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mercoledì 21 maggio 2014

Giovanni Mazzaferro. Mary Philadelphia Merrifield: the Lady from Brighton Who Loved Colours


Translation by Francesco Mazzaferro
CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION

Giovanni Mazzaferro
Mary Philadelphia Merrifield:
the Lady from Brighton Who Loved Colours

Map of Brighton (1850)
Copyrighr Brighton History Center
JUNE 2018: This post was published in 2014. Afterwards, an important set of letters were discovered in Brighton. They were sent by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield to her husband from Italy during the trip she conducted there between 1845 and 1846, in search of manuscripts evidencing the artistic techniques of the ancient Italian masters. Much of the information contained in this post may therefore be outdated, incomplete and sometimes incorrect. I published the letters in 2018 in La donna che amava i colori. Mary P. Merrifield. Lettere dall’Italia (1845-1846) – i.e. The Lady Who Loved Colours. Mary P. Merrifield. Letters from Italy (1845-1846) – Milan, Officina Libraria, 2018, isbn 88-99765-70-5. I would therefore like to point out this new publication to anybody interested. Nevertheless, I am keeping the old posts visible, as they testify ​​what information was available before the letters were discovered and how the research on Mary P. Merrifield has evolved in recent years.



*  *  *

Retracing events and works of Mary Philadelphia Merrifield is a difficult task, at least for two reasons: first, because this extraordinary woman, born in Southwark in 1804 and deceased in Brighton in 1889, has cultivated so many and such important interests (including, of course, one for art) that it is difficult to pigeonhole her (think that today she is remembered both for having published the Original Treatises on the Art of Painting [1] and for the studies of botany, who occupied the last thirty years of her life, and thanks to which her name was given to a seaweed); but mostly because every archival documentation relating to her figure, her work relations, her biography - at least for the years devoted to art - is totally missing (we use deliberately the term "missing" and not "gone lost" because our dream is that, sooner or later, that documentation will re-emerge from the dusty attic of some heir).

Yet we are doing this attempt anyway, because unjustly Ms Merrifield is remembered today "only" for her collection and translation of art treatises, and not for what she was: a pioneer and a central figure in the history of art and particularly in the history of art techniques; a scientist (or, if you prefer , a " proto-scientist") of pigments and colours; a woman of extraordinary perseverance and determination that acted in a world, the Victorian one, which certainly looked with great suspicion at any activities of an intellectual nature not performed by men.

I am talking in the plural because this is just the first in a series of commentaries designed to restore a more fair view of Ms Merrifield, and on this trip, ideally, I will not be alone. I shall avail myself of the aid of Caroline Palmer, currently Print Room Assistant at the Western Art Department of Prints and Drawings in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford and of a series of handwritten notes of my father, Luciano Mazzaferro, who studied for a long time the individual treatises collected by Ms Merrifield in her Original Treatises (of course, everyone remains responsible for the respective writings).

The following writings will then follow to this introductory essay:



A lot of work to do, indeed. Let us start right away.


UNTIL 1844

Mary Philadelphia Watkins was born in 1804. She was the daughter of a lawyer (who died when she was only four years old) and in 1827 married another lawyer, John Merrifield [2], moving to Brighton. Between 1827 and 1836 she had five children: Charles (1827), Henry (1830), Frederick (1831), Edwin John (1835) and Emily Katherine (1836). Mary and her husband had to be a wealthy family, since her husband was classified as 'gentry' in a sort of local census of 1840 [3].

This is all we know of her life. Of her we do not even have a picture. In particular, we do not know anything about Mary’s studies, of how she learned languages (at least Italian, French and Spanish), whether she had ever been in Italy in those education years, how she fell in love with art (it is certainly she loved to paint watercolour portraits, given that she participated with two of her paintings at an exhibition in 1851 [4]), and how she developed a deep interest in science and chemistry in particular. [5]


THE TRANSLATION OF 'THE BOOK OF THE ART’ BY CENNINO CENNINI

Ms Merrifield became known in 1844, with her translation of the Book of Art by Cennino Cennini [6] [7]. In his preface, the authoress tells us: “The translation of the work is also recommended in a letter which appeared in the Art-Union (October 1841), suggesting the expediency of procuring translations of several works on painting, in order to obtain practical information on the subject generally; and in particular, to discover, if possible, the whole process observed by the painters of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in painting those pictures, the colouring and execution of which excite our surprise and admiration even after a lapse of four centuries” (pp. V-VI) [8]. If what Merrifield told us is true (and I do not see why it should not be) one cannot emphasise more how unconscious and ambitious she was (fortunately for us). Unconscious because her dual status of a woman and an art amateur, without any support of the establishment, would have potentially exposed her to the ridicule of the press, if the result of the work had not been more than good. Ambitious because, giving rise to that endeavour, she represented herself as 'a person conversant with terms of Art and with Art itself' [9], able to operate the translation 'faithfully and judiciously ' [10].

