Mary Moser
{{short description|18th and 19th-century English artist}}
{{About|the painter|the linguist and anthropologist|Mary B. Moser}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| name = Mary Moser
| image = Mary Moser - corrected.jpg
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| caption = A portrait of Mary Moser by George Romney
| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1744|10|27}}
| birth_place = London, England
| death_date = {{Death date and age|1819|05|2|1744|10|27|df=yes}}
| death_place =
| nationality = British
| field =
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| spouse = Hugh Lloyd
| patrons =Queen Charlotte
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}}
Mary Moser {{Post-nominals|post-noms=RA}} (27 October 1744 – 2 May 1819) was an English painter and one of the most celebrated female artists of 18th-century Britain. One of only two female founding members of the Royal Academy in 1768 (along with Angelica Kauffman), Moser painted portraits but is particularly noted for her depictions of flowers.{{cite book|author=Brian Stewart & Mervyn Cutten|publisher=Antique Collectors' Club|year=