A Mughal artist at work

Unknown Mughal artist
The Lady Paints a Self-Portrait while Her Attendant Faces Her Holding a Mirror
Image from the Khamsa-e-Nizami
Pakistan (1590s)

I was thrilled to find this image when I happened to stumble upon a wonderful blog called "Self Portraits of Color"...you should totally check it out! The image above shows a lady painting a self-portrait while her attendant holds a mirror before her. Another servant is fanning her, or perhaps swatting away insects. It is a detail from within this larger piece:

Unknown Mughal artist
Image from the Khamsa-e-Nizami
Pakistan (1590s)
The British Library

Mughal painting is a style of South Asian art that developed from the Persian Miniature tradition. It was influenced by many different cultures and groups such as Hindus, Muslims, Jains, and Buddhists. It was practiced mainly during the Mughal empire in the 16th-19th C, centered in the Indian subcontinet and Afghanistan. Because I know very little about Mughal art I am going to quote directly:

 "Even though the highly-educated and cultured women of the zenana certainly did commission albums and paintings, the imperial artists would not have been allowed into the zenana [n.b. In India and Iran, the zenana was the part of a house where the women lived in seclusion] to get a glimpse of them. There are a few portraits of this period which appear to be of actual women, taken from life, and it has been suggested that these were executed by female artists within the zenana (there are signed works by at least two female artists from Jahangir’s reign)." 

~Mugal Art 

The author of the blog Self-Portraits of Color has suggested that the artist who created this piece might be Sahifa Banu. If anyone reading this has expert knowledge of this period and can tell us more about the piece, please do chime in! 

Portrait of Diana

Artist Unknown  "Thamar Painting Diana"  France 1400s

This is an illumination or illustration from a copy of Bocaccio's book On Famous Women which was a runaway "best seller" of the middle ages, and was copied and recopied many times. Because calligraphers and illuminators rarely signed their work we have no idea who painted this charming scene of Thamar at work painting her famous portrait of the goddess Diana.  

Despite the contemporary 15th century clothing, Thamar, also known as Timarete or Tamaris, was a 5th century BCE Greek artist. She was the daughter of another painter, Micon the elder, and Pliny wrote about her in "Natural History" (77 CE) saying of her that she"scorned the duties of women and practised her father's art."  This "scorning" was almost certainly referring to the fact that she never married and produced children, rather than the fact that she was a painter. In ancient times women practiced all kinds of crafts and trades, painting among them, usually learning from and assisting a parent or family member, as was the case with Thamar.  It was only a small percentage of upper class women who were free from the necessity to help earn money, and were what we would today typify as "typical" housewives, concerned primarily with domestic duties. In ancient times, as in most times throughout history, the vast majority of women worked at paying jobs in addition to "the duties of women" to support themselves and their families, or else were actively working to assist and support those who actually worked outside the home. Life is almost always a team effort!

Thamar was best known as the creator of a painting of Diana, or Artemis, that graced that Goddess's temple at Ephesus for many centuries. Alas, Ephesus was destroyed, either razed by the Goths in 278 CE. or burned to the ground by an anti-pagan mob in the 400s (historians disagree) and Thamar's artwork was destroyed.

Because Bocaccio's book On Famous Women was such a big hit, there are many many editions of it, all with illuminations. I'll be posting the best of such Thamar at work illustrations as come my way from time to time. Many of them are little gems! To see all the Thamar paintings I have posted to date, just look up "Thamar" in the side bar of artist and subject names, or click here.

Painter in Pompeii

artist unknown  "Painter Completing a Portrait"  1st Century CE  
National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy

This scene is from the 1st century CE, a wall painting from the ancient city of Pompeii (region VI, insula 14, building 42.) It depicts a painter completing a portrait while another woman looks on. Women, like all people, have always worked, and there have always been women working outside what we now consider the "traditional" sphere of the home. It often surprises people to learn that in the ancient world women filled a wide array of jobs outside the home including medicine, importing and exporting, cloth manufacture, jewelry making and selling...the list goes on and on. While wealthy female citizens' work was indeed centered more around domestic duties, and they had servants and slaves to assist them, women of the lower classes often worked in the family business or took other paying jobs to support their families. In ancient Rome painting was a trade like any other, and was practiced by both men and women, as a matter of course.