It is worth opening a small parenthesis to describe the historical situation: in 1834 Westminster went to fire. After having rebuilt it in later years, there was the problem of decoration thereof. A Commission of Fine Arts was created to make decisions about it. The President was Prince Albert, the German husband of Queen Victoria and an art lover; the only artist who was part of it was Charles Lock Eastlake (who was the Secretary) [11]. The Prince put pressure to ensure that the new Parliament be painted using the fresco technique (basically unknown in England) exactly as the Nazarenes (the first artistic movement aimed at rediscovering ancient techniques) did in Germany. In 1841 Peter Cornelius (one of the leading exponents of the Nazarenes) was in London to officially give advice, but in practice to explore the possibility of accepting the assignment. The whole English art community was, de facto, opposing and urged that local artists would carry out the work. Eastlake, who was initially against the fresco decoration, once the decision had been taken, obtained the task would go to British hands. The huge problem arose at this point of how to 'teach' the technique to British artists. This was the framework of Cennino’s translation by Merrifield as well as (and especially) of the next The Art of Fresco Painting (1846) [12].

Speaking of translation is absolutely an understatement. The numerous notes affixed by Merrifield clearly disclose at least three things: the authoress mastered what she was writing about; she mastered it in the sense that she must have practiced arts; she had a scientific background and a huge interest for pigments; she knew perfectly the previous literature on art. These are, incidentally, aspects and topics that are broadly covered when reading many essays in the Art Union (founded in 1839). This is so much the case that it is almost natural to wonder whether Ms Merrifield was not the anonymous author of any of the articles published in the journal. If not, it must be said that the 'woman' Merrifield perfectly demonstrated to rival her male colleagues.


BETWEEN 1844 AND 1846

Merrifield did not however limit herself to Cennino. In the fall of 1844 (a fact that seems not to have been pointed out by anyone), after having learned that the Count Charles de l'Escalopier had procured himself a copy of a manuscript containing many art recipes (marked Ms. 6741 and kept at the Royal Library of France) [13], she travelled to Paris, where she met Jacques-Joseph Champollion-Figeac [14], the elder brother of the Champollion who found out the decryption of the hieroglyphs, and in turn an archaeologist himself and curator of manuscripts at the Royal Library from 1828 to 1848. She obtained the promise of receiving a copy of the manuscript, which, however, she will receive with "some unavoidable delay" [15] and will be published within the Original Treatises. Now, how this woman, a mother of five, author of a translation of Cennino, without substantial support, may have found a way to go to France and getting an invitation by Champollion is really a mystery. Making use of information obtained from Caroline Palmer (whose archival research are invaluable) we can assume something. In October 1844 Merrifield sent a copy of the translation of Cennino to the Commission of Fine Arts, and obtained a meeting with Robert Peel, the British Prime Minister. It was probably through the intervention of the latter and of Charles Eastlake that Merrifield got at least some credentials to be received in France. However, the independence demonstrated by this woman in undertaking the trip (with family?) is amazing.


THE ART OF FRESCO PAINTING

In December of 1845 Ms Merrifield concludes the introduction to his book The Art of Fresco Painting in the Middle Ages and the Renaissaince. Sticking again to what the author says in the introduction, we try to explain how things went. The needs arising from the problem of the Westminster decorations had pushed the Commission of Fine Arts to assign to a “fine gentleman fully competent to the task" [16] the mandate of investigating the methods used by the old masters to achieve their frescoes. However, the final result (published on the occasion of the Third Report of the Commission to the Queen in July 1844) had shown that there were still doubts: “the problems yet to be solved are, the speedier preparation of lime, adapted for fresco painting, and the preparation of durable colours of the more florid kind such as lake and crimson.” [17] From here starts the research by Merrifield, which in substance is divided into three parts: the first one, consisting of an introduction of over fifty pages, sees the authoress engaged in a tight examination of all the pigments mentioned in the treaties considered in the next part, whereby she refers to the chemical notions known on them. To put it in two words only, given that treaties are written in different languages and date back to different periods, there is no uniformity - and above all no certainty - on the name of the pigments; Ms Merrifield starts from the sources and refers to scientific evidence in order to rationalise the field. The next section (which is actually referred to as the first part) contains extensive extracts in the requirements for the frescoes from Vitruvius (in the edition prepared by Felipe de Guevara and published by Mengs in 1788), Theophilus, Leon Battista Alberti, Cennini Cennino, Vasari (in the section of the Vite – the Lives - dedicated to artistic techniques), Borghini, Armenini, Andrea Pozzo, Pacheco, Palomino and John Martin. The third section (the second part of the book) has shorter abstracts from a range of authors of artistic literature: Alessandro da Morrona (Pisa Illustrata - Pisa Illustrated), Vasari (this time from the biographies of the Vite), Lanzi, Bottari-Ticozzi, Malvasia, Baldinucci, Ridolfi , Giovanni Gaye, Mengs, Bellori [18].

Again, speaking simply of translation would be quite an understatement. But, exactly with reference to the translations, we must remember that in the introduction Ms Merrifield flags that the first drafts have been made (and then reviewed by her) by his sons Charles and Frederick. Charles did it from Italian, and Frederik from Spanish. And - indeed - one is amazed at the thought that, since the translation was made in 1845, Charles was 18 and Frederick 14! Both Charles and Frederick, moreover, will become – as adults - prominent scientists: Charles was a famous mathematician and Frederick became president of the Royal Entomological Society. If you think that their father was a lawyer, it is even more astonishing to note how, ultimately, it has been the scientific interests of the mother to influence their career choices, another extraordinary event in Victorian England.


