Friday Fun: Angelika Kauffmann

When I rewatched Portrait of a Lady on Fire recently, it occurred to me that the main protagonist, the woman artist, could well be a fictional representation of the 18th century Neo-Classical painting sensation Angelika Kauffmann. Her father was a painter too and taught her his craft: I always considered her Austrian (having spent my childhood in Vienna), and it turns out her father was Austrian but she was born in Switzerland and lived a peripatetic lifestyle as a child prodigy. In later life she had great success in England and Italy, although she was denigrated (or ‘trolled’) as well as praised throughout her lifetime and beyond.

Self-portrait: the Artist hesitating between the Arts of Music and Painting. Angelika was equally gifted as a singer but in the end opted for painting, although it was a career that would be harder to break into for her as a woman.

The Judgement of Paris: For example, she was not allowed to study male nudes as a woman artist, so she has often been disregarded as a painter of ‘rather effeminate male figures’.

Cupid and Psyche. The historical, allegorical or mythical subject matters were considered far more prestigious than portraits, and were usually the preserve of men. Although in an earlier period Artemisia Gentileschi painted classical subjects, by the 18th century this had changed and women were relegated to more domestic subject matter. Mme Vigee Le Brun, for example, painted predominantly portraits and landscapes.

Portrait of a Lady, probably Elizabeth Montagu. In England, Kauffmann was particularly popular as the portrait painter of the aristocracy.

Lady Georgiana Spencer, Henrietta Spencer and George, Viscount Althorp. During her time in England, Kauffmann was one of only two women to become a founding member of the Royal Academy (against some opposition and calls of favouritism because of an alleged affair with Sir Joshua Reynolds).

Cornelia pointing to her children as treasures. A visitor shows off her jewels to the Roman matriarch Cornelia, who then says in a (possibly unbearably smug tone) that her only treasures are her sons Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, who both became Roman politicians and tribunes later in life. Mind you, I have some sympathy for single mum Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, who did her best to ensure her sons got the best possible education, but then was destined to outlive her sons, who were both assassinated.