of Lille; "Song of the Wood," Museum of Morlaix; "Mignon,"
portrait of Mlle. Ugalde; the "Haymaker," etc.
<b>COOKESLEY, MARGARET MURRAY.</b> Decorated by the Sultan of Turkey with
the Order of the Chefakat, and with the Medaille des Beaux Arts, also a
Turkish honor. Medal for the "Lion Tamers in the Time of Nero." Member of
the Empress Club. Born in Dorsetshire. Studied in Brussels under Leroy
and Gallais, and spent a year at South Kensington in the study of
anatomy. Mrs. Cookesley has lived in Newfoundland and in San Francisco. A
visit to Constantinople brought her a commission to paint a portrait of
the son of the Sultan. No sittings were accorded her, the Sultan
thinking a photograph sufficient for the artist to work from. Fortunately
Mrs. Cookesley was able to make a sketch of her subject while following
the royal carriage in which he was riding. The portrait proved so
satisfactory to the Sultan that he not only decorated the artist, but
invited her to make portraits of some of his wives, for which Mrs.
Cookesley had not time. Her pictures of Oriental subjects have been
successful. Among these are: "An Arab Café in the Slums of Cairo," much
noticed in the Academy Exhibition of 1895; "Noon at Ramazan," "The
Snake-Charmer," "Umbrellas to Mend--Damascus," and a group of the
"Soudanese Friends of Gordon." Her "Priestess of Isis" is owned in Cairo.
Among her pictures of Western subjects are "The Puritan's Daughter,"
"Deliver Us from Evil," "The Gambler's Wife." "Widowed" and "Miss Calhoun
as Salome" were purchased by Maclean, of the Haymarket Theatre; "Death of
the First-Born" is owned in Russia; and "Portrait of Ellen Terry as
Imogen" is in a private collection.
"Lion Tamers in the Time of Nero" is one of her important pictures of
animals, of which she has made many sketches.
<b>COOPER, EMMA LAMPERT.</b> Awarded medal at World's Columbian Exposition,
1893; bronze medal, Atlanta Exposition, 1895. Member of Water-Color Club
and Woman's Art Club, New York; Water-Color Club and Plastic Club,
Philadelphia; Woman's Art Association, Canada; Women's International Art
Club, London.
Born in Nunda, N. Y. Studied under Agnes D. Abbatt at Cooper Union and at
the Art Students' League, New York; in Paris under Harry Thompson and at
Delécluse and Colarossi Academies.
[Illustration: A CANADIAN INTERIOR
EMMA LAMPERT COOPER]
Mrs. Cooper's work is principally in water-colors. After several years
abroad, in the spring of 1903 she exhibited twenty-two pictures,
principally of Dutch interiors, with some sketches in English towns,
which last, being more unusual, were thought her best work. Her picture,
"Mother Claudius," is in the collection of Walter J. Peck, New York;
"High Noon at Cape Ann" is owned by W. B. Lockwood, New York; and a
"Holland Interior" by Dr. Gessler, Philadelphia. Of her recent exhibition
a critic writes: "The pictures are notable for their careful attention to
detail of drawing. Architectural features of the rich old Gothic churches
are faithfully indicated instead of blurred, and the treatment is almost
devotional in tone, so sympathetic is the quality of the work. There is a
total absence of the garish coloring which has become so common, the
religious subjects being without exception in a minor key, usually soft
grays and blues. It is indeed in composition and careful drawing that
this artist excels rather than in coloring, although this afterthought is
suggested by the canvasses treating of secular subjects."--_Brooklyn
Standard Union_.
<b>CORAZZI, GIULITTA.</b> Born at Fivizzano, 1866. Went to Florence when
still a child and early began to study art. She took a diploma at the
Academy in 1886, having been a pupil of Cassioli. She is a portrait
painter, and among her best works are the portraits of the Counts
Francesco and Ottorino Tenderini, Giuseppe Erede, and Raffaello
Morvanti. Her pictures of flowers are full of freshness and spirit and
delightful in color. Since 1885 she has spent much time in teaching in
the public schools and other institutions and in private families.
