Caroline Palmer. Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the alliance with science

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Caroline Palmer

Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the alliance with science

Cennini's  Treatise of Painting  translated by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (1844)

Hereafter is reproduced the first part of Chapter V of the PhD thesis of Carolie Palmer. This note is the second in the series on Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, after the one by Giovanni Mazzaferro, entitled "Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, the Lady from Brighton who Loved Colours".

Dr Caroline Palmer studied Modern and Medieval Languages at King's College, Cambridge, before working as an editor for the art publishers Thames & Hudson. She studied art history at Oxford Brookes University, obtaining her PhD in 2009. Her thesis, 'Women writers on art and perceptions of the female connoisseur, 1780-1860', focused in particular on the writings of Anna Jameson, Maria Graham Callcott, Elizabeth Eastlake and Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. Having taught as an associate lecturer at Oxford Brookes, she is currently Print Room Assistant in the Western Art Department of Prints and Drawings at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. She lectures regularly on women artists, travel-writers and art historians, as well as on a range of topics related to the Ashmolean's collection of works on paper. Her articles include 'Brazen Cheek: Face-Painters in Late Eighteenth-Century England', Oxford Art Journal, vol. 31, no. 2 (2008) and 'Colour, Chemistry and Corsets: Mary Philadelphia Merrifield's Dress as a Fine Art', Costume, vol. 47, issue 1 (2013).

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We have seen that in this period there was a perceived continuity between what would now be considered the separate areas of art and science, with women’s botanical studies, for example, blurring distinctions between the two. As with art, investigation of the natural world was deemed a suitable context in which middle-class women might make useful contributions to society, and in the early nineteenth century they were increasingly gaining recognition for their achievements in this area. [1] Mary Somerville gave a lecture on magnetism to the Royal Society in 1826 and, along with Caroline Herschel, was elected honorary fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1835. It is perhaps not surprising, then, to find certain women combining art-writing with an interest in empirical investigation.[2]

Apparently attracted by a curiosity concerning materials and techniques, Mary Philadelphia Merrifield (1804–89) indicates the broad sweep of topics on which women could publish on art, ranging from fresco to fashion. This chapter will demonstrate how a ‘scientific’ approach to such subjects could be used to validate female taste and to counter the notion that women were incapable of rational responses. I will also indicate the importance of translation work in enabling women to enter the field of art-writing.

Translation and treatises

Just how Merrifield came to be so interested in art is still a bit of a mystery, as there is little biographical information concerning her early life. Her location, first in Southwark, then in Brighton, did not exactly set her at the centre of all things artistic. Daughter of Middle Temple barrister Sir Charles Watkins (d. 1808), she in 1827 married conveyancing barrister John Merrifield (c. 1789–1877).[3] Merrifield first comes to notice in 1844 with her translation of Cennini’s 1437 treatise on painting.[4] She claimed to have been inspired to produce the work by a letter to the Art Union in 1841, which called for English editions of works on Renaissance fresco-painting.[5] Merrifield’s Cennini was part of a wave of interest in fresco technique in the 1830s and ’40s, in connection with the redecoration of the Houses of Parliament, partly inspired by the work of Peter Cornelius in Munich, under King Ludwig I of Bavaria.[6] Publication coincided with the second exhibition of competition cartoons for Westminster Hall in July 1844, and the work contributed to debates on the techniques recommended to modern artists. It was described by Blackwood’s as an ‘admirable and most useful volume’.[7]

Sherman and Holcomb have shown that women often became art-writers through translation work, and Merrifield certainly based her publication closely on Giuseppe Tambroni’s 1821 Italian edition of Cennini.[8] Her work was far more than a simple translation, however, as she added copious detailed notes to Tambroni’s version, assembling a wealth of relevant material from other authors, and making critical comparisons between them. In addition, Merrifield carried out practical experiments to settle questions about the pigments and processes used by Cennini, correcting previous translations in the light of her findings. For example, she describes making ‘many experiments on the effects of the alkalis and neutral salts when mixed with colours’, to satisfy herself that soda could safely be added to them.[9] Her aim was not merely to establish linguistic accuracy, but to obtain ‘satisfactory evidence’ for the colours used by Old Masters in order to assist contemporary artists. 