THE YEARS OF SUCCESS

The success of The Art of Fresco Painting was remarkable, and Merrifield’s name was clearly taken into account by specialised experts exactly as if they were dealing with a man. In the fall of 1845 (then before the work on the fresco had come out) Ms Merrifield was appointed by the British government (thus, by Robert Peel) to travel to Northern Italy and to try tracking manuscripts testifying this time the techniques followed by Italian masters on oil painting [19]. Once again Mary left, this time indeed in an official mission on behalf of the British government. With these credentials, the doors of the most important libraries and of the smaller ones opened to her. But, of course, we do not know anything of Merrifield’s journey. We do not know the itinerary followed, we do not know with whom she travelled, although in at least two situations the presence of a son is mentioned (who, we assume, was Charles, who had also been busy translating from Italian the writings in The Art of Fresco Painting), we do not know when she travelled . In the absolute (and painful) absence of any documentation, we are nevertheless able to say something. The work that was derived from the Italian experience, or The Original Treatises, is actually littered with many crumbs of bread that allow, as in the tale of Little Poucet, to re-create a route, albeit a very partial one. That is what we did and that we will propose to your attention in a future note.

Very likely, the journey of Merrifield took place in 1846. After the initial notation that the appointment had been given in the fall of 1845, it follows that “the more important points connected with this examination I communicated to Sir Robert Peel in October, 1846”. Given thus that travelling did not normally take place in winter, it seems logical to limit the Italian visit of the writer from Brighton to the period between spring and autumn of 1846.

Beyond the practical results of the exploration by Merrifield (that left her partially unsatisfied with particular reference to the reluctance of the Venetian counterparties - an unappeasable woman: the work is wonderful and is still cited as a cornerstone of the discipline of history of artistic techniques -) the stay in Italy led to Merrifield’s personal recognition that filled her with satisfactions. On February 21, 1847, when the author had probably already travelled back to England, Merrifield was proclaimed an honorary member of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. Mary will be so proud of the honour conferred on him that it will include it, for example, on the title page of the Original Treatises [20].

The publication of the latter, which took place in the early months of 1849 (but the preface is dated November 6, 1848) marks the final consecration of Merrifield and demonstrates how the scholar of Brighton had reached full maturity. Compared to the original task (to collect and translate sources related to oil painting), the authoress went much further, as evidenced by the full title of the work. Her work also extends to illumination techniques, mosaics and glass painting; to gilding, dyeing, preparation of colours and artificial gems. The treatises submitted (of different length, almost always in complete edition with original text and translation at the front) are a dozen. Since we are talking about known things, what amazes me is that very little is spoken of the introduction, which exceeds 300 pages (!) and in which the Merrifield distils all her knowledge. The first part is devoted to a historical examination of individual artistic techniques (excluding oil painting ); the second - which concerns the results obtained on oil painting - is in turn divided into four areas: a) the transcript of the testimony provided by Italian artists and restorers in the course of the journey of Merrifield in our country; b) an explanation of the (natural and artificial) pigments used in painting, their chemical properties, and the different ways in which they were often called; c) a description of the ways in which you create oils and varnishes; d) and finally the summary of the procedures used in the paint. [21]
Vol. I of the Original Treatises by Mary P. Merrifield signed by her son, Frederick
By the kind permission of Alexandra Loske
We will talk at length of individual treatises; will highlight other aspects of the aesthetic and the scientific approach of the author. Here we would like to point out that the bibliography cited by Merrifield is literally endless. Given that so few traces are left by Mary, I really think it would be appropriate to make the most of it. It is to be hoped that sooner or later a comprehensive list of books and manuscripts cited in the work be drawn up, to understand the multiplicity of influences and diversity of the interests of writer of Brighton.


APPLIED ARTS AND FASHION

There is no contradiction, if Ms Merrifield in subsequent years - in addition to practical manuals containing advice for those who wanted to paint watercolour - first wrote an essay on the occasion of the Universal Exhibition of 1851 in which she dealt with the wrong way in which British manufacturers had set up their fabric samples [22] and then wrote a book about fashion [23], published a few months later also in an American edition. Caroline Palmer will prove it in the second of her interventions. In both cases, Ms Merrifield emphasised the fact that the combination of colours is not a matter of innate taste, but a scientific discipline, which anyone can learn and that is governed by precise laws. It is the obvious influence on Merrifield on the one hand of the Theory of Colours by Goethe, translated into English by Charles Lock Eastlake in 1840 [24], on the other hand of the principles on the harmonious contrast of colours by the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul [25]. The exemplification of the laws of colour - through paintings and sculptures falling within the scope of the Fine Arts - can allow anyone to grasp the meaning of the rules to follow. Ms Merrifield, in short, wanted to popularise science, exactly as she did in the case of the treatises on art techniques.