Medieval Sculptor

artist unknown Le Livre des Cleres et Nobles Femmes, French, 15th C.
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

Florentine author Giovanni Bocaccio's book De mulieribus claris ("Of Famous Women") was first published in 1371. The book was a smash hit, and was republished all over Europe in numerous translations and editions for several centuries. This painting comes from a 15th century French version and the illustrator has dressed his or her subject in the contemporary garb of 15th Century France.

Despite an amazing amount of confusion on the topic of the role of women in the European medieval workforce, there is ample evidence that medieval women worked in the building trade as stonemasons, bricklayers, hod carriers, trench-diggers and in fact in every building job there was. A great advantage to hiring women was that they could be paid far less than men or boys for the same work. In the skilled craftsman fields it is true that women were not at every period of time and in every country allowed to be full guild members, although it appears that there was quite a lot of shifting of supposedly inflexible rules, over the centuries, and many gray areas throughout. Widows and female orphans of skilled craftsmen were indeed often allowed some level of guild membership in even the most gender-segregated countries (for example, historically, Germany had stricter rules barring women from certain professional trades than the Netherlands.)

If you'd like to read some of the latest scholarship on this topic you may read a synopsis of an article here.

Happy Birthday Maria!

Holly Trostle Brigham "Maria Sybilla Merian: Metamorphosis" 2010 Private Collection

I was astonished when a run-of-the-mill Google Search this morning showed me that today (April 2) is the birthday of the incredible Maria Sibylla Merian: she is the Google Doodle for today. Way go, Google! Anna Maria Sibylla Merian (1647-1717) was a German-Swiss artist and naturalist with strong ties to Holland. The confusion surrounding her nationality stems from her having been born in Frankfurt to a Swiss father and a German mother. Merian also spent some time living in Holland, where her artist/art dealer stepfather had business ties, and was later sponsored by the Dutch government to  make a historic and ground-breaking naturalizing expedition to Surinam.

artist unknown "Maria Sybilla Merian" date and location unknown

Merian's biological father,  Matthäus Merian der Ältere, a Swiss engraver and publisher, died in 1650 and her mother remarried, to artist/dealer Jacob Marrel. Marrel encouraged Merian in her natural affinity for drawing and painting. In 1665 Merian married Johan Graff, one of her stepfather's apprentices. Two years later she had her first child, and the family moved to Nuremberg which was Graff's hometown. Merian continued painting and drawing and because women in Germany at that time were not allowed to earn a living as fine artists, she used her considerable gifts to make design books for embroidery. She also contributed to the family's income by giving drawing lessons to the unmarried daughters of wealthy families. 

After a time, she also continued her serious work of botanical artist. She published, in Holland where no such prohibitions against women practicing art existed, several collections of engravings of plants, in 1675, 1677, and 1680. Even more unusually, she collected and observed live insects and created detailed drawings to illustrate insect metamorphosis. At that point in history, insects were called "beasts of the devil" and not believed to be of much scientific interest.  The life cycle and metamorphosis of insects was largely unknown, with the general thought being that they were "born of mud", through spontaneous generation.  Merian's careful observation of their life cycles was completely ground-breaking. Her work was popular with non-scientists because she wrote not in latin but in the vernacular. "However, it is should be noted  that her work was largely ignored by scientists of the time because the official language of science was still Latin." (Wikipedia)

Despite her lack of Latin, in 1699 the city of Amsterdam sponsored Merian to make a naturalizing expedition to their colony of Surinam accompanied by the younger of her two daughters, Dorothea Maria Graff, who was also a practicing artist. The two women spent over two years traveling around the colony of Surinam, sketching the flora and fauna and recording local native names for plants as well as their uses. Merian outspokenly criticized the Dutch planters' treatment of their black slaves and the indiginous people. A severe bout of Malaria forced the two women to return to the Netherlands in 1701. In 1705 she published Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium, a ground-breaking and astonishingly beautiful study of the insects of Surinam. 

artist unknown "Maria Sybilla Merian" date unknown

Sadly, Merian suffered a severe stroke in 1715. She was unable to work after that with much efficacy. Local registers of the time list her as "pauper." She died in Amsterdam in 1717. Her daughter Dorothea posthumously published a collection of her mother's work, the Erucarum Ortus Alimentum et Paradoxa Metamorphosis. This impressive collection helped preserve Merian's work and her reputation. She fell into obscurity for a while but was rediscovered in the last half of the 20th Century. She has now received numerous honors, especially in Germany, where her image appears on bank notes and stamps, and many schools are named after her. Happy Birthday Maria Sibylla Merian...we honor you!