Other women had shown considerable interest in the techniques of early fresco-painters by this time. Graham, for example, had carried a copy of Cennini’s treatise with her when visiting Italy 1827–8, and studied unfinished frescoes to establish technical procedures.[10] Merrifield’s interest was primarily a practical, rather than an aesthetic one, however. Unlike Graham, she seems to have had little taste for early Italian painting, considering the works of Cimabue and Giotto to be ‘deficient in design and in drawing, and entirely ignorant of the theory of the art’. Yet she recognized that their intimate understanding of materials, and their tried and tested methods, could be of great value to modern artists, because they preserved the durability of the colours; the ‘colouring and execution ... excite our surprise and admiration even after a lapse of four centuries’, she declared.[11] Excusing away the unpolished style of the original text, as well as its Catholic dimension, Merrifield stresses that she wishes to bring out what is of practical relevance to modern artists. There is some evidence that her conclusions were indeed taken up by contemporaries. It has been suggested, for example, that her description of white grounds enhancing the purity of colours was explored by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.[12]

As in the case of Graham, it may be that Merrifield’s interest in materials and techniques arose from her own art practice. In 1851 she contributed two portraits to the Suffolk Street exhibition, and as with many women writers, she supplied illustrations for the Cennini, as well as preparing the text.[13] Her practical experience is suggested by her manual on portrait-painting in watercolours, written for Winsor and Newton, also in 1851.[14] Here she offers advice to those unable to afford regular instruction, based on solutions developed through her own first-hand experimentation. She emphasizes the value of a ‘thorough knowledge of the technical part of portrait painting’, and recommends copying the unfinished works of great masters, such as Rubens, Van Dyck and Reynolds, in order to understand their techniques. Merrifield stresses that skill can only be acquired through ‘much labour’, ‘patience and perseverance’. Her methodical approach is in sharp contrast to Samuel Palmer’s complaints about young ladies hoping to pick up painting with minimal effort, and therefore contests the stereotype of female inattentiveness.[15]

By practising art herself, Merrifield would have gained a deeper familiarity with techniques, enabling her to transmit useful hints to professional, as well as amateur, artists. This is characteristic of many women writers on art, for whom the experience of making art enhanced their understanding of what they saw and read, giving them greater confidence to pass on their observations to others. Male art-writers also had such practical experience, of course, often in a more professional capacity. However, the growing respect for ‘mechanical’ ability, endorsed by Barry and Fuseli, may have worked to the advantage of women art-writers in particular, because there was less value placed on knowledge of theory and the ‘je ne sais quoi’ of taste, and more on practical experience. Reviews frequently admired the fact that women provided their own illustrations, acknowledging the skill and taste this revealed. In Merrifield’s case, the Quarterly Review stated: ‘This lady is not, we believe, an artist by profession, but her outlines prove her to be one by love and accomplishment’.[16]

Despite her apparent lack of personal contacts in the art world, Merrifield combined a scientific understanding of artists’ materials with ‘hands-on’ experience of how they were used. Thanks to these skills, perhaps, responses to the Cennini were highly favourable, praising her achievement.[17] No surprise is registered about her analytical approach, and there is little adverse comment on her amateur status. Indeed, her position as a non-professional is seen as a distinct advantage, as it leaves her sufficient time to investigate the properties of pigments. The Quarterly Review wrote: ‘her notes show a familiarity with the mysteries of the painter’s laboratory, which the rapid coverers of modern canvas in their breathless haste for exhibition seldom condescend to acquire’.[18] In other words, her leisure as a middle-class woman gives her a distinct advantage over artists struggling to make a living. An Art Union review was also impressed by her knowledge of technicalities, calling the work a ‘valuable addition’ to art literature.[19] Reservations were expressed in the Athenaeum about the ability of a woman to engage in such ‘dogged work’, which required ‘masculine deductions’ and ‘hard reasoning’. Putting aside the ‘alms of charitable gallantry’ usually due to ‘lady-translators’, the writer gleefully points out minor errors in Merrifield’s ‘slattern’ translation. His overall judgment is positive, however, and he admits that ‘she has raised herself into merited notice’ through her ‘frequent display of knowledge, good taste, and acumen’.[20]