SCIENCE AND BOTANY

In 1857 the British government assigned to Ms Merrifield a pension in recognition of the services provided for the development of art in the country. However, she will no longer write on art. Instead, she will shift her scientific interests elsewhere. It would seem, however, that the attention of Mary was addressed first of all to the description of Brighton, to which the writer was evidently deeply linked. And if a first title, released just in 1857 (Brighton, Past and Present: A Handbook for Visitors and Residents [26]), suggests to be a real guide for the stranger who visits the town, a second one, of 1860, reveals that the real interest is in the natural heritage of Brighton and the classification of flora and fauna: A Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton and Its Vicinity [27]. From this moment on, the attention of the Merrifield moves decisively on to botany. It may seem like an abrupt transition, and it probably was, but it seems much less if you think that art, for the writer of Brighton, was ultimately science. I will not focus on her last thirty years, and her botanical studies, except to point out a few things (derived primarily from the work of Palmer as the only reference): a) the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography cites her as "art writer and algologist "; b) Mary published until her death in scientific journals such as Nature; c) in the course of her studies the name of a seaweed was dedicated to her, a seaweed which had been found in the oceans of Southern Australia [28]; d) Mary helped with the creation of the ‘Brighton Museum and Art Gallery’; the materials she provided were relocated to the Booth Museum [29]; e) after 1877 (i.e. after the death of her husband ) Mary moved to Cambridge, home of his daughter, Emily Katherine, married to Charles Daw, and here she remained until his death. At the ‘Plant Sciences Library’ of Cambridge is present her correspondence, however only relating to botanist interests. At her death, the herbarium of Merrifield was transferred to the British Library and from here to the Natural History Museum in London, where it still is. [30]
Nanopera merrifildiae
(http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/efsa/Marine_Benthic_Flora_SA/Part_IIID/Nanopera_merrifieldiae.shtml)


THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD OF MARY PHILADELPHIA Merrifield

I believe that, in the Original Treatises, there is a definite step that helps understanding how Merrifield understood science, this branch of knowledge that we have seen to be the leitmotif of his entire life. Speaking of artists who had historically possessed extraordinary mathematical ability , the authoress says (on p. 65 of her introduction):

“The names of painters who have possessed high mathematical attainments are numerous. But the most remarkable man among the moderns was undoubtedly Lionardo da Vinci, who was at once a painter, poet, musician, mathematician, and natural philosopher, and, as some say, architect and statuary also, whose sagacity anticipated Bacon in declaring that experiment should precede theory”.

The reference to Francis Bacon (1561-1626), empiricist philosopher of the scientific revolution could not be more fitting. There is no doubt that the culture of Merrifield is steeped in Baconian empiricism, which aims to represent nature through its careful observation and tries to understand the phenomena experimentally, to provide useful applications to mankind. In the present case we are not dealing with a mere repetition of findings or observations of others (even though there are plenty of them), but just to initiatives that may fall perfectly in the scientific method and that are the fruit of Ms Merrifield in person. Palmer, in her Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the alliance with science cites a very fitting example with reference to The Art of Fresco Painting [31]:

“.. 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.”

In fact, dozens of examples of scientific experiments conducted by Merrifield can be found inside the Original Treatises: I will cite as an example page 234 (we're talking about purifying the oils to be used for painting) which reads: “Some time since I tried this recipe, and found that in proportion as the oil lost its colour, the spirit of wine acquired it, and the mucilage separating, was carried to the bottom of the bottle with the lavender flowers”. And a little further on: “This method of purifying linseed-oil I have also tried, and found it is very successful in removing the mucilage”. And on p. 235: 

 “It may, hovewer, be interesting to state, that I have bleached and clarified linseed-oil by the following process… A bottle was filled, about one third with oil, another third with water; it was then corked and shaken, until the water and oil were mixed like an emulsion, when the cork was removed, and a piece of muslin tied over the bottle, which was placed on the boiler of a kitchen-range, and kept in a moderate heat day and night. The oil was shaken every day (the muslin being first removed and the cork inserted in the bottle) for a few days, and then suffered to clear. In about a week the oil was removed from the water into another bottle, and the process was repeated for several weeks until the water below the oil ceased to appear milky, and the oil itself was clear and colourless. During this experiment I observed that the mucilage was thrown down sooner if warm water was added to the oil instead of cold, and that the oil separated more rapidly from the water when the bottle was exposed to a gentle and regular heat, although in a dark situation, than when it was placed in the variable warmth of a sunny day. The addition of salt or sand accelerates the clarification of the oil”.

I apologize if I have taken a long time. I did it because a question arises almost spontaneously: after reading all of this, can we define Ms Merrifield simply as a "translator"? Absolutely not. Ms Merrifield was a scientist in all respects. And if we want to refer to other examples of translators we must mention - of course taking account of all differences - Daniel V. Thompson, the curator of the third (and last for now, but not for long) English edition of the Book of Art by Cennino Cennini in 1933, who stated: "The task of the translator of art techniques is not only to save the reader the trouble to consult a dictionary, but much more to discover and represent meaning and intentions behind the text words " [32].


The aesthetics OF Merrifield

At the end of her long introduction to the Original Treatises, Ms Merrifield apologizes for not having spoken of the pleasure she felt in admiring the masterpieces of the Italian masters in the course of her journey in our country; this was not - she says - the opportunity to do so.

The question arises: what were the tastes of this woman, who had retrieved manuscripts ranging from the eighth century to her own time? The answer, again, lies in the texts, and in particular - this time – in the introduction to the Book of Art, published in 1844 (on p. 7). 