Although, in fact, we have no real idea what you look like, dear Maria! If you search for portraits of the artist and you will find a goodly number, none of which look at all like the same person. Holly Trostle Brigham (b. 1965) who painted the imaginative lead image in this post is a contemporary artist whose work focuses on women and history. An alum of Smith College, George Washington University and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Brigham is represented by ACA Galleries in New York City. Her website can be seen here. 

Thamar, one more time!

Artist Unknown "Thamar Painting in Her Studio" 15th Century  location unknown 

Thamar (ca, 5th C B.C.) was a well-known painter in ancient Greece. Standard spellings of names translated from ancient tongues  are difficult, and so the artist can also be found referred to as Tamar, Thamyris, Thamaris and Timarete.  Her father was the painter, Micon the Younger, and she almost certainly learned the painting trade from him. In those times trades and professions were usually kept within families. Whether or not Thamar would have chosen to be a painter, had she lived in a time when she could have her choice, we will never know, but she was apparently extremely good at painting and her fame lives on, although there are no known extant examples of her work. Most painting at that time was done as fresco or mural, and most architectural structures of that period have been ruined by the passage of time, or demolished or subsumed by later renovation.

This is a 15th century rendition of Thamar, dressed in the garb of those days, that accompanies text by Bocaccio, from his book Of Noble Women written in the early 1400's and a runaway "best-seller" of the times. I have unfortunately not been able to trace the provenance of this particular manuscript page, my image notes, which were shorter and sketchier when I first started this project, report this as coming from from the Morgan Library, but an extensive search does not confirm that rather jaunty little notation. ;-)

At any rate, in this image by an unknown French artist we see Thamar painting what was probably her best-known work, a depiction of the goddess Diana. That masterwork was very well known in ancient times, and was held in reverence at the temple of Epheseus. Unfortunately, that temple was destroyed in 401 A.D. by a Christian mob led by St. John Chrysostom.

Don't forget, to enlarge this or any WAP image for better viewing pleasure, just click on it!

Pompeian Painter

artist unknown "Pompeian Woman Painting" ca. 55-79 a.d.
The National Archeological Museum of Naples, Italy

This fresco panel taken from the ruined city of Pompeii goes by many different names, with the most simple and elegant being the Italian title of "La Pittrice." It shows a seated woman painting, or perhaps applying just some finishing touches to a piece which appears to be already framed and held by a young boy. The artist is looking at a painted statue which is said to be of Priapus (for reasons which become clear if you click on the image and view it enlarged.) However, the God of Fertility is missing one of his usual attributes, a large peaked Phrygian cap. Two women look on as the painter works.  It is interesting to note that the painter has arranged herself so that the light falls from her left, as is still the norm for right-handed painters. A bit of a mystery is that the painting held by the child appears to be translucent...we can clearly see the shadow of his form through the piece, unless it is just a dark stroke that happens to look like this.

We know that women worked as professional painters, sculptors, potters, jewelers and etc. in ancient times. As in most professions throughout history, people tended to do the same work as their families, so that most female artists and artisans we hear about were trained in family workshops.

Happy New Year!

artist unknown "New Year's Calligraphy"  ca. 1880  private collection

This woodblock print from the japanese meiji period is entitled "New Year's Calligraphy". Kakizome is a traditional practice of writing out auspicious words and phrases in one's best calligraphy as part of the new Year celebrations. These wishes/prayers are then ceremonially burned.  However, such calligraphic efforts do not usually include painted imagery as we see here. I wonder if this print has been mis-titled, and instead of Kakizome, it illustrates the popular Japanese New Year's tradition of Nengajo, making and sending New Year's greeting cards to all one's friends, family, neighbors and acquaintances. While these greetings can now be bought ready-made, people used to make them by hand, with ink drawings and paintings, as well as calligraphy. Making the greeting cards was one of the many tasks leading up to Oshagatsu, the New Year's Holidays, celebrated from about December 30 thru about January 3.  The concept of Nengajo is similar to that of the western christmas card tradition but the Japanese send these cards in greater quantity. It is said that every year from 3 to 4 billion nengajo are delivered in Japan.

We can see this lady is painting an image of Mount Fuji. This may be related to the belief in Hatsuyume, the first dream of the New Year. It is believed that the best first dream of the New Year one can have is to dream of first, Mount Fuji, second, a hawk, and third, an eggplant. If you dream of one of these auspices you are assured that the year to come will be happy and prosperous for you.

