Harriet Gunn
{{Short description|English artist and lithographer (1806 – 1869)}}{{Infobox person
| name = Harriet Gunn
| image = Mrs. John Gunn. (BM 1840,0208.7).jpg
| caption = Harriet Gunn c.1840, engraved by her sister Hannah Sarah Brightwen after Eden Upton Eddis.
| birth_name = Harriet Turner
| birth_date = 1806
| death_date = September 1869
| education = Artistic training by John Sell Cotman
| occupation = Lithographer; writer
| known_for = Reproductions of medieval rood screen artwork
| spouse = John Gunn
| parents = Dawson Turner
Mary Dawson Turner
| family = Engraver Hannah Sarah Brightwen (sister)
}}
Harriet Gunn (née Turner, 1806 – 1869) was an English illustrator and lithographer who specialised in illustrations of ecclesiastical art. Beginning as an illustrator of antiquarian books and travel writing, she produced portraits for publications and is noted for her personal project of reproducing medieval rood screens. She was also a writer, anonymously publishing a book on church polity and having her letters printed as a travel account.
Early life and family
She was born Harriet Turner in 1806, the fourth daughter of polymath Dawson Turner and his wife Mary, née Palgrave, an artist and draughtswoman. Along with her sisters, Maria, Elizabeth, Mary Anne, Harriet, Hannah, and Eleanor, she received artistic training from engraver John Sell Cotman from 1812.{{Cite book |last=Goodman |first=Nigel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0ktXGQAACAAJ |title=Dawson Turner: A Norfolk Antiquary and His Remarkable Family |date=2007 |publisher=Phillimore |isbn=978-1-86077-445-4 |pages=5 |language=en}} Hannah Sarah Turner continued her artistic career after her marriage to banker Thomas Brightwen, producing lithographs as Hannah Sarah Brightwen.{{Cite web |title=Hannah Sarah Brightwen (née Turner) - National Portrait Gallery |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp17405/hannah-sarah-brightwen-nee-turner |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=www.npg.org.uk |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=Hannah Sarah Brightwen (1808-1882) and her family - ONLINE VERSION |url=https://nrocatalogue.norfolk.gov.uk/index.php/hannah-sarah-brightwen-1808-1882-and-her-family |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=nrocatalogue.norfolk.gov.uk}}{{Cite web |title=Collections Online {{!}} British Museum |url=https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG20871 |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=www.britishmuseum.org}}
Artistic career
= ''Topographical History of Norfolk'' =
File:Engraving of a bishop (Ranworth rood screen).jpg by Harriet Gunn, 1839]]
Around 1810, Dawson Turner began a project supplying extra illustrations for Francis Blomefield’s An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk.Turner, Dawson. ‘Original Drawings, Engravings, Etchings and Deeds, &c. &c Inserted in a Copy of Blomefield’s History of Norfolk, in the Library of Dawson Turner, Esq. at Yarmouth’. The Topographer’s Manual, by Samuel Woodward. London: Nichols and Son, 1842. Appendix 1: 1-215. Harriet and her mother and sisters contributed the bulk of the illustrations, supplying over 4000 drawings between them.{{Cite journal |last=Hunt |first=A. |date=2008-09-01 |title=Dawson Turner: A Norfolk Antiquary and his Remarkable Family. Ed. by NIGEL GOODMAN. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/library/9.3.359 |journal=The Library |volume=9 |issue=3 |pages=359–361 |doi=10.1093/library/9.3.359 |issn=0024-2160}}
= ''Account of a Tour in Normandy'' =
In 1820 the family produced a collaborative two-volume Account of a Tour in Normandy, drawing on letters and journals from their family tour in Normandy of 1818. Mary, Cotman, and Harriet and her sisters provided the illustrations.{{Cite web |title=Harriet Gunn {{!}} British Travel Writing |url=https://btw.wlv.ac.uk/authors/1062 |access-date=2024-04-03 |website=btw.wlv.ac.uk}}
= Reproductions of ecclesiastical art =
On 27 April 1830, Harriet married John Gunn, rector of Irstead, Great Yarmouth, and amateur geologist and archaeologist. The paired toured Norfolk in pursuit of their interests, Harriet producing illustrations of architecture and ecclesiastical art. Her particular area of interest was rood screens, which preserved rare samples of medieval painting. With the help of her sisters Hannah and Mary Anne, she produced about 250 drawings of this underrepresented antiquarian feature. She exhibited her drawings at the annual congress of the Royal Archaeological Institute in 1847 and at a temporary museum at the Swan Hotel, Norwich.{{Cite journal |last=Snape |first=Julia |date=2023 |title="We would take the screen by storm": Female antiquarian agency and the capture of English medieval painting c. 1830–50 |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquaries-journal/article/abs/we-would-take-the-screen-by-storm-female-antiquarian-agency-and-the-capture-of-english-medieval-painting-c-183050/17F349DFC9BF87991CE947A7498F36B5 |journal=The Antiquaries Journal |language=en |volume=103 |pages=333–362 |doi=10.1017/S0003581523000124 |issn=0003-5815}}
Writing
The anonymous 1833 book Conversations on Church Polity, by A Lady is attributed to Harriet Gunn.{{Cite book |last=Halkett |first=Samuel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EqvJftH0ggoC&dq=harriet+gunn+conversations+on+church+polity&pg=PA429 |title=Dictionary of Anonymous and Pseudonymous English Literature |date=1971 |publisher=Ardent Media |pages=429 |language=en}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3O1iAAAAcAAJ |title=Conversations on Church Polity. By a Lady [Miss Harriet Gunn]. |date=1833 |language=en}}Gunn, Harriet. [https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/24901 Conversations on Church Polity. By a Lady]. The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 24901. Accessed 2024-04-03.
In 1834, Dawson Turner edited and printed Letters Written During a Four Days’ Tour in Holland from Harriet's letters without her prior knowledge.Gunn, Harriet. [https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/title/14977 Letters Written during a Four Days' Tour in Holland, in the Summer of 1834.] The Women's Print History Project, 2019, title ID 14977. Accessed 2024-04-03.{{Cite book |last=Gunn |first=Harriet |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lvxcAAAAcAAJ&q=harriet+gunn+holland |title=Letters Written During a Four-days' Tour in Holland, in the Summer of 1834 |date=1834 |publisher=Not published |pages=vi |language=en}}
Death
She died in September 1869.
== References ==
External links
- [https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp52515/harriet-gunn-ne-turner Works by Harriet Gunn held by the National Portrait Gallery]
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Category:British lithographers
Category:19th-century English women artists
Category:19th-century English women writers