 “In the pictures of the period of which we are now speaking, we meet with none of the beautiful demi-tints and broken colours observable in pictures of a later period; every colour is distinct and forcible, and the figures appear as if inlaid upon the ground. There is no harmonising, or lowering, or reflecting of one colour upon another; no optical arrangement or balancing of the colours, and a glimmering only of the light of perspective and chiaro-scuro. The pictures can scarcely be said to consist of a whole, but of various parts; and we find, accordingly, that they can be, and have been, cut down into smaller pictures without suffering material injury” [33].

We should thus exclude that Ms Merrifield enjoyed the painting of the Italian primitives or that she wanted to recover their purity and spirituality (in fact: in the same text she apologized just before because of the strong religious sentiment of which they are permeated, that in the eyes of Anglicans might have seemed a blasphemy). In short, we are not faced with an early Pre-Raphaelite (the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was founded in 1848). The work of Merrifield had purely practical purposes: to understand how it came that the colours of the paintings of the Italian primitives had been preserved so well (this is even more true for The Art of Fresco Painting) and to teach those techniques to British artists. In this sense, Merrifield fits perfectly and is totally aligned with a series of initiatives promoted directly by the British government for the improvement of the English school of painting. Those initiatives, concerning the treatises of artistic techniques, also included at least the translation of Theophilus’ treatise by Robert Hendrie [34] and the first volume of the celebrated work on oil painting by Charles Lock Eastlake. [35]

Ms Merrifield is therefor on the same academic positions as Eastlake. She loves the paintings of Reynolds, Rubens, and of course the Venetian colourists among the Italians.


THE LOVE FOR COLOURS

If there is one thing that emerges very clear by reading the works of Merrifield is his boundless love for colours; a love that is, in fact, the basis of her search, which led her to investigate the properties of pigments and their history, prompted her to travel, to visit libraries and archives in Northern Italy and in particular in Venice - the homeland of colour -; love which required her to go to the bedside of a "professor" from Parma who had long studied oil painting and was seriously ill (possibly dying) in order to discover something about the colour use of Correggio [36]; which led her again to try in Venice (having been reached by a dispatch that Pietro Edwards [37] have discovered the method of oil painting of the old masters and that he had sold to the Venetian government) to penetrate, sometimes even in a somewhat furtive way, the wall of silence and the local "jealousy" (p. 848) to get her hands on a manuscript of such importance.

Ms Merrifield does not tell us anything about the paintings she has seen; in the (few) occasions when she does it, she does not talk about paintings. She talks about colours. The most striking example refers to a not finished picture, which at that time was attributed to Leonardo and preserved at the Pinacoteca di Brera, a Madonna with Child and Lamb [38]. We read how Ms Merrifield describes it:

“This very interesting picture has been mentioned by Ms Eastlake (‘Materials’, p. 392), but as I have alluded to it several times, I shall give a description of it from my own memoranda [note of the editor: this a certain evidence, if ever needed, that Merrifield held notebooks, which unfortunately are missing]: - The picture represents the Virgin and Child with the Lamb. It is painted on a white ground, which has a yellowish tint, apparently from being covered with varnish. The ground is full of small hair-like cracks. The subject is drawn with a black pencil. The sky and distance are finished with blue and white, with a slight greenish tint. There is a rock behind the figures, the colour of which, with the earth around, is of a very dark brown, probably formed of black and majorica and a little lake. A space between the distance and rocky ground is left quite blank, the white ground appearing. The face of the Virgin is more finished than the rest of the picture; it was apparently begun in chiaroscuro with the usual brown – the gray shades incline to black, the lights on the face to lake. The face of the Infant is nearly finished. The hands are just sketched in lightly with the same water colours. The same may be observed with respect to the toes: the black pencil-marks are visible on the nails. The drapery, which is scarlet, appears to be formed of earthy reds, with vermilion on the lights. The outer drapery is red also, and is lined with a yellowish green, or perhaps this was to be a changeable drapery, since the shades are red and the lights green. These were Lionardo’s favourite colours for drapery. The sleeves of the Virgin, part of the mantle, indeed all that part covering her knees, part of the Infant’s drapery, and the whole of the Lamb are left quit blank, excepting that the outline of her knee is marked in pencil. This shows that Lionardo sometimes finished portions of his pictures, leaving the rest untouched, instead of beginning on all parts equally, or even of painting the subject in chiaroscuro. The darks are raised higher than the lights, and the foliage is minutely worked on the dark background. My impression is that this picture was begun upon a non-absorbent white ground, and that the yellowish tint is owing to the varnish with which it has been covered”. [39]

Again the same question arises: can Merrifield be defined as only a translator? Certainly not. Here the Brighton author gives the maximum of herself, rises to the rank of connoisseur and makes us aware of how important it would be to recover her notebooks.


Merrifield AND THE PRE - RaphaeliteS

The combination would be expected: the translation of the Book of Art was of 1844, the Treaty on the techniques for the fresco of 1846; on the other hand, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood with their appreciation of a more spiritual and simpler art, the fascination for ancient techniques and medieval themes, was founded in 1848. Were the Pre-Raphaelites under the influence of Ms Merrifield?