Dear Women in the Act of Painting readers, even if you have not yet had a dream of Mount Fuji, a hawk, or an eggplant, I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

明けましておめでとうございます

Thamar with Apprentice

artist unknown "Thamar Painting, with Apprentice"  ca. 1403
Bibliothèque nationale de France

Thamar, also known as Tamar and Thamyris and Timarete, is not a myth or a legend, but was a real person, a Greek painter who lived in the 5th century B.C. In those days, people commonly followed in the trade or practice of their parents and Thamar was the daughter of Micon the Younger of Athens, a well-known and respected painter.  She was one of six women artists mentioned by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History compendium. Of Thamar Pliny says, "she scorned the duties of women and practised her father's art."  She was best known in Pliny's time for a panel painting of the Goddess Diana (Artemis) which was displayed in the Goddess's temple at Epheseus. Unfortunately, the temple, along with Thamar's work, was destroyed in either a Goth invasion in the Third Century or  by an anti-pagan mob led by Saint John Chrysostom in the 400s A.D. (Historians disagree on who gets the credit for the destruction.)

This painting of Thamar at work is from Bocaccio's De Cleres et Nobles Femmes, an edition made specially for Philip the Bold in around 1403. It is fascinating and delightful on several counts, particularly: 

1) Thamar's clothing and setting have been modernized into that of an early 15th Century French woman. This "updating" is typical practice for medieval artists. Also contemporary to the times is her painting equipment, including the presence of an apprentice busily grinding pigment (looks like lapis lazuli) for his Mistress. If Thamar did indeed scorn the duties of women, this is probably not her son, in typical Greek family workshop tradition, but instead may depict an apprentice contracted in the more typical medieval fashion through a guild. Women artists did belong to some medieval guilds and did indeed take on apprentices and journeymen, just as their male contemporaries did, although very often a female "master" was attached in some way (even just nominally) to a male, either a Husband, Father or Uncle. Still, such an arrangement was not at all uncommon, and the unknown artist making this painting would have "placed" Thamar in the terms of his/her own times.

2) Thamar has been Christianized as well as modernized. Instead of the pagan goddess Diana, or other Greco/Roman deity, we see Thamar painting a Virgin and Child. Ironic, considering Thamar's renunciation of traditional female roles! But very charming.

The Goddess

Artist Unknown "The Goddess Seshat" ca. 2055 B.C.  Temple of Karnak 

In Egyptian mythology Seshat (also spelled Safkhet, Sesat, Seshet, Sesheta, and Seshata) was the goddess of wisdom, picture-writing and architecture. Her name means she who scrivens (i.e. she who is the scribe), and she is credited and worshipped as the inventor of picture writing. (Which is why I am counting her as an image-maker, since hieroglyphs may be used as words but they are also visual representations, pictures, of things.)

In art the goddess Seshat is depicted as a woman with a multi-pointed emblem above her head, although it is unclear what this symbol represents. Interestingly, a spell in the Coffin Texts states "Seshat opens the door of heaven for you." Usually, as in this image, she is shown holding a stylus pen and surveying cords.

This wall carving, which at some earlier date might have been painted in bright colors, can be seen in the Temple of Karnak, in Luxor, Egypt and dates from about the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.

Painter in Her Atelier

Artist Unknown "Painter in Her Atelier" 1400s   Spencer Collection

This miniature is from an illuminated book entitled "Des cléres et nobles femmes." De mulieribus claris (Of Famous Women) was written by Giovanni Boccaccio and was first published in 1374. It became a runaway "bestseller" of its age and was copied and re-copied hundreds of times. This particular edition (MS. 33, f. 37v) is French and part of the Spencer Collection in the New York Public Library.

The painting shows the artist Marcia at work in her atelier. It is usually described as Marcia painting a self-portrait, as you can see the small mirror affixed to the arch next to the easel. The artist has set the painting in his or her "contemporary" 15th century France, but Marcia was actually an artist from ancient Roman times. From the wikipedia entry:

Iaia of Cyzicus ("Marcia") was a Roman painter, alive during the time of Marcus Terentius Varro (116-27 BC).  She was a famous painter and ivory engraver. Most of her paintings are said to be of women. Among pictures ascribed to her was a large panel, in Naples, picture of an old woman and a self-portrait. She was said to have worked faster and painted better than her male competitors, Sopolis and Dionysius, which enabled her to earn more than them.