Women’s world – six female artists at the National Trust

From unknown amateurs to lauded professionals, a new book highlights six centuries of women’s art, with numerous pieces on show in National Trust buildings. Antique Collecting celebrates seven of the lesser-known makers

Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608), embroidery maker

Visitors to Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire can marvel at examples of some of the most fascinating, and rarest, textiles of the late 16th century. They were produced during the life of Elizabeth (Bess) Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (1527-1608) who not only gave over entire rooms at Hardwick for professional embroiderers, but was also a skilled maker herself, with some of the most characterful pieces the product of her own needle.

Textiles held a particular place in elite household during this period. The extraordinary cost of the materials – silks, gold threads, continental velvets – and the skilled labour needed to produce them meant they were the epitome of luxury.

Bess took an active interest in the design, development and production of the tapestries. Embroidery featuring flower or plant stems (called ‘plant slips’, as ‘slipping’ was the practice of pulling up single stems with roots to propagate new plants) becoming increasingly fashionable.

The collections at Hardwick include a group of octagonal plant-slip panels, most bearing the prominent initials of their maker – ES for Elizabeth Shrewsbury.

It is possible they were originally incorporated into five wall hangings described in a 1601 inventory of the property. The embroideries show stylised trees, flowers and plants, from leaf to root, accompanied by an occasional hen, snail or butterfly. Most are copied from illustrations in botanist Pietro Andrea Mattioli’s 1558 Commentary on Dioscorides. The examples above include stinking iris, gourd and laurel.

Around the edge of each octagon is a Latin motto, taken from sources including Erasmus’s Adages (1500). Bess worked on the embroideries with Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587) while the latter was incarcerated and in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury.

Suzanne de Court (active 1575–1625), enamellist

French-born Suzanne de Court, whose work can be seen in Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire, produced enamel works of exceptional quality.

Unusually, she signed her work – the only woman enameller known to do so. She is responsible for a lustrous enamelled plaque of The Annunciation made around 1600 in her home town of Limoges in south-west France, which was at the time a major centre for enamel production for courtly clients.  At the time, de Court, was one of only two known female enamel painters in Limoges.

Although little is known of her life, she came from a dynasty of enamel painters and it is thought that she probably ran the de Court workshop. The intense, almost shimmering colour she achieved is a result of the painted enamel technique, in which ground glass is mixed with metal oxides, laid over copper and silver foils, and fired, creating a luminous effect. De Court’s workshop also made more functional objects decorated in enamel, such as mirror backs and serving dishes.

The presence of one of her plaques at Waddesdon is thanks to another woman, Alice de Rothschild (1847–1922), who inherited the estate from her brother Ferdinand in 1898 and assembled a collection of Renaissance works of art for the Smoking Room in the Bachelors’ Wing.

She was a passionate, independently minded and discerning collector, and bought other pieces by de Court, as well as inheriting them from Ferdinand.

In 1917, a plaque was bought for £2,000 (the equivalent of around £120,000 today) with another also acquired from the same set.

Louisa Courtauld (1729–1807), renowned goldsmith

On show at Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire is work by the 18th-century female goldsmith Louisa Courtauld (1729-1807). Louisa Perina Ogier came to England as a baby after her father, a silk weaver, moved as a refugee to Spitalfields, the area of London most closely associated with the production of sumptuous silk cloth. At the time London was home to many Huguenot (French Protestant) craftspeople, who had fled to London from France to escape religious persecution.

It was her marriage to Samuel Courtauld (1720–1765), a second-generation goldsmith, that established Louisa’s connection to the business. Courtauld was in her mid-thirties when, following the death of her husband, she took control of the family firm, as such widows often did.

Unlike the many anonymous women who were involved in goldsmithing as workers or suppliers, Courtauld’s prominent role as a wealthy businesswoman means that her contribution to the trade is more easily recognised today. During her early years in business she had pieces marked with her own initials ‘LC’ in a lozenge-shaped punch, indicating her status as a widow. She later registered a mark with her business partner, George Cowles (d.1811), and another with her son Samuel (1752–1821).

Her clients included Sir Nathaniel Curzon of Kedleston (1726–1804), who ordered a remarkable set of condiment vases, a set of tea canisters with a sugar vase, and an argyll (gravy warmer) all in the fashionable neoclassical style. When Curzon settled his account in 1777 it amounted to £142 3s 6d (over £12,000 today).

Rebecca Emes (d.1829-1830), silversmith

Rebecca Emes was a partner in one of the largest manufacturing silversmiths of its day – Emes and Barnard, whose London workshop created pieces for its own aristocratic customers and supplied major retailers, including the prestigious royal goldsmiths Rundell, Bridge & Rundell.

Emes took over the business following the death of her husband with her first mark registered in 1808, jointly with William Emes, her husband’s executor. A few months later she registered her first mark with her partner, Edward Barnard (d.1855), previously her husband’s foreman. Together, they developed a highly successful business, supplying silver across Britain and overseas, including to the US and India. The range included tea and coffee sets for the fashionable table, as well as cruets, tureens and toast racks; and more personal practical items, such as inkstands and chamber candlesticks.