I do not have a clear answer. I would be surprised, if the Pre-Raphaelites had not read the treatises of Merrifield, who - I would like to recall - was not the only one in those years to investigate the old techniques. It would also surprise me if they had not carefully reflected above the treatises and had not been in any way affected. On the other hand, it is still true that the work of Merrifield fits perfectly in the action of the British government, supported by the Royal Academy, which aims to improve the level of academic painting substantially through the rediscovery of the Old Masters. To the contrary, the Pre-Raphaelites were ideologically opposed to the teachings of the Academy.

To my knowledge there have been at least two attempts to establish a direct link (from a technical point of view) between Merrifield and Pre-Raphaelites. The first is testified by the biography of the English scholar written by Adele Ernstrom for the Dictionary of Art of the Grove publisher [40]. Here Ernstrom says that the work of the Brighton author did “effect practise, especially among the Pre-Raphaelites: her emphasis on the historical and aesthetic value of white grounds to colour purity was probably strategic for their rejection of tonal painting and adoption of the wet ground technique” [41]. There is no doubt that the discovery of the white backgrounds was of those years, but it must be said, however, that it was also an acquisition suggested by Eastlake. A second link is proposed by Alison Smith in the volume ‘Pre-Raphaelites. Victorian Avant- Guard’ (London, Tate Publishing, 2012). The essay was then translated into Italian and published in 2014 on the occasion of the exhibition of the Pre-Raphaelites held at Chiablese Palace in Turin [42]. Smith writes: "More generally, the interest in the techniques used by painters of the early Renaissance was fuelled by a number of publications like, in 1844, the translation by Mary Philadelphia Merrifield of the Trecento volume of Cennino Cennini 's Book of the Art, followed in 1849 by her Original Treatises … on the Arts of Painting. Here the authoress recommended – as far as purity and stability are concerned - the pigments produced by the researcher and manufacturer of colour George Field, declaring them as being the closest approximation to the ones used by early Italian painters; this fact had much effect on the Pre-Raphaelites, who used regularly the pigments by Field" [Note of the translator: this is a translation from the Italian version]. Now, I really beg your pardon, but I have not found in both cited works by Merrifield any incitement to use the pigments by Field. I found, indeed, a great attention for Field and his main work, i.e. the Chromatography [43], whose pigments are compared with those exposed in the work of Cennino [44]. Among other things, you cannot even say that Field was really unknown to the English artistic circles: already in 1835, he was considered to be the main supplier of colours for English professional painters [45]. We do not think that it would have been necessary for the Pre-Raphaelites to listen to Ms Merrifield in order to switch to Field.

In conclusion: it is beyond any doubt that there was an influence of Merrifield and that kind of artistic literature on the Pre-Raphaelites; however, from what has been said up to now I do not think to have identified any specific direct link. In any case, this link should be limited to purely technical aspects, since the pro-academic setting of the studies of the Brighton writer is placed on a collision course with the movement founded in 1848.


Ms Merrifield TODAY

I hope I have given sufficient proof that the stature of Merrifield was not secondary. The contributions which will be shortly published here will examine individual aspects of her interests. Sure, Mary - as I said earlier - is a figure difficult to place, in particular if you do not keep in mind his scientific interests. And yet, it seems to us that, over the years, these interests have been somewhat forgotten in favour of her work of philologist and translator of the texts which she brought first to the attention of the community of scholars of history of art techniques . It is an understandable development, as long as one does not try to judge Merrifield for some clerical error or for the incompleteness of some of the same texts. She should be assessed again as she was: an exceptional woman, who was able to command the attention of specialists in the England of the Victorian age; and, above all, as a woman who loved colours.


NOTES

[1 ] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield , Original Treatises, dating from the XIIth to XVIIIth centuries on the Arts of Painting, in oil, miniature, mosaic, and on glass; of gilding, dyeing, and the preparation of colours and artificial gems; preceded by a general introduction; with translations, prefaces, and notes. Two volumes. London, John Murray, 1849.

[2] We do not enter into details of the English legal system: it must be said, however, that Mary's father was a lawyer of 'higher level' than her husband (but it would be wrong to think of the difference that exists between lawyers who can or cannot defend clients in front of the Cassation Court in Italy).

[3] Pigot & Co’s, Directory for Sussex, 1840. Per la definizione di ‘Gentry’ see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gentry

[4] See Caroline Palmer, Mary Philadelphia Merrifield and the alliance with science.

[5] Julie Sheldon writes (with reference to Elizabeth Rigby, the future Lady Eastlake) that in Victorian England one of the ways by which a virtuous woman could think of contributing to the family income was to take care of translations (see Susanna Avery - Quash and Julie Sheldon. Art for the Nation. The Eastlakes and the Victorian Art World, Londra, The National Gallery, 2011, p. 58). It seems reasonable (but entirely hypothetical) to think that Mary had studied languages and began a translation activity either anonymously or under a false name, to lend a hand to the economic fortunes of the family of origin (recall that his father had passed away when she was four years). However, if there were any economic problems, they existed in the family of origin only, and not in the one that Mary created with John Merrifield.

[6] A Treatise on Painting written by Cennino Cennini in the year 1437; and first published in Italian in 1821, with an introduction and notes, by Signor Tambroni: containing practical directions for painting in Fresco, Secco, Oil and Distemper, with the Art of Gilding and Illuminating Manuscripts adopted by the Old Italian Masters. Translated by Mrs. Merrifield with an Introductory preface, copious notes, and illustrations in outline from celebrated pictures. Londra: Edward Lumley, 1844.