Merrifield’s scholarly publication led to her being invited by the Royal Commission on the Fine Arts to undertake further investigations on their behalf, and in 1846 she published The Art of Fresco Painting.[21] This involved the translation not only of Italian, but also of French, German, Spanish and medieval Latin texts. In fact, as Merrifield explains, the initial translation work was carried out by her two teenage sons, Charles (1827–84) and Frederick (1831–1924), with herself editing their rough drafts. We hear so often in this period of women’s literary work being subsumed under their husbands’ or brothers’ names, that it is rather refreshing to find a case where young men assisted a woman writer. While acknowledging their contribution, Merrifield emphasizes her overall control. Apologizing for the somewhat literal nature of their translations, she says, ‘I have carefully collated and corrected them with the original works’.[22] She is not afraid to represent herself as authoritative editor-in-chief. 

Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. The Art of Fresco Painting (1846)

Part of Merrifield’s authority is derived from the patriotic nature of the endeavour. She comments in the introduction that a report by the Royal Commissioners had called for a ‘gentleman fully competent to the task’, but she says,

The subject coinciding with my own pursuits and inclinations, I was induced to pursue the inquiry, from the persuasion, that the introduction of the art into this country, would be the means of founding a great English school of painting.

Merrifield shared with Flower Adams the notion that art should be didactically improving and could lead to social advancement. Representations of England’s ‘illustrious dead’, she states, would serve as ‘instructive examples to the living, and the art [of fresco] ... will ... become subservient to the best interests of the country’.[23] Her work would therefore benefit the public at large, as well as artists. As is so often the case with women, Merrifield’s claim that the national interest will be served by her writing excuses away any hint of immodesty in the desire to publish. This patriotic tone was not exclusive to women writers, of course, being very much in tune with the Houses of Parliament project as a whole, but Merrifield’s compliance with it reinforces her right to speak. 

Merrifield’s self-presentation in this text also marks the growing confidence of women in their expertise. She makes no excuses for her sex as a writer, nor does she publish anonymously. Rather than making modest disavowals, she expresses pride in her achievement, emphasizing her ‘diligent examination and perusal of old authors’ and the onerous nature of her task: 

It will also be considered that the investigation has been pursued through various languages, written at periods distant from each other, and by authors, some with an extensive, others with a limited knowledge of the subject. These circumstances have added to the difficulties of this inquiry ....

She stresses in particular her return to original sources, rather than relying on the ‘very imperfect’ translations of previous writers, such as Rudolf Raspe and John Francis Rigaud. Emphasizing the value of her own contribution by correcting errors in the work of others, she not only tackles questions of translation, but answers technical questions by investigating the nature of pigments.[24]

The scientific detail she provides is astonishing, and this was clearly a major focus of interest for Merrifield. Her painstaking, methodical approach is typified in her experiments on two specimens of haematite supplied by ‘Mr. Tremayne, of Heligan in Cornwall’:

I caused a specimen of the hard Haematite to be pulverized, and having washed some of the powder, and poured off the lighter particles, I found a portion of iron had sunk to the bottom, the removal of which seemed to render the colour finer. I also calcined another portion of the stone, and found it separated into scales, in the manner described. 

As a true empiricist, she takes nothing on trust. Writing in the manner of a scientific treatise, she determines that red haematite may be used for fresco by English painters, as it is ‘tried and approved’.[25] Merrifield’s conclusion is that ‘none but natural earthy colours can be used with safety and propriety in fresco painting, that these colours are not brilliant, but ... derive their beauty from the harmony of the arrangement and the judicious opposition of the colours’. Artificial modern pigments are ‘too glaring and intrusive’, she insists, reminding readers that Titian and Raphael used common earth colours.[26] Her researches therefore endorse the academic view of colouring as a relative art, reliant on the artist’s skill, and reject the traditional concept of female fascination with gaudy hues. 