<b>CORRELLI, CLEMENTINA.</b> Member of the Society for the Promotion of the
Fine Arts, in Naples. Born in Lesso, 1840. This artist is both a painter
and a sculptor. Pupil of Biagio Molinari, she supplemented his
instructions by constant visits to galleries and museums, where she could
study masterpieces of art. A statue called "The Undeceived" and a group,
"The Task," did much to establish her reputation. They were exhibited in
Naples, Milan, and Verona, and aroused widespread interest.
Her pictures are numerous. Among them are "St. Louis," "Sappho,"
"Petrarch and Laura," "Romeo and Juliet," "Hagar and Ishmael in the
Desert," "A Devotee of the Virgin," exhibited at Turin in 1884; a series
illustrating the "Seasons," and four others representing the arts.
<b>COSWAY, MARIA</b>. The artist known by this name was born Maria
Hadfield, the daughter of an Englishman who acquired a fortune as a
hotel-keeper in Leghorn, which was Maria's birthplace. She was educated
in a convent, and early manifesting unusual artistic ability, was sent to
Rome to study painting. Her friends there, among whom were Battoni,
Raphael Mengs, and Fuseli, found much to admire and praise in her art.
After her father's death Maria ardently desired to become a nun, but her
mother persuaded her to go to England. Here she came under the influence
of Angelica Kauffman, and devoted herself assiduously to painting.
She married Richard Cosway, an eminent painter of miniatures in
water-colors. Cosway was a man of fortune with a good position in the
fashionable circles of London. For a time after their marriage Maria
lived in seclusion, her husband wishing her to acquire the dignity and
grace requisite for success in the society which he frequented. Meantime
she continued to paint in miniature, and her pictures attracted much
attention in the Academy exhibitions.
When at length Cosway introduced her to the London world, she was greatly
admired; her receptions were crowded, and the most eminent people sat to
her for their portraits. Her picture of the Duchess of Devonshire in the
character of Spenser's Cynthia was very much praised. Cosway did not
permit her to be paid for her work, and as a consequence many costly
gifts were made her in return for her miniatures, which were regarded as
veritable treasures by their possessors.
Maria Cosway had a delicious voice in singing, which, in addition to her
other talent, her beauty, and grace, made her unusually popular in
society, and her house was a centre for all who had any pretensions to a
place in the best circles. Poets, authors, orators, lords, ladies,
diplomats, as well as the Prince of Wales, were to be seen in her
drawing-rooms. A larger house was soon required for the Cosways, and the
description of it in "Nollekens and His Times" is interesting:
"Many of the rooms were more like scenes of enchantment pencilled by a
poet's fancy, than anything perhaps before displayed in a domestic
habitation. Escritoires of ebony, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and rich
caskets for antique gems, exquisitely enamelled and adorned with onyx,
opals, rubies, and emeralds; cabinets of ivory, curiously wrought; mosaic
tables, set with jasper, blood-stone, and lapis-lazuli, their feet carved
into the claws of lions and eagles; screens of old raised Oriental Japan;
massive musical clocks, richly chased with ormulu and tortoise-shell;
ottomans superbly damasked; Persian and other carpets, with corresponding
hearth-rugs bordered with ancient family crests and armorial ensigns in
the centre, and rich hangings of English tapestry. The carved
chimney-pieces were adorned with the choicest bronzes and models in wax
and terra-cotta. The tables were covered with Sèvres, blue Mandarin,
Nankin, and Dresden china, and the cabinets were surmounted with crystal
cups, adorned with the York and Lancaster roses, which might have graced
the splendid banquets of the proud Wolsey."
In the midst of all this fatiguing luxury, Maria Cosway lost her health
and passed several years travelling in Europe. Returning to London, she
was again prostrated by the death of her only daughter. She then went to
Lodi, near Milan, where she founded a college for the education of girls.
She spent much time in Lodi, and after the death of her husband
established herself there permanently. A goodly circle of friends
gathered about her, and she found occupation and solace for her griefs in
the oversight of her college.
She continued her painting and the exhibition of her pictures at the
Royal Academy. She made illustrations for the works of Virgil, Homer,
Spenser, and other poets, and painted portraits of interesting and
distinguished persons, among whom were Mme. Le Brun and Mme. Récamier.