[7] With regard to the fortune of Cennini’s treatise and his translations from the princeps of Tambroni (1821), I am referring to Giovanni Mazzaferro, Cennino Cennini e il “Libro dell’Arte”: censimento delle edizioni a stampa, pubblicato online in the blog http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.it/. The correct address is http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.it/2013/12/giovanni-mazzaferro-cennino-cennini-e.html

[8] The letter actually appears on p. 172 (second column below) of the issue of the Art Union in October 1841, under the section titled CORRESPONDANCE and the title WORKS ON ART. It is signed "H". Given that there seems that nobody ever did, I am displaying here at least the initial part:

“Sir, - The subject of Vehicles having been brought before the public by your talented correspondent, J.E., in the two last numbers of your excellent periodical, allow me to suggest that the following authorities, quoted by Lanzi [n.d.r. the abbot Luigi Lanzi in his Storia Pittorica dell’Italia – Painting History of Italy] be forthwith sought for and translated.
1st. The MS of Andrea Cennini, bearing date 1437, upon Painting. It is preserved in the library of S. Lorenzo, at Florence.
2nd The Treatise of Theophilus…”

The letter continues by proposing translations of Malvasia, Palomino, of the Carta del navegar pitoresco (Map of navigating and painting) by Boschini, and works by Zanetti, Lomazzo and Armenini. 

 “The above works, faithfully and judiciously translated by a person conversant with terms of Art and with Art itself, would confer an immense advantage at the present time upon the profession in all its branches. I say faithfully and judiciously; faithfully, as being substantially correct; judiciously, as to the omission of all matter which does not strictly refer to Art.
Should it be necessary, in order to carry into effect the plan I have proposed, to raise a subscription for the purchase of the works referred to, I shall be most happy to contribute the sum of one guinea”.

The October issue of the Art Union can be read here :
http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001968191;view=1up;seq=176

[9] See footnote 8.

[10] For a "gender" discussion on Merrifield, as well as an examination of the reactions to the writing, please refer to the writings of Caroline Palmer.

[11] See my review of Susanna Avery Quash and Julie Sheldon: Art for the Nation ... , published online at http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.it/2014/03/susanna-avery-quash- julie- sheldon - art.html

[12] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. The Art of Fresco Painting, as practised by the old Italian and Spanish masters. Londra, C. Gilpin, 1846.

 [13] It is Ms Merrifield herself to tell us about it on p. 1 n. 2 of his Original Treatises.

[14] See again the Original Treatises, p. 10 of the preface.

[15] Original Treatises, quoted. p. 1, n. 2.

[16] The Art of Fresco Painting ..., cit., P. V.

[17] The Art of Fresco Painting ..., quoted, p. XII.

[18] As a curiosity, but also reflecting the sensitivity of Merrifield, we must report that the extract from the Carteggio inedito di artisti (Unpublished correspondence of artists) by Giovanni Gaye regards the pages of the famous Diary of Pontormo published (posthumously) in the third volume of the work (1840), but at the time largely unknown in England.

[19] Original Treatises,... quoted , P. 7.

[20] I retrieved the information in the Historical Archive of the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna (AABA). See in particular: Atti della Pontificia Accademia di Belle Arti, Processi verbali del Segretario Cesare Prof. Masini dal 1845 al 1855, Sessione della Domenica 21 Febbraio 1847 (Proceedings of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts, Minutes of Secretary Prof. Cesare Masini 1845-1855, Session of Sunday, February 21, 1847) which read as follows: "Are proposed, and acclaimed to be honour members of the academy: the famous Lady Mary Philadelphia Merrifield of Brighton, translator of the Treaty of Cennino Cennini, and the sculptor Alessandro Massimiliano Laboureur, Knight."

[21] Original Treatises, p. 117.

[22] Mary Philadelphi Merrifield, The Harmony of Colours as exemplified in the Exhibition in Crystal Palace Exhibition Illustrated Catalogue, London, 1851.

[23] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, Dress as a Fine Art, Londra, Arthur Hall, Virtue and Co., 1854.

[24] Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Theory of Colours, Londra, John Murray, 1840. Translation into English by Charles Lock Eastlake.

[25] Michel-Eugène Chevreul, De la loi du contraste simultané des couleurs – On the law of simultaneous contrast of colours (Paris, 1839). The work was translated into English only in 1854; Ms Merrifield, who already mentions it in her own essay on fabrics, knew then it in French. There is no doubt that Merrifield is the proponent of the thoughts of Chevreul in England. Chevreul was, among other things, the director of the famous textile factory of Gobelins. All of his studies on the colours start from all complaints that he had received about the lack of effectiveness in the combination of colours in some manufactured products of Gobelins. As we see, the intent of Chevreul is clearly identical to that of Merrifield in England a dozen years later. Moreover, the impression is that the thinking of Chevreul has deeply permeated the whole Merrifield family. Chevreul, among other things, was a bitter enemy of 'spiritualism', i.e. the passion for the paranormal that had spread a bit all over Europe in those years and saw the proliferation of alleged mediums being able to communicate with the dead during séances. In 1855, Frederick Merrifield, the poor third child whom the mother asked to translate from Spanish when he was 14, participated in a séance in London and denounced the medium Daniel Home Dunglas as a charlatan. It is impossible that Frederick did not know the thesis of Chevreul. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Merrifield.