Merrifield presents herself throughout as an active member of the (predominantly male) scientific community, testing out theories and engaging in contemporary controversies with the likes of Humphrey Davy and Michael Faraday.[27] Writing to Sir Robert Peel, she says that she considers Charles Eastlake and Robert Hendrie to be ‘labouring in the same field as myself’.[28] This strongly challenges her characterization by later writers as a mere translator and compiler. The fact that many men were also self-educated chemists in this period probably contributed to her acceptance within the field. 

Financially supported by a government commission, from autumn 1845 Merrifield continued her investigations in northern Italy, seeking out medieval and Renaissance manuscripts containing technical information and recipes. Blackwood’s reported in 1847 that Merrifield, ‘whose works on fresco painting are so valuable, has been collecting materials abroad, and will shortly publish her discoveries’.[29] In August 1848 a review of George Cleghorn’s Ancient and Modern Art noted that ‘we are shortly to have before the public the carefully gathered knowledge upon this subject [painting on glass] from the pen and research of Mrs. Merrifield.’[30] Clearly, her work generated considerable publicity within the art world. The result of these labours was Original Treatises on the Arts of Painting (1849).[31] Like her previous volume, this was dedicated to Peel, who endorsed the publication. In a letter to Peel, Merrifield confirms that ‘although I have paid attention to modern works on the subject of oil-painting, ... the opinions I have expressed on this subject are entirely my own, and that they have not been revised or corrected by any person’. The fact that Peel had requested such confirmation may imply that someone had questioned a woman’s ability to produce such complex work unaided.[32]

Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, Original Treatises... (1849)

In the Original Treatises, Merrifield particularly thanks Eastlake, secretary of the Fine Arts Commission, for his encouragement and acknowledges her debt to his Materials for a History of Oil-Painting (1847).[33] Her latest publication, she declares, is based on a long-standing investigation of oil-painting. In her translation of Cennini’s treatise, she had consciously abstained from entering into the controversy about Van Eyck’s supposed invention of the medium, but declared ‘should the result of the experiments which have for some years occupied her leisure hours be ultimately successful, a future opportunity will be taken of discussing the subject’.[34] By 1849, she clearly felt sufficiently prepared to enter the fray. Whatever the rights and wrongs of her theories, there can be no doubt that she was considered an important contributor to the debate and was well-respected by her male counterparts.

As with many women in this period, there is a tension between the need for feminine modesty in self-presentation and claims to intellectual authority. The tone of the preface seems to be that of typically feminine modesty, as Merrifield declares ‘I have endeavoured to supply by diligence what I have wanted in ability.’[35] However, a comparison with her father’s preface to A Treatise on Copyholds (1797) reveals a similarly apologetic self-presentation, emphasizing his inadequacy to the task: 

The Author has taken some pains to make the following Treatise useful; but it must not be expected that he has made it perfect. If his labours have not produced what has been wished, they may, at least, shorten, in some measure, the labours of others, and assist some one, blessed with better powers than himself ... to give to the Profession a Treatise more complete.[36]

We should be wary, then, of seeing such declarations simply in gender terms, and be conscious that this modest stance could be adopted by authors of either sex. 

To bolster her authority, Merrifield emphasizes her scrupulous care in collecting data, stressing that she has compared the ‘most esteemed works on this subject’ and that her information has been confirmed by discussions with eminent professors and artists. It is interesting that in reporting these discussions, she is far more present in the text than in her previous works, quoting dialogues that indicate her active questioning of experts. In a conversation with ‘Signor A.’, for example, an artist and picture-restorer in Milan, she reveals considerable confidence based on a combination of first-hand experience and research:

I asked whether placing the picture in the sun made any difference. He hesitated. I then related the passage from the letters of Rubens, giving the authority; and he admitted this was necessary to prevent the picture becoming yellow.