This towering centrepiece (above), which can be seen at Anglesey Abbey, would have been a magnificent conversation piece at dessert, as well as providing light for those gathered around the table.

Anna Atkins (1799–1871), botanist and publisher

Anna Atkins (1799-1871) is recognised today as the first person to publish a book illustrated with photographs – an achievement made possible by her pioneering application of the cyanotype process. Atkins combined scientific knowledge and artistic talent throughout her life and work, encouraged by her father, the chemist, mineralogist and natural scientist John George Children (1777–1852).

Her contribution of 256 original drawings to illustrate his published translation of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck’s Genera of Shells (1822–1824) serves as an early example.

She joined the Botanical Society of London in 1839 and was exposed to the groundbreaking inventions of Sir John Herschel (1792–1871) and William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–1877) of Lacock Abbey. She was quick to adopt Herschel’s cyanotype process (announced in 1842) to make remarkable botanical photographs.

Brushing writing paper with a solution of iron salts to make it light sensitive, Atkins would lay a specimen and handwritten label directly on top, place them securely under glass in the sun for several minutes and finally wash in water. Her absorbing, delicate and camera-less studies of nature were rendered in negative form – shades of white against the alluring Prussian blues that permeate the paper.

Atkins gave the first part of her privately published book Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions to the Royal Society in 1843. Hundreds more prints followed in instalments over the following decade. She later made this Hedysarum genus print, for her friend Anne Dixon.

Emmeline Cust (1867–1955), sculptor

Born Emmeline Welby-Gregory, ‘Nina’ Cust was a writer, editor, translator, poet and sculptor. She was descended from a line of intellectual women – her mother, Victoria, published extensively on the philosophy of language, while her grandmother, also called Emmeline, was a famous travel writer and poet.

Cust is now recognised as one of the great creative women of Belton House, Lincolnshire. But this was not always the case. The troubled circumstances of her marriage to Belton’s heir, Harry Cust (1861-1917), once dominated her narrative – an example of how women’s histories can become skewed or diminished.

Some, but probably not all, of Cust’s sculpture is known today. Signed portrait busts in plaster, marble and metal exist at Belton, with its church housing a monumental marble effigy of Harry – staggering in its scale and emotional weight.

Cust was herself the subject of portraits by the arts and crafts enamellist Alexander Fisher and by the symbolist painters George Frederic Watts and John Collier. Contemporary accounts speak of her artistic interests and aesthetic sensibility. She was twice depicted by the sculptor Sir Alfred Gilbert, his portrait of her exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1900.

Amateur (non-professional) sculpture was practised by women in her social circle. Associated with an elite cultural group known as the ‘Souls’, it may have been through the influence of fellow Soul and artist Violet Manners, Duchess of Rutland (1856–1937), that she took up sculpture. Sir Alfred Gilbert, who was supported by Manners, may also have given her sculpture lessons.

Cust continued to sculpt well into the 20th century, exhibiting a bust of her niece Joan at the Royal Academy in 1906.

Margaret Hardman (1909-1970), photographer

The photographic accomplishments of Margaret Hardman (n.e Mills) are increasingly appreciated, as are her energy and acumen in running a busy photographic business – the Burrell and Hardman studio in Liverpool.

Her ambitions in the field of photography started at school, where she was recommended to the photographer Edward Chambré. Hardman (1898-1988), becoming his studio assistant in 1926. She quickly bolstered her technical and creative skills before moving to Paisley, Scotland, in 1929 to join John Douglas Ritchie’s photographic studio, where a portrait of her standing next to a large plate camera was taken. Her employee reference from Chambré described her in glowing terms as “energetic, most intelligent and versatile” and remarked that “we are very sorry to lose her.”

Her relationship with Chambré blossomed despite the distance; united in their mutual passion for photography, they married in 1932. As the vivacious driving force behind their studio’s operations, Margaret attentively engaged their clients and mainly female staff. One former employee later likened her to “a flamenco dancer … her temperament as fiery and flamboyant.” Her astute, perfectionist eye pored over each stage of production, from the darkroom to retouching, and was directed with equal rigour at her own photography.

Hardman’s impressive photographs of rural and urban landscapes, in which she often focused on light and shadow, were cited by her husband, Chambré, as highly influential on his own pursuit of the genre.

He frequently acknowledged his wife’s quiet observations, such as the shadow spilling over a doorstep of which he wrote: “Observed and photographed by my late wife in Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire. She also made the print. The image was taken using a Rolleiflex camera.” She also submitted several of her prints to competitions and exhibited in the UK and USA.

Women Artists & Designers at the National Trust is written by the conservation charity’s senior national curator Dr Rachel Conroy and includes an introduction by the comedian, broadcaster and campaigner Sandi Toksvig. It is available in store at National Trust shops or online at www.nationaltrust.org.uk where you can also find details of the properties mentioned.