[26] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, Brighton, Past and Present: A Handbook for Visitors and Residents, 1857. Reprinted in 2011 by the British Library, Historical Print Editions. I have not been able to consult it.

[27] Mary Philadelphia Merrifield, A Sketch of the Natural History of Brighton and its Vicinity, Brighton, 1860 (but the preface is of June 1859). The book is available online at this address: http://books.google.it/books?id=DzIIAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&hl=it&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

[28] The seaweed is the Rytiphlaea merrifildiae or Nanopera merrifieldiae. Here is its data sheet: http://www.flora.sa.gov.au/efsa/Marine_Benthic_Flora_SA/Part_IIID/Nanopera_merrifieldiae.shtml
This episode of course intrigued me a lot. Although I have not performed any research on this, the suspicion is that it may have had something to do with the stay in Australia of Mary's fourth son, Edwin John, who died there in 1887. I do not know what happened: whether the child posted algae to the mother from Australia or whether he was looking for them, also seized by the interest for science which was a sort of maternal vice. To be honest, I would not even be surprised if one day I came to know that Ms Merrifield took a trip to Australia.
Edwin John Merrifield is buried in a small Australian cemetery
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~deadsearch/stmarys_anglic.htm

[29] http://rpmcollections.wordpress.com/2011/08/15/mary-merrifield/

[30] See the second essay by Caroline Palmer.
[31] The Art of Fresco Painting ... quoted, p. 27.

[32] See Mark Clarke, Pentimenti: Reflections of DV Thompson on his translation of Cennini, published online on the Blog 'Letteratura Artistica' at http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.it/2014/01/mark-clarke-pentimenti-riflessioni-di.html. More generally, it is clear that there is a clear demarcation between all three English translations of the Book of Art (Merrifield, Herringham - with the appreciation of tempera paint - and Thompson) and the Italian, French or German translations of Cennino (see my census on printed editions cited in endnote 7). The difference lies in the scientific nature of the research, (possibly) at the expense of the philological correctness of the text. And the same interest in technology might, most likely, be the focus also of the upcoming fourth English edition, being edited by Ms Lara Broecke, a restorer, famous for having produced a large crucifix for a religious location in Cambridge exactly following the recipes provided by Cennino. All information can be found here:
http://www-hki.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/research/painting/crucifix.html

[33] She is alluding to the dismemberment of medieval altarpieces, something unthinkable - she continues a little latter - for large modern paintings of the Venetian school.

[34] An Essay Upon Various Arts in Three Books by Robert Hendrie, called also Rugerus, Priest and Monk, Forming an Encyclopaedia of Christian Art of the Eleventh Century, translated with notes by Robert Hendrie, Londra, John Murray, 1847.

[35] Charles Lock Eastlake, Materials for a History of Oil Painting. Vol. I, Londra, Brown, Green and Longmans, 1847.

[36] Original Treatises ... quoted. pp. 147-148.

[37] Venetian artist and restorer. See Luciano Mazzaferro . The Original Treatises of Mary Philadelphia Merrifield. Part III The manuscripts belonging to the Edwards family.

[38] In his 1847 Materials, Eastlake speaks with certainty of an "unfinished Leonardo". But then, in his Notebooks of 1854, he calibrates the shot and writes that certainly it is not by the hand of Leonardo (see The Travel Notebooks of Sir Charles Eastlake, edited by Susanna Avery - Quash, The Walpole Society, 2011. 6 Notebook, sheet 18v.) Today Brera speak broadly of "a follower of Leonardo".

[39] Original Treatises ... quoted, pp. 198-299 n. 2.

[40] Dictionary of Art, Grove Press, 1996, vol. 21 p. 165.

[41 ] See http://myfrencheasel.blogspot.it/2011/08/pre-raphaelite-brotherhood-wet-white.html

[42] Alison Smith, Tecniche e metodi della pittura preraffaellita (Techniques and methods of the Pre-Raphaelite painting) in Preraffaelliti. L’utopia della bellezza (Pre-Raphaelites. The utopia of beauty). Milano. 24ORE Cultura, 2014, p. 31.

[43] George Field, Chromatography; or, Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists, Londra, Thomas W. Salter, 1835.

[44] A Treatise On Painting… quoted., p 11: “On comparing these pigments with the tables of colours in Mr’s Field’s Chromatography, it will be observed that all except amatito (which is not known as a modern pigment), giallorino, and azzurro della magna, will be found in table iv., that is, among these pigments not affected by light, oxygen, pure air, or the opposite influences of shade, sulphurreted hydrogen, damp and impure air, the action of lead and of iron […]. Cennino also differs from Mr. Field in regard to the permanence of vermilion, which was found to lose its colour under certain circumstances.”

[45] Linda M. Shires, On Color Theory, 1835: George Field’s Cromatography, avalaible online at http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=linda-m-shires-on-color-theory-1835-george-fields-chromatograph.https://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.com/2013/12/english-version-carlo-cesare-malvasia.html
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