The life and work of Maria Cosway afford a striking contradiction of the
theory that wealth and luxury induce idleness and dull the powers of
their possessors. Hers is but one of the many cases in which a woman's a
woman "for a' that."
At an art sale in London in 1901, an engraving by V. Green after Mrs.
Cosway's portrait of herself, first state, brought $1,300, and a second
one $200 less.
<b>COUDERT, AMALIA KÜSSNER.</b> Born in Terre Haute, Indiana. This
distinguished miniaturist writes me that she "never studied." Like Topsy,
she must have "growed." By whatever method they are produced or by
whatever means the artist in her has been evolved, her pictures would
seem to prove that study of a most intelligent order has done its part in
her development.
She has executed miniature portraits of the Czar and Czarina of Russia,
the Grand Duchess Vladimir, King Edward VII., the late Cecil Rhodes, many
English ladies of rank, and a great number of the beautiful and
fashionable women of America.
<b>COUTAN-MONTORGUEIL, MME. LAURE MARTIN.</b> Honorable mention, Salon des
Artistes Français, 1894. Born at Dun-sur-Auron, Cher. Pupil of Alfred
Boucher.
This sculptor has executed the monument to André Gill, Père Lachaise;
that of the Poet Moreau, in the cemetery Montparnasse; bust of Taglioni,
in the foyer of the Grand Opera House, Paris; bust of the astronomer
Leverrier, at the Institute, Paris; a statue, "The Spring," Museum of
Bourges; "Sirius," in the Palais of the Governor of Algiers. Also busts
of Prince Napoleon, General Boulanger, the Countess de Choiseul, the
Countess de Vogué, and numerous statuettes and other compositions.
At the Salon, Artistes Français, 1903, she exhibited "Fortune" and "A
Statuette."
<b>COWLES, GENEVIEVE ALMEDA.</b> Member of the Woman's Art Club, New York;
Club of Women Art Workers, New York; and the Paint and Clay Club of New
Haven. Born in Farmington, Connecticut, 1871. Pupil of Robert Brandagee;
of the Cowles Art School, Boston; and of Professor Niemeyer at the Yale
Art School.
Together with her twin sister, Maud, this artist has illustrated various
magazine articles. Also several books, among which are "The House of the
Seven Gables," "Old Virginia," etc.
Miss G. A. Cowles designed a memorial window and a decorative border for
the chancel of St. Michael's Church, Brooklyn. Together with her sister,
she designed a window in the memory of the Deaconess, Miss Stillman, in
Grace Church, New York City. These sisters now execute many windows and
other decorative work for churches, and also superintend the making and
placing of the windows.
Regarding their work in the Chapel of Christ Church, New Haven, Miss
Genevieve Cowles writes me: "These express the Prayer of the Prisoner,
the Prayer of the Soul in Darkness, and the Prayer of Old Age. These are
paintings of states of the soul and of deep emotions. The paintings are
records of human lives and not mere imagination. We study our characters
directly from life."
These artists are now, November, 1903, engaged upon a landscape frieze
for a dining-room in a house at Watch Hill.
Miss Genevieve Cowles writes: "We feel that we are only at the beginning
of our life-work, which is to be chiefly in mural decoration and stained
glass. I desire especially to work for prisons, hospitals, and
asylums--for those whose great need of beauty seems often to be
forgotten."
<b>COWLES, MAUD ALICE.</b> Twin sister of Genevieve Cowles. Bronze medal at
Paris Exposition, 1900, and a medal at Buffalo, 1901. Her studies were
the same as her sister's, and she is a member of the same societies.
Indeed, what has been said above is equally true of the two sisters, as
they usually work on the same windows and decorations, dividing the
designing and execution between them.
<b>COX, LOUISE--MRS. KENYON COX.</b> Third Hallgarten prize, National
Academy of Design; bronze medal, Paris Exposition, 1900; silver medal at
Buffalo, 1901; medal at Charleston, 1902; Shaw Memorial prize, Society of
American Artists, 1903. Member of Society of American Artists, and an
associate of the Academy of Design. Born at San Francisco, 1865. Studies
made at Academy of Design, Art Students' League, under C. Turner, George
de Forest Brush, and Kenyon Cox.