In a note, she adds: ‘I have myself seen pictures so exposed at Milan.’ [37] Such discussions not only make for a more lively presentation of the facts, but also underline her equality with male experts. 

Merrifield used her eyes carefully, too. In Brescia she employed a ‘powerful magnifying glass’ to examine two small miniatures by Titian, a head of Christ and of the Madonna, painted on each side of a piece of lapis lazuli. The surface ‘showed the oil shrivelled as in many of Titian’s large pictures’, and gave the impression of threads of silk, ‘so that I almost fancied it had been painted on silk, and cut out and then fixed to the lapis lazuli’.[38] Here indeed is the image of the female connoisseur, using her eye-glass to make comparisons between an artist’s works and to form conclusions about technique by studying them at close quarters. 

Merrifield’s connoisseurship is further underlined by her neutral tone, as she insists on her ‘dispassionate and unprejudiced inquiry’: 

I might have indulged in expressing the feelings of delight with which I contemplated the works of the great Masters of the Italian School; but I feel that this would not have accorded with the technical and practical details of the various subjects treated of in these volumes.[39]

The implication is that she is not devoid of emotional and aesthetic sense, but that this is not the place for indulging it. The ability to separate emotional from intellectual responses in order to form judgments was of course considered beyond female capacities. Merrifield stresses here her ability to do so, in a work aimed primarily at the all-male Fine Arts Commission, in order to establish her expertise.

The Art Journal described the work as an ‘invaluable contribution to Fine Art Literature’.[40] A review in Blackwood’s also concluded with a glowing tribute:

In now taking leave of Mrs. Merrifield, we express our hope that, having so ably and so faithfully done the work confided to her by the Commission on the Fine Arts, she will not think her labours at an end; for we are quite sure that her judicious mind and clear style may be most profitably employed in the service of art, to whose practical advancement she has contributed so much.[41]

This is positive endorsement, with no suggestion that her sex or amateur status might inhibit her ability to make a valuable contribution. Further recognition of her scholarly achievements came when she was elected honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts at Bologna, a fact proudly signalled on her title pages thereafter. In 1853 she became a member of the Royal Society of Arts; truly, the female connoisseur was come of age. 

NOTES

[1] Ludmilla Jordanova, Defining Features: Scientific and Medical Portraits 1660–2000, London, 2000, pp. 105–15. 

[2] Graham (Chapter 6), for example, combined an interest in art with natural history and geology. See letter to C. Koenig (9 June 1826) in which she mentions donating ‘eight species of snake and two birds’ to the British Museum, as well as referring to her ‘little collection of minerals’ (British Library Add. 32441, ff. 11–12). Graham also published an account of an earthquake in Chile, in the Transactions of the Geological Society. 

[3] Charles Watkins, son of Revd William Watkins of Llanwetherine, Co. Monmouth, published numerous legal texts in the 1790s (John Hutchinson, Catalogue of Notable Middle Templars, London, 1902, p. 254). It may be that her father’s achievements encouraged Merrifield to try her hand as an author. 

[4] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, A Practical Treatise on Painting in Fresco, Oil, and Distemper, by Cennino Cennini in the Year 1437, London, 1844. 

[5] There was considerable discussion of this topic in the Art Union, Oct. and Nov. 1841, coinciding with the London visit of Peter Cornelius. 

[6] Emma L. Winter, ‘German Fresco Painting and the New Houses of Parliament at Westminster, 1834–1851’, Historical Journal, 47 (2), 2004, pp. 291–329, esp. p. 316. Merrifield sent Sir Robert Peel a copy of her Cennini in Oct. 1844, suggesting it might be useful for current discussions (BL Peel papers, Add. 40553, f. 175). 

[7] Review of Charles Eastlake’s Materials for a History of Oil Painting, Blackwood’s Magazine, 62, 383, Sept. 1847, p. 309. 

[8] Giuseppe Tambroni, Di Cennino Cennini trattato della pittura (1821). Sherman and Holcomb, Women as Interpreters of the Visual Arts, pp. 13–14. 

