Works on Paper, Works on Ivory: Looking Closely at the Materiality Used by 19th-Century Women Artists

by Lauren Lovings-Gomez   

A Marie Zimmermann Research Grant from the Decorative Arts Trust allowed me to travel to collections and archives in Washington, D.C.; Wilmington, DE; and Cleveland, OH, to conduct research for my dissertation, “Materiality, Innovation, and Women Artists in 19th-Century Britain.”

In the library and archive of the National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C., I reviewed and documented the Anna Lea Merritt Papers (1863–1922). An American artist who was active in Britain, Merritt was mostly known for her paintings, but I focus on her etchings in my dissertation, which examines the material of paper. Gaining access to this archive on Merritt offered insight into the possible identity of a model she used (figure 1), her journey into printmaking, and the development of her artistic practice.

At the Delaware Art Museum (DAM) in Wilmington, DE, I studied a group of objects that serve as focal points and comparatives in my dissertation. Anna Lea Merritt’s etching The Weaving Shed (1910) depicts a woman at break in a textile factory. I have found only two versions of this work—DAM’s example and another in London. From examining them in person, I have noticed that the Delaware print is significantly lighter in its ink application than the one in London. I plan to argue the significance of this materiality in my dissertation.

Also in the collection at DAM are Winifred Sandys’s group of portrait miniatures Taste; Smell; Hearing; Touch; Seeing (1911–12) and Phoebe Anna Traquair’s enamel Pendant: The Song (1904), which are central to a dissertation chapter on portable and personal objects. I spent a great deal of time with Sandys’s miniatures (figure 2) and admired the level of detail in each. Through this intimate viewing, I gathered visual information that is difficult to appreciate through a printed image. For instance, in Seeing, I saw the blue of the young woman’s veins in her neck (figure 3). In another example, light shows a particular effect of polish or shine on distinct areas of the ivory miniatures.

The Samuel and Mary R. Bancroft Pre-Raphaelite Manuscript Collection in the DAM archives held, in particular, numerous pages of correspondence between Samuel Bancroft and Anna Lea Merritt. These letters offer significant insight during the stage when she would have worked on The Weaving Shed. I am thankful to Sophie Lynford and Rachael DiEleuterio for their assistance and hospitality in sharing objects with me, as well as the curatorial and archival files.

At Winterthur Library, I consulted and documented various rare primary sources on materiality, including archives on historical recipes for artistic techniques.

In Cleveland, I returned to the Cleveland Museum of Art, where I spent nearly every day while earning an MA in Art History and Museum Studies at Case Western Reserve University. In September, I had the unique experience of viewing Christina Rossetti’s drawing Portrait of William Michael Rossetti (figure 4) with Britany Salsbury, Curator of Prints and Drawings, and Moyna Stanton, Paper Conservator, in the paper conservation lab. Moyna shared her expertise to help me discern details about the materiality of Rossetti’s rendering. We looked at all sides of the drawing under different types of light and the microscope (figure 5) to narrow down the paper and graphite types with which Rossetti was working.

This trip has greatly assisted in rounding out my dissertation research, and I am grateful for the support of the Marie and John Zimmermann Fund through the Decorative Arts Trust in furthering the progress of my work.

Lauren Lovings-Gomez is a PhD candidate in the Art History department at Rice University.