Mrs. Cox paints small decorative pictures and portraits, mostly of
children. The Shaw prize was awarded to a child's portrait, called
"Olive." Among other subjects she has painted an "Annunciation," the
"Fates," and "Angiola," reproduced in this book.
[Illustration: From a Copley Print.
ANGIOLA
LOUISE COX]
A writer in the _Cosmopolitan_ says: "Mrs. Cox is an earnest worker and
her method is interesting. Each picture is the result of many sketches
and the study of many models, representing in a composite way the
perfections of all. For the Virgin in her 'Annunciation' a model was
first posed in the nude, and then another draped, the artist sketching
the figure in the nude, draping it from the second model. The hands are
always separately sketched from a model who has a peculiar grace in
folding them naturally."
Mrs. Cox gives her ideas about her picture of the "Fates" as follows: "My
interpretation of the Fates is not the one usually accepted. The idea
took root in my mind years ago when I was a student at the League. It
remained urgently with me until I was forced to work it out. As you see,
the faces of the Fates are young and beautiful, but almost
expressionless. The heads are drooping, the eyes heavy as though half
asleep. My idea is, that they are merely instruments under the control of
a higher power. They perform their work, they must do it without will or
wish of their own. It would be beyond human or superhuman endurance for
any conscious instrument to bear for ages and ages the horrible
responsibility placed upon the Fates."
<b>CRESPO DE REIGON, ASUNCION.</b> Honorable mention at the National
Exhibition, Madrid, 1860. Member of the Academy of San Fernando, 1839.
Pupil of her father. To the exhibition in 1860 she sent a "Magdalen in
the Desert," "The Education of the Virgin," "The Divine Shepherdess," "A
Madonna," and a "Venus." Her works have been seen in many public
exhibitions. In 1846 she exhibited a miniature of Queen Isabel II. Many
of her pictures are in private collections.
<b>CROMENBURCH, ANNA VON.</b> In the Museum of Madrid are four portraits by
this artist: "A Lady of the Netherlands," which belonged to Philip IV.;
"A Lady and Child," "A Lady with her Infant before Her," and another
"Portrait of a Lady." The catalogue of the Museum gallery says: "It is
not known in what place or in what year this talented lady was born. She
is said to have belonged to an old and noble family of Friesland. At any
rate, she was an excellent portrait painter, and flourished about the end
of the sixteenth century. The Museo del Prado is the only gallery in
Europe which possesses works signed by this distinguished artist."
<b>DAHN-FRIES, SOPHIE.</b> Born in Munich. 1835-98. This artist was endowed
with unusual musical and artistic talent. After the education of her only
son, she devoted herself to painting, principally of landscape and
flowers. After 1868, so long as she lived she was much interested in Frau
von Weber's Art School for Girls. In 1886, when a financial crisis came,
Mme. Dahn-Fries saved the enterprise from ruin. She exhibited, in 1887,
two pictures which are well known--"Harvest Time" and "Forest Depths."
<b>DAMER, MRS. ANNE SEYMOUR.</b> Family name Conway. 1748-1828. She was a
granddaughter of the Duke of Argyle, a relative of the Marquis of
Hertford, and a cousin of Horace Walpole. Her education was conducted
with great care; the history of ancient nations, especially in relation
to art, was her favorite study. She had seen but few sculptures, but was
fascinated by them, and almost unconsciously cherished the idea that she
could at least model portraits and possibly give form to original
conceptions.
Allan Cunningham wrote of her thus: "Her birth entitled her to a life of
ease and luxury; her beauty exposed her to the assiduity of suitors and
the temptations of courts; but it was her pleasure to forget all such
advantages and dedicate the golden hours of her youth to the task of
raising a name by working in wet clay, plaster of Paris, stubborn marble,
and still more intractable bronze."