[9] Practical Treatise, p. xv. 

[10] Callcott, Essays Towards the History of Painting, p. 262. Christopher Lloyd, ‘Lady Callcott’s Honeymoon, 1827–8’, in Carol Richardson and Graham Smith (eds), Britannia, Italia, Germania, Edinburgh, 2001, pp. 54–5. 

[11] Practical Treatise, pp. vi, xi, xvii. 

[12] Practical Treatise, pp. viii, ix. Elizabeth Prettejohn, The Art of the Pre-Raphaelites, London and Princeton, 2000, pp. 140–2, 148–9. 

[13] Algernon Graves, A Dictionary of Artists (1884), third edn, Bath, 1901. The lithographic plates of the Practical Treatise, ‘drawn on stone by the Translator’, were praised by reviewers. 

[14] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, Practical Directions for Portrait Painting in Water-colours, London, 1851. 

[15] Practical Directions, pp. 60–1, 59–60, 33. Raymond Lister, Samuel Palmer: A Biography, London, 1974, p. 206. 

[16] Quarterly Review, 75, 150, Dec. 1844–March 1845, p. 79. 

[17] Blackwood’s, 57, 356, June 1845, pp. 718. 

[18] Quarterly Review, 75, Dec. 1844–March 1845, pp. 77–9. 

[19] Art Union, 6, 74, 1 Nov. 1844, p. 342. 

[20] Athenaeum, 907, 15 March 1844, pp. 273–5. 

[21] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, The Art of Fresco Painting, As practised by the old Italian and Spanish masters, London, 1846; repr. Dover Publications, 2004. 

[22] Art of Fresco, p. vii. 

[23] Art of Fresco, pp. iii, vi. 

[24] Art of Fresco, pp. vii, lvi, xii, xv, xvii–xviii. 

[25] Art of Fresco, pp. xxv–xxix. 

[26] Art of Fresco, pp. liv–lv. 

[27] This was also true of Mary Gartside who had published An Essay on Light and Shade, on Colours, and on Composition in General, London, 1805. Though her manual is aimed at young ladies, Gartside adopts a scientific approach to rules of colouring and perspective and discusses recent theories (pp. 1–5). 

[28] British Library Peel papers, Add. 40597, f. 192, 9 Oct. 1846. Robert Hendrie published An Essay upon Various Arts (1847), translated from a treatise by Theophilus. 

[29] Blackwood’s, 62, 385, Nov. 1847, p. 573. 

[30] Blackwood’s, 64, 394, Aug. 1848, p. 157. 

[31] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, Original Treatises ... on the Arts of Painting in Oil, Miniature, Mosaic and on Glass, 2 vols, London, 1849; repr. Dover Publications, 1999, as Medieval and Renaissance Treatises on the Arts of Painting. 

[32] British Library Peel papers, Add. 40600, ff. 434–5. 

[33] Original Treatises, pp. vii–ix. David Robertson suggests Eastlake was equally indebted to Merrifield’s work on early treatises, Sir Charles Eastlake and the Victorian Art World, Princeton NJ, 1978, pp. 70–1. 

[34] Practical Treatise, p. xxi. Jilleen Nadolny, ‘A problem of methodology: Merrifield, Eastlake and the use of oil-based media by medieval English painters’, Theory and History of Conservation-Restoration, 2005, II, pp. 1028–33. 

[35] Original Treatises, p. v. 

[36] Charles Watkins, A Treatise on Copyholds, ed. R. S. Vidal, J. and W. T. Clarke, third revised edn, 1826, London, p. ix. Preface reprinted from first edition, 1797. 

[37] Original Treatises, pp. cxx–cxxi. See also p. cxxx. 

[38] Original Treatises, p. cccii. 

[39] Original Treatises, pp. cccx–cccxi 

[40] Art Journal, 11, Jan. 1849, pp. 31–2. 

[41] Blackwood’s, 65, 402, April 1849, p. 452.