Kirsten Tambling: Sense & Sensibility
Kirsten Tambling reviews Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Entwined Lives of Two Great Eighteenth-Century Women Artists by Franny Moyle.
18th Century Artistic Talent
Angelica Kauffman was a woman of many talents. She was adept with a glass harmonica, and in 1768, the Danish poet Helfrich Peter Sturz described her playing it in her London studio, eliciting "haunting chimes from a set of gradated glasses, with ‘her large expressive eyes devoutly cast upwards’".
- She also played the cittern
- Delighted guests with poetry recitations
her large expressive eyes devoutly cast upwards
Her artistic talents also included painting, as seen in her 1767 portrait of the Duchess of Brunswick, depicted in flowing classical drapery of sumptuous white and blue, holding her infant son.
Author summary: Review of 18th-century women artists.