Before she had seriously determined to attempt the realization of her
dreams, she was brought to a decision by a caustic remark of the
historian, Hume. Miss Conway was one day walking with him when they met
an Italian boy with plaster vases and figures to sell. Hume examined the
wares and talked with the boy. Not long after, in the presence of several
other people, Miss Conway ridiculed Hume's taste in art; he answered her
sarcastically and intimated that no woman could display as much science
and genius as had entered into the making of the plaster casts she so
scorned.
This decided her to test herself, and, obtaining wax and the proper
tools, she worked industriously until she had made a head that she was
willing to show to others. She then presented it to Hume; it has been
said that it was his own portrait, but we do not know if this is true. At
all events, Hume was forced to commend her work, and added that modelling
in wax was very easy, but to chisel in marble was quite another task.
Piqued by this scant praise she worked on courageously, and before long
showed her critic a copy of the wax head done in marble.
Though Hume genuinely admired certain portions of this work, it is not
surprising that he also found defects in it. Doubtless his critical
attitude stimulated the young sculptress to industry; but the true
art-impulse was awakened, and her friends soon observed that Miss Conway
was no longer interested in their usual pursuits. When the whole truth
was known, it caused much comment. Of course ladies had painted, but to
work with the hands in wet clay and be covered with marble dust--to say
the least, Miss Conway was eccentric.
She at once began the study of anatomy under Cruikshanks, modelling with
Cerrachi, and the handling of marble in the studio of Bacon.
Unfortunately for her art, she was married at nineteen to John Darner,
eldest son of Lord Milton, a fop and spendthrift, who had run through a
large fortune. He committed suicide nine years after his marriage. It is
said that Harrington, in Miss Burney's novel of "Cecilia," was drawn from
John Damer, and that his wardrobe was sold for $75,000--about half its
original cost!
Mrs. Damer was childless, and very soon after her husband's death she
travelled in Europe and renewed her study and practice of sculpture with
enthusiasm. By some of her friends her work was greatly admired, but
Walpole so exaggerated his praise of her that one can but think that he
wrote out of his cousinly affection for the artist, rather than from a
judicial estimate of her talent. He bequeathed to her, for her life, his
villa of Strawberry Hill, with all its valuables, and £2,000 a year for
its maintenance.
Mrs. Damer executed many portrait busts, some animal subjects, two
colossal heads, symbolic of the Thames and the Isis, intended for the
adornment of the bridge at Henley. Her statue of the king, in marble, was
placed in the Register Office in Edinburgh. She made a portrait bust of
herself for the Uffizi Gallery, in Florence. Her portrait busts of her
relatives were numerous and are still seen in private galleries. She
executed two groups of "Sleeping Dogs," one for Queen Caroline and a
second for her brother-in-law, the Duke of Richmond. Napoleon asked her
for a bust of Fox, which she made and presented to the Emperor. A bust of
herself which she made for Richard Payne Knight was by him bequeathed to
the British Museum. Her "Death of Cleopatra" was modelled in relief, and
an engraving from it was used as a vignette on the title-page of the
second volume of Boydell's Shakespeare.
Those who have written of Mrs. Darner's art have taken extreme views.
They have praised _ad nauseam_, as Walpole did when he wrote: "Mrs.
Darner's busts from life are not inferior to the antique. Her shock dog,
large as life and only not alive, rivals the marble one of Bernini in
the Royal Collection. As the ancients have left us but five animals of
equal merit with their human figures--viz., the Barberini Goat, the
Tuscan Boar, the Mattei Eagle, the Eagle at Strawberry Hill, and Mr.
Jennings' Dog--the talent of Mrs. Damer must appear in the most
distinguished light."
Cerrachi made a full length figure of Mrs. Damer, which he called the
Muse of Sculpture, and Darwin, the poet, wrote:
"Long with soft touch shall Damers' chisel charm,
With grace delight us, and with beauty warm."
Quite in opposition to this praise, other authors and critics have
severely denied the value of her talent, her originality, and her ability
to finish her work properly. She has also been accused of employing an
undue amount of aid in her art. As a woman she was unusual in her day,
and as resolute in her opinions as those now known as strong-minded.
Englishwoman as she was, she sent a friendly message to Napoleon at the
crisis, just before the battle of Waterloo. She was a power in some
political elections, and she stoutly stood by Queen Caroline during her
trial.