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Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century

Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century
Open Access

Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century

The Imprint of Women, c. 1700–1830
Cristina S. Martinez, University of Ottawa
Cynthia E. Roman, Yale University
March 2024
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Adobe eBook Reader
9781108957199
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    A ground-breaking contribution that broadens our understanding of the history of prints, this edited volume assembles international senior and rising scholars and showcases an array of exciting new research that reassesses the history of women in the graphic arts c. 1700 to 1830. Sixteen essays present archival findings and insightful analyses that tell compelling stories about women across social classes and nations who persevered against the obstacles of their gender to make vital contributions as creative and skilled graphic artists, astute entrepreneurs and savvy negotiators of copyright law in Britain, France, Germany, Holland, Italy and the United States. The book is a valuable resource for both students and instructors, offers important new perspectives for print scholars and aims to provide impetus for further research. This title is part of the Flip it Open Programme and may also be available Open Access. Check our website Cambridge Core for details.

    • Includes interdisciplinary and multi-national perspectives, providing forgotten biographical details and informative analyses of American, English, French, German, Dutch and Italian printmakers, printsellers and print publishers
    • Changes persistent assumptions and perspectives surrounding the burgeoning eighteenth-century printmaking and printselling trade
    • Presents new evidence of women's innovative, creative and astute contributions to the print trade, showing how they overcame artistic, legal and commercial challenges

    Reviews & endorsements

    ‘Martinez and Roman have curated a thoughtfully organised - and utterly necessary - collection of essays that offer insight into the labour and experiences of women printmakers and -sellers. In so doing, they bring to light a virtually unknown aspect of image-making and circulation in the long 18th century. Across its three sections, this book offers an effective mixture of methods, archives, and examples from different national traditions. It introduces readers to artists and entrepreneurs they may otherwise never have encountered and acts as a model for future scholarship.’ Thora Brylowe, Associate Professor of English, University of Colorado, Boulder

    ‘This fascinating volume is the first to shed light on the considerable - yet, until now, largely invisible – contributions of women to the eighteenth-century print industry. It offers a rich, detailed study which promises to revitalise the study of graphic culture, drawing out across a series of multi-national case studies the ways in which women negotiated the artistic, technical, commercial, domestic, legal and political landscapes they entered. More than a work of simple historical recovery, the volume builds on its meticulously empirical foundations to draw out exciting new narratives about the participation of women in the print trade over the long eighteenth century.’ Rosemarie Dias, Associate Professor of the History of Art, University of Warwick

    ‘Fulfilling a genuine interdisciplinary need for a book-length study addressing this neglected subject, this collection is the first of its kind. Shining new light on the diverse roles played by women in the trades as etchers, engravers, illustrators, and other makers and sellers of graphic prints, it offers a multi-national perspective addressing European and American women workers and artists as they negotiated the artistic, legal, and commercial challenges of their era.’ Paula McDowell, Professor of English, New York University

    ‘An excellent collection of wide-ranging essays … offering a rich vein for future scholarship.’ Bridget Quinn, Hyperallergic

    See more reviews

    Product details

    March 2024
    Adobe eBook Reader
    9781108957199
    0 pages
    This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.

    Table of Contents

    • Introduction: hidden legacies Cristina S. Martinez and Cynthia E. Roman
    • Part I. Self-Presentation and Self-Promotion:
    • 1. Show-offs: women's self-portrait prints c. 1700 Madeleine C. Viljoen
    • 2. Maria hadfield cosway's 'genius' for print: a didactic, commercial, and professional path Paris A. Spies-Gans
    • 3. Caroline Watson and the theatre of printmaking Heather McPherson
    • 4. 'Talent and untiring diligence': the print legacy of Angelika Kauffmann, Marie Ellenrieder and Maria Katharina Prestel F. Carlo Schmid
    • Part II. Spaces of Production:
    • 5. 'Living in the bosom of a numerous and worthy family': women printmakers learning to Engrave in late eighteenth-century London Hannah Lyons
    • 6. Divine secrets of a printmaking sisterhood: the professional and familial networks of the Horthemels and Hémery sisters Kelsey. D. Martin
    • 7. Yielding an impression of women printmakers in eighteenth-century France Rena M. Hoisington
    • 8. Laura piranesi 'incise': a woman printmaker following in her father's footsteps Rita Bernini
    • 9. Etchings by ladies, 'not artists' Cynthia E. Roman
    • Part III. Competing in the Market: Acumen in Business and Law:
    • 10. Mary Darly, fun Merchant and Caricaturist Sheila O'Connell
    • 11. A changing industry: women publishing and selling prints in London, 1740–1800 Amy Torbert
    • 12. Jane Hogarth: A printseller's imprint on copyright law Cristina S. Martinez
    • 13. Shells to satire: the career of Hannah Humphrey (1750-1818) Tim Clayton
    • 14. Encouraging Rowlandson – the women who mattered Nicholas JS Knowles
    • 15. Female printmakers and printsellers in the early American republic: Eliza Cox Akin and Mary Graham Charles Allison M. Stagg.
      Contributors
    • Cristina S. Martinez, Cynthia E. Roman, Madeleine C. Viljoen, Paris A. Spies-Gans, Heather McPherson, F. Carlo Schmid, Hannah Lyons, Kelsey. D. Martin, Rena M. Hoisington, Rita Bernini, Sheila O'Connell, Amy Torbert, Tim Clayton, Nicholas JS Knowles, Allison M. Stagg

    • Editors
    • Cristina S. Martinez , University of Ottawa

      Cristina S. Martinez is an art historian who specialises in British eighteenth-century art and copyright history. She is the author of the entry on Jane Hogarth in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and has received several awards including a Bodleian Library fellowship.

    • Cynthia E. Roman , Yale University

      Cynthia E. Roman is Curator of Prints, Drawings and Paintings at the Lewis Walpole Library, Yale University. She is an active and widely published scholar of British art of the eighteenth century. Her work focuses on the history of prints and print collecting, and the work of women and amateur artists.