Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D Part 39

This artist was born in Berlin in 1858, and was a pupil of Gussow. Her best pictures are portraits, but her "Sappho" and "Euphrosine" are excellent works.

POPP, BABETTE. Born in Regensburg, 1800; died about 1840. Made her studies in Munich. In the Cathedral of Regensburg is her "Adoration of the Kings."

POWELL, CAROLINE A. Bronze medal at Chicago, 1893; silver medal at Buffalo, 1901. Member of the Society of American Wood-Engravers and of the Boston Society of Arts and Crafts. Born in Dublin, Ireland. Pupil of W. J. Linton and Timothy Cole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Doge's Palace, Venice

ST. CHRISTOPHER

ENGRAVED BY CAROLINE A. POWELL]

Miss Powell was an ill.u.s.trator of the _Century Magazine_ from 1880 to 1895. The engraving after "The Resurrection" by John La Farge, in the Church of St. Thomas, New York, is the work of this artist. She also ill.u.s.trated "Engravings on Wood," by William M. Laffan, in which book her work is commended.

Miss Powell is now employed by Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., and writes me: "So far as I know, I am, at present, the only woman in America engaged in the practise of engraving as a fine art."

PRESTEL, MARIA CATHARINA; FAMILY NAME HOLL. Born in Nuremburg, 1747. Her husband, Johan Prestel, was her teacher, and she was of great a.s.sistance in the work which he produced at Frankfort-on-the-Main, in 1783. In 1786, however, she separated from him and went to London, where she devoted herself to aquatints. She executed more than seventy plates, some of them of great size.

PRESTEL, URSULA MAGDALENA. Born in Nuremburg. 1777-1845. Daughter of the preceding artist. She worked in Frankfort and London, travelled in France and Switzerland, and died in Brussels. Her moonlight scenes, some of her portraits, and her picture of the "Falls of the Rhine near Laufen," are admirable.

PREUSCHEN, HERMINE VON SCHMIDT; married name, Telman. Born at Darmstadt, 1857. Pupil of Ferdinand Keller in Karlsruhe. Travelled in Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Denmark. She remained some time in Munich, Berlin, and Rome, establishing her studio in these cities and painting a variety of subjects. Her flower pictures are her best works. Her "Mors Imperator" created a sensation by reason of its striking qualities rather than by intrinsic artistic merit. In the gallery at Metz is her picture of "Irene von Spilimberg on the Funeral Gondola."

In 1883 she exhibited in Rome, "Answered," a study of thistles; "In Autumn," a variety of fruits; and "Questions," a charming study of carnations. At Berlin, in 1890, "Meadow Saffron and Cineraria" was praised for its glowing color and artistic arrangement. A Viennese critic, the same year, lamented that an artist of so much talent should paint lifeless objects only. In Berlin, in 1894, she held an exhibition, in which her landscapes and flower pieces were better than her still-life pictures. Frau Preuschen is also a musician and poet.

The painting of flower pieces is a delightful art for man or woman, but so many such pictures which are by amateurs are seen in exhibitions--too good to be refused but not of a satisfactory quality--that one can scarcely sympathize with the critic who would have Mme. Preuschen paint other subjects than these charming blossoms, so exquisite in form and color, into which she paints so much delightful sentiment.

PUEHN, SOPHIE. Born at Nuremberg, 1864. This artist studied in Paris and Munich and resides in the latter city. At the International Exhibition, Vienna, 1894, her portrait of a "Lady Drinking Tea" was praised by the critics without exception, and, in fact, her portraits are always well considered. That she is also skilful in etching was shown in her "Forsaken," exhibited in 1896.

PUTNAM, SARAH GOOLD. Member of the Copley Society. Born in Boston.

Pupil in Boston and New York of J. B. Johnston, F. Duveneck, Abbott Thayer, and William Chase; in Scheveningen, of Bart. J. Blommers; and in Munich, of Wilhelm Durr.

Miss Putnam's portrait of Hon. John Lowell is in the District Court Room in Post-Office Building, Boston; that of William G. Russell, in the Law Library in the Court House, Pemberton Square, same city; that of General Charles G. Loring, for many years Director of Boston Museum of Fine Arts, belongs to his family; among her other portraits are those of Dr. Henry P. Bowditch, Francis Boott, George Partridge Bradford, Edward Silsbee, Mrs. Asa Gray, and Lorin Deland. In addition to the above she has painted more than one hundred portraits of men, women, and children, which belong to the families of the subjects.

PUYROCHE, MME. ELISE. Born in Dresden, 1828. Resided in Lyons, France, where she was a pupil of the fine colorist, Simon St. Jean. Mme.

Puyroche excelled her master in the arrangement of flowers in her pictures and in the correctness of her drawing, while she acquired his harmonious color. Her picture called the "Tom Wreath," painted in 1850, is in the Dresden Gallery.

QUESTIER, CATHERINE. Born in Amsterdam. In 1655 she published two comedies which were ill.u.s.trated by engravings of her own design and execution. She achieved a good reputation for painting, copper engraving, and modelling in wax, as well as for her writings.

RAAB, DORIS. Third-cla.s.s medal, Nuremberg; also second-cla.s.s medal, 1892. Born in Nuremberg, 1851. Pupil of her father, Johann Leonhard Raab, in etching and engraving. She has engraved many works by Rubens, Van Dyck, and Cuyp; among her plates after works of more recent artists are Piloty's "Death Warrant of Mary Stuart," Lindenschmidt's "In Thought,"

and Laufberger's "Hunting Fanfare." This artist resides in Munich.

RADOVSKA, BARONESS ANNETTA, of Milan. Her interesting genre pictures are seen in most of the Italian exhibitions. "Old Wine, Young Wife," was at Milan, 1881; in same city, 1883, "An Aggression," "The Visit," "The Betrothed." She also sent to Rome, in 1883, two pictures, one of which, "The Harem," was especially noteworthy. In 1884, at Turin, she exhibited "Tea" and the "Four Ages"; these, were excellent in tone and technique and attractive in subject. At Milan, 1886, her "Will He Arrive?" was heartily commended in the art journals.

RAE, HENRIETTA. See Normand, Mrs. Ernest

RAGUSA, ELEANORA. See O'Tama.

RAPIN, AIMeE. At the Swiss National Exposition, 1896, a large picture of a "Genevese Watchmaker" by this artist was purchased; By the Government and is in the Museum at Neuchatel. In 1903 the city of Geneva commissioned her to paint a portrait of Philippe Plantamour, which is in the Museum Mon-Repos, at Geneva. Member of the Societe des Beaux-Arts of Lausanne, Societe des Femmes peintres et sculpteurs de la Suisse romande, Societe de l'exposition permanente des Beaux-Arts, Geneva. Born at Payerne, Canton de Vaud. Studied at Geneva under M. Hebert and Barthelmy Menn, in painting; Hugues Bovy, modelling.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In the Museum at Neuchatel

GENEVESE WATCHMAKER

AIMeE RAPIN]

Mlle. Rapin writes me: "I am, above all, a portrait painter, and my portraits are in private hands." She names among others of her sitters, Ernest Naville, the philosopher; Raoul Pictet, chemist; Jules Salmson, sculptor, etc. She mentions that she painted a portrait of the present Princess of Wales at the time of her marriage, but as it was painted from photographs the artist has no opinion about its truth to life. Mlle.

Rapin has executed many portraits of men, women, and children in Paris, London, and Germany, as well as in Switzerland. She refers me to the following account of herself and her art. In the _Studio_ of April, 1903, R. M. writes: "The subject of these notes is a striking example of the compensations of Nature for her apparent cruelty; also of what the genuine artist is capable of achieving notwithstanding the most singular disadvantages. Some years ago in the little town of Payerne, Canton Vaud, a child was born without arms. One day the mother, while standing near a rose-bush with her infant in her arms, was astonished to observe one of its tiny toes clasp the stem of the rose. Little did she guess at the time that these prehensile toes were destined one day to serve an artist, in the execution of her work, with the same marvellous facility as hands.

As the child grew up the greatest care was bestowed upon her education.

She early manifested unmistakable artistic promise, and at the age of sixteen was sent to the ecole des Beaux Arts, Geneva.... For reasons already mentioned Mlle. Rapin holds a unique position amongst that valiant and distinguished group of Swiss lady artists to whose work we hope to have the opportunity of referring.... She is a fine example of that singleness of devotion which characterizes the born artist. Her art is the all-absorbing interest of her life. It is not without its limitations, but within these limitations the artist has known how to be true to herself. Drawing her inspiration direct from nature, she has held on her independent way, steadily faithful to the gift she possesses of evoking a character in a portrait or of making us feel how the common task, when representative of genuine human effort and touched with the poetry of national tradition, of religion, and of nature, becomes a subject of n.o.ble artistic treatment. She has kept unimpaired that _merveilleux frisson de sensibilite_ which is one of the most precious gifts of the artistic temperament, and which is quick to respond to the ideal in the real. There are some artists who, though possessed of extraordinary mastery over the materials of their art, bring to their work a spirit which beggars and belittles both art and life; there are others who seem to work with an ever-present sense of the n.o.ble purpose of their vocation and the pathos and dignity of existence. Mlle. Rapin belongs to the second category. Her 'L'Horloger' is an example of this. A Genevese watchmaker is bending to his work at a bench covered with tools.

Through the window of the workshop one perceives in the blue distance Mont Saleve, and nearer the time-honored towers of the Cathedral of St.

Pierre. Here is a composition dealing with simple life--a composition which, from the point of execution, color, and harmony of purpose, leaves little or nothing to be desired. But this is not all. It is, so to speak, an artistic _resume_ of the life and history of the old city, and that strongly portrayed national type gathers dignity from his alliance with the generations who helped to make one of the main interests of the city, and from his relationship to that eventful past suggested by the Cathedral and the Mountain.

"Mlle. Rapin is unmistakably one of the best Swiss portraitists, working for the most part in pastels, her medium by predilection; she has at the same time modelled portraits in bas-relief. We are not only impressed by the intensely living quality of her work as a portraitist, but by the extraordinary power with which she has seized and expressed the individual character and history of each of her subjects."

Mlle. Rapin has exhibited her works with success in Paris, Munich, and Berlin. The few specimens of her bas-reliefs which I have seen prove that did she prefer the art of sculpture before that of painting, she would be as successful with her modelling tools as she has been with her brush.

RAPPARD, CLARA VON. Second-cla.s.s medal, London. Born at Wabern, near Berne, 1857. After studying with Skutelzky and Dreber, she worked under Gussow in Berlin. She spent some time in travel, especially in Germany and Italy, and then, choosing Interlaken as her home, turned her attention to the ill.u.s.tration of books, as well as to portrait and genre painting. In the Museum at Freiburg is her "Point-lace-maker." A series of sixteen "Phantasies" by this artist has been published in Munich.