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Jessie Mothersole

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Jessie Mothersole
Born8 August 1873[1]
Colchester, Essex, England
Died22 April 1958(1958-04-22) (aged 84)[1]
Kent, England
Occupation(s)Archaeologist, artist, and author
Academic background
Alma materSlade School of Fine Art
Academic work
Notable worksHadrian's Wall

Jessie Mothersole (8 August 1873 – 22 April 1958) was an English archaeologist, artist, and author.[2]

Early life and education

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Mothersole was born in Essex in 1873[3][4] and trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London 1891–1896.[5] During this time, she was awarded prizes and certificates in drawing from life, drawing and painting from the antique, and figure drawing.[6][7] She received a Slade Scholarship in 1894.[8] From 1899 she studied with, and then worked with, the artist Henry Holiday as his studio assistant, and was closely associated with him and his family until his death in 1927.[9] Holiday wrote enthusiastically in his memoirs about her talent with stained glass and decorative art, and intended to bequeath her his collections of cartoons and drawings.[10]

While at "The Slade", Mothersole was taught by Alphonse Legros, and, by her own account in 1892 when she went to speak to him, found a discarded self-portrait which had been torn into eight pieces. She kept the pieces and later donated the drawing to the Victoria and Albert Museum.[11] She also donated a silverpoint drawing of a young woman by Ellen Lucy Grazebrook.[12]

Career

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Mothersole's early work in archaeological drawing included drawings of wall paintings from Saqqara, exhibited by Flinders Petrie in an exhibition at University College London in 1904.[13][14] These followed her work at the 1903–1904 excavation season at Saqqara with Margaret Murray, where, alongside drawings, Mothersole recorded the season with photographs, some of which were later published in an article "Tomb Copying in Egypt" for the family magazine Sunday at Home.[15] Her "A Photograph Credited to Mothersole" from this period was taken at Luxor and is now in the Petrie Museum.[6] She put on a further exhibition of her Egyptian work at Walker's Galleries, New Bond Street, London; this was Sketches in Egypt and other Works with Henry Holiday, 16–28 March 1908.[16]

Following her early work in Egypt, in 1910 Mothersole wrote and published her first book, which concerned the Isles of Scilly, and included 24 of her own colour paintings.[17] She then focused primarily on British archaeology, publishing her self-illustrated book on Hadrian's Wall in 1922.[18] For this, she drew on both excavation reports and direct contacts with the archaeologists then excavating it, as well making her own observations as she walked the wall's length.[18][19][13] Her book offers a timely commentary on the Wall's scheduling, that ensures its status as a protected ancient monument.[13] Her key watercolours of Hadrian's Wall were exhibited 30 October – 11 November 1922 at Walker's Galleries, London.[20] She then wrote and illustrated several more books on archaeology and travel.

Mothersole, like Henry Holiday, was an active campaigner for women's suffrage. She made a drawing of a fellow campaigner, Myra Sadd Brown, at a meeting in c.1912, which is held in the archives of the Women's Library.[21]

Select publications

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References

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  1. ^ a b Jessie Mothersole, Wikidata Q55415726
  2. ^ "Mothersole Jessie 1873–1958". Artist Biographies. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  3. ^ "Search Historical Records". FamilySearch. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  4. ^ "Entry Information". FreeBMD. Free UK Genealogy CIO. Retrieved 17 March 2024. Click "View the original" to download the page.
  5. ^ UCL (1896). University College, London: Calendar: Session 1896-97. London: Taylor and Francis. p. 387 (414 of scan). Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  6. ^ a b Thornton, Amara. "The Slade Session, and Beyond". UCL Slade Archive Project. Retrieved 17 March 2024. (Birth and age error.)
  7. ^ UCL (1894). University College, London: Calendar: Session 1894-95. London: Taylor and Francis. p. l (roman 50) (473 of scan). Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  8. ^ UCL 1894, p. 39 (80 of scan).
  9. ^ "Jessie Mothersole". The British Museum. Retrieved 17 March 2024. (Birth error.)
  10. ^ Holiday, Henry (1914). Reminiscences of My Life. London: William Heinemann. p. 363.
  11. ^ "Drawing: Alphonse Legros (artist)". V&A Collections. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  12. ^ "Head of a woman: Ellen Lucy Grazebrook (artist)". V&A Collections. 30 June 2009. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  13. ^ a b c Thornton, Amara (4 April 2016). "Still Invisible?: The digital makes visible the invisible". British Art Studies (2). doi:10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-02/still-invisible/009. ISSN 2058-5462. Retrieved 17 March 2024. (Birth error.)
  14. ^ Thornton, Amara (2015). "Exhibition Season: Annual Archaeological Exhibitions in London, 1880s–1930s" (PDF). Bulletin of the History of Archaeology. 25 (1): 4. doi:10.5334/bha.252.
  15. ^ Mothersole, Jessie (February 1908). "Tomb Copying in Egypt". Sunday at Home. London: The Religious Tract Society. pp. 345–351.
  16. ^ "Exhibition of sketches in Egypt and other works by Mr. Henry Holiday and Miss Jessie Mothersole". Exhibition Culture in London 1878-1908. University of Glasgow. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
  17. ^ Mothersole, Jessie (1910). The Isles of Scilly: Their Story, Their Folk & Their Flowers. London: The Religious Tract Society.
  18. ^ a b Mothersole, Jessie (1922). Hadrian's Wall. London: The Bodley Head.
  19. ^ Mothersole, Jessie (1927). In Roman Scotland. London: The Bodley Head.
  20. ^ Amara Thornton. "Hadrian's Wall on New Bond Street". Reading Room Notes. Retrieved 17 March 2024. (Birth error.)
  21. ^ "Papers re Myra Sadd Brown". Women's Library Archives. Retrieved 17 March 2024.
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