Books by Helen Draper
Drawing first on the critical concept of 'influence' employed routinely by cultural historians, I... more Drawing first on the critical concept of 'influence' employed routinely by cultural historians, I examine the ways in which Beale's early personal and artistic development may have been informed by objects she saw. Second, I discuss the artist's exploration of likeness and identity, as expressed in the painted and written objects she made, and how she used them in the manipulation of her own reputation. The model of 'influence' presented by the case-study as a whole offers a complementary methodology for exploring the lives and works of historical subjects.
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Papers by Helen Draper
In the history of British art, Mary Beale’s was the earliest documented professional studio led b... more In the history of British art, Mary Beale’s was the earliest documented professional studio led by a woman artist. There were other female painters, but only Beale(1633-1699) established a successful business and maintained it for over twenty years, all without benefit of formal training, guild affiliation or court patronage. Mary’s surviving body of work comprises self-portraits, likenesses of family and friends painted for love, and portraits painted on cash commission from ‘persons of quality’. Gentlewoman Beale was also a writer whose works include the manuscript Observations by MB in her painting of Apricots (1663), the earliest known guide to painting with oils by an artist practising in Britain. Mary’s work as a portraitist in London’s fashionable West End supported her ‘middling’ family of four, with husband Charles (d.1705) acting as her studio manager. Their friends were courtiers, tradespeople, intellectuals, clergymen, artists and lawyers, and included figures obscure an...
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Early Modern Women, 2015
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Forum for Modern Language Studies, 2012
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Histories of seventeenth-century British art suggest that one, two, possibly three women were pai... more Histories of seventeenth-century British art suggest that one, two, possibly three women were painters and of those only Beale successfully maintained an independent commercial portrait studio, and for more than 20 years. Joan Carlile (d.1679) and miniaturist Susannah-Penelope Rosse (d.1700) painted professionally but few of their paintings survive. Can this possibly represent the entire contribution of women to the artistic life of the metropolis? No, dozens of women were members of or apprenticed to the London Company of Painter Stainers and in this article their story is explored.
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In 1663 Mary Beale recorded her thoughts on how to paint apricots. Beale’s statement, ‘Observatio... more In 1663 Mary Beale recorded her thoughts on how to paint apricots. Beale’s statement, ‘Observations by MB in her painting of Apricots in August 1663’, is the first known text in English about the act of painting written by a female artist. It is all the more remarkable for having been written at a time when convention expected married gentlewomen to be deferential, modest and virtually silent. This monogrammed manifesto is anything but modest: it is an authoritative exemplar for others to follow, and it represents Mary’s implicit acceptance of her place in a shared artistic inheritance and a stake in her own legacy for the future. Observations - here taken together with Beale’s other texts and with self-portraits spanning the years 1659 to 1681 - forms part of an oblique autobiography and is read as an statement of intent encoded in what appears to be innocuous technical information.
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Conference Papers by Helen Draper
Mary Beale was the most prominent and successful female portrait painter in Restoration London. S... more Mary Beale was the most prominent and successful female portrait painter in Restoration London. She maintained an independent commercial studio for more than twenty years without formal training, court patronage, or guild affiliation. Beale was also a writer whose prose was circulated in manuscript, her poetry published in print. Portraits and texts were exchanged within and beyond her circle - poets, lawyers, artists, clerics and natural philosophers - simultaneously as courtly gifts of friendship and as the currency of commerce. Within this group a portrait would stand in for an absent loved one, while the texts they wrote conjure for the modern reader images and emotions stirred by paintings the writers saw, but are now sadly lost. My paper will examine the role played by cultural objects in the furtherance of personal ambitions and public alliances; in the early modern performance of true friendship; and as emblems of memory.
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By 1670 Mary Beale was receiving sitters to a studio in her family’s new house on Pall Mall, St J... more By 1670 Mary Beale was receiving sitters to a studio in her family’s new house on Pall Mall, St James's, where neighbours included Nell Gwynn and Charles II. Beale was not a Court painter, but through judicious alliances - including William Chiffinch, keeper of the King’s closet - she engineered a special relationship with it. Mary and husband Charles borrowed pictures and drawings by Italian masters from the royal collection, and she received patronage from prominent courtiers. I suggest that Beale presents an example of a woman supported by the Court - profiting from its literal and metaphorical proximity - yet remaining independent. In doing so Beale walked a tightrope between the benefits brought by royal association and the risk to her reputation, personal and professional, posed by immersion in the scandalous Court.
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In their work, Beale and Philips both betray an acute awareness of the pleasures and pitfalls inh... more In their work, Beale and Philips both betray an acute awareness of the pleasures and pitfalls inherent in the performance of personal friendship, and that its rituals and intimacies should be combined with acts of mutual advancement. Each fostered a collaborative network of affectionate friends who provided one another with support and practical help as well as intellectual stimulation; and each assumed a public mantle of modest reluctance in order to neutralise their unseemly ambitions. Mary and Katherine appear never to have met, but I will suggest that other parallels can be drawn between the preoccupations and aims of these two creative gentlewomen; that the mechanisms of exchange within their respective circles were remarkably similar; and that many intriguing links existed between them.
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Books by Helen Draper
Papers by Helen Draper
Conference Papers by Helen Draper