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Fanny Steers

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Frances Steers (1797–1861) was an English watercolourist and landscapist, as well as an author and composer. She is known for small-scale landscapes such as The Reeks, Killarney, Ireland, and exhibited a number of works at the New Society of Painters in Water Colours, as one of its few female members.[1] Both William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow bought her paintings, and a poetic quote from her work appears in the first edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. Two of her prints are in the collection of the British Museum.[2]

Personal life

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Fanny Steers was the eldest daughter of William and Mary Steers,[1] who with their daughters ran lodging houses in Malvern Wells, for pilgrims who hoped to be cured by Malvern water.[3]

On 11 January 1797, she was baptised Frances at Hanley Castle; she is buried in the Hanley Castle churchyard.[1]

Career

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Irish scene painted by Fanny Steers and purchased by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It remains on display in the Longfellow House in Cambridge, Massachusetts.[4]

Little has been written about Steers's life and work. Two small prints from the 1830s survive in the collection of the British Museum.[5][6]

The British Museum print from 1834 shows a small rustic building near trees and a pond. Steers created it using the chine-collé technique, where a print is made on delicate paper in order to show fine details but afterward bonded to sturdier material.[5] The 1835 etching shows a larger and more elegant house, also framed by lovingly sketched vegetation.[6]

The British Museum bought both these etchings in 1849, when Steers had begun to be known for her watercolours. Neither of these early works is currently on display at the British Museum.[5][6]

In 1846, she was elected a member of England's New Society of Painters in Water-Colours (NSPW), becoming one of very few women in its membership of 57 painters.[7] As a new exhibitor in the association's 1846 show, Steers was described as "an acquisition to the gallery" by a critic who added "we know of no female artist who handles the pencil so boldly; but she must be careful not to make her skies too splashy".[8]

An 1848 comment on her work described her as "a true disciple of the Ruskin school".[9] (John Ruskin, an early advocate for the Pre-Raphaelites, emphasized "truth to nature" in his influential five-volume work Modern Painters.) The critic suggested, however, that she should progress from small paintings to what he described as "the great ultimatum of artistic ambition, the production of large and elaborately composed pictures".[9]

In May 1856, The Spectator harshly criticized the NSPW exhibition but praised Steers as "the only exhibitor who has struck a full chord of artistic beauty, and reached that point at which we rest satisfied on the attainment instead of feeling the deficiency".[10] Three of her paintings were in this exhibition, but the critic complained that what he described as "her principal work, Eventide" was "hung down to the bottom of a screen on a level with the visitor's ankles".[10] Poor placement of women's work in exhibitions was a common problem because their paintings, like Steers's, "tended to be smaller in scale": large works got prominent placement while smaller ones became "infill", sometimes "in spaces lacking suitable lighting or sightlines".[11]

In 1858, at a Boston exhibition of British paintings organized by (among others) William Rossetti, the first painting to be sold was a landscape by Fanny Steers.[12] The buyer was Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who wrote in his April 1858 diary, "At the Exhibition of English Pictures ... Delighted with the watercolours. Buy 'Lake of Killarney' by Fanny Steers."[4] Rossetti was especially pleased by this sale, noting that William Makepiece Thackeray had also recently bought one of Steers's paintings.[13]

In addition to her painting, Steers wrote poetry and music. Her humorous poem The Ant Prince: A Rhyme (1847) had two printings despite a mixed review in the 1848 Athenaeum and Literary Chronicle:[14]

The Ant Prince, by Miss Fanny Steers, is a jeu d'esprit of questionable pretensions,—an Ingoldsby legend, well sugared and watered for infant palates. Miss Steers chronicles with amusing and rather ingenious exactitude the love of the Ant Prince for the Queen Bee :-a most hopeless attachment-which ends in true dramatic style, by the Prince dying in despair and the relenting Queen Bee killing herself—with her own sting—over his body.

The first (1856) edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations[15] includes this quote from Steers:

The last link is broken
That bound me to thee,
And the words thou hast spoken
Have render'd me free.

References

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  1. ^ a b c "List of artists and photographers associated with Malvern in Worcestershire". The Malvern Hills UK. Retrieved 16 January 2024. She is buried in Hanley Castle churchyard.
  2. ^ "Fanny Steers". British Museum.
  3. ^ "Springs, spouts, fountains, and holy wells of the Malvern Hills". Retrieved 16 January 2024. By the beginning of the 19th century the Steers family had the monopoly of lodgings at Holy Well. In 1817 Mr Steers kept Wells House, which by 1825 was run by his widow, while his daughters ran Rock House, a spacious lodging house adjacent to the Holy Well where people stayed if they wanted more privacy.
  4. ^ a b "Women Artists at the Longfellow House" (PDF). National Park Service. 1998. Retrieved 16 January 2024. In April 1858 Henry Longfellow recorded in his journal, ... "Delighted with the watercolours. Buy 'Lake of Killarney' by Fanny Steers." The poet did indeed purchase this watercolor, which occupies a place of importance in the second floor front hall.
  5. ^ a b c "Print: Museum number 1849,1208.485". British Museum. Retrieved 22 January 2024. View of a farm by pond, farmer walking in front of the cottage under tree in the centre, ducks on the pond in the right foreground, chickens on the bank, another building in the left background behind the gate. 1834. Etching, printed on chine collé
  6. ^ a b c "Print: Museum number 1849,1208.484". British Museum. Retrieved 22 January 2024. Description View of a house, two-storey double fronted, a man standing on the right of the house along path with rut, tree in the left foreground. 1835 Etching
  7. ^ Members and Associates of the Royal Institute of Painters in Water Colours from the Foundation of the Society to the Present Time. The Studio. 1906.
  8. ^ "Continuation fo the exhibition of the New Water-Colour Society". The New Monthly Belle Assemblée: 374. 1846. No. 10. "Camp Hill, with southern termination of the Malvern Chain," Fanny Steers. This lady is a new exhibitor, and will prove an acquisition to the gallery. Her landscapes are vigorous: she gives the true character of moor scenery, and we know of no female artist who handles the pencil so boldly; but she must be careful not to make her skies too splashy.
  9. ^ a b "Fine Arts: Exhibition of the New Society of Painters in Watercolors". The Rambler. 1. 1848. among the lady artists ... Of Miss Fanny Steers we would augur most favourably; the conscientious elaboration of her studies shews that she is a true disciple of the Ruskin school, and the character of her sketches gives promise that, when she arrives at the great ultimatum of artistic ambition, the production of large and elaborately composed pictures, they will prove right good ones
  10. ^ a b "The Water-Colour Societies". The Spectator: 33. At the New Gallery, the only exhibitor who has struck a full chord of artistic beauty, and reached that point at which we rest satisfied on the attainment instead of feeling the deficiency, is Miss Fanny Steers; a lady whose productions seem to attract the smallest possible notice, but who to our judgment, has been for years past facile regina [Latin: "easily the queen"] of the exhibition. On the present occasion, her principal work, "Eventide," is with gallant consistency hung down to the bottom of a screen on a level with the visitor's ankles. For glow and richness of colour, and subdued melancholy of feeling, this is here altogether unrivalled. The burst of purply-black clouds in mid sky, against the blue, orange, red, and reddened slate hues of the expanse, the distance with the evening gleam upon the water, the foreground pines, and the burning dun hides of the homeward cattle, are all exquisitely wrought—deep and tender.
  11. ^ Holmes, Johanna (2020). "'To use our talents and improve them': Women's careers in the London art world, 1820-1860" (PDF). Retrieved 21 January 2024. This to an extent reflects the order of the exhibitions' hang and the fact that works by female artists comprised a minority of those submitted, and tended to be smaller in scale. Larger paintings were hung on the wall, while smaller ones were relegated to "the screens", or, worse, used as infill in spaces lacking suitable lighting or sightlines.
  12. ^ Ruskin, John (1985). The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites. Brooklyn Museum. p. 130. ISBN 9780872731004. In Boston, few sales records survive, but the first picture sold was a landscape, by Miss Fanny Steers, which was purchased by professor Longfellow of Cambridge
  13. ^ Thirlwell, Angela (2003). William and Lucy : the other Rossettis. Yale University Press. p. 135. ISBN 9780300102000. (quoting William Rossetti) "one of the best, I think, of the water-colour landscapists. Always paints small and finished (sunsets particularly beautiful) and gets unfairly treated and over-looked. Thackeray bought one of her pictures last year or the year before.'...Fanny Steers' American buyer was another literary man, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
  14. ^ "Poetry of the million". Athenaeum and Literary Chronicle. 1063: 266. 1848.
  15. ^ Bartlett, Josiah (1856). A Collection of Familiar Quotations With Complete Indices of Authors and Subjects. p. 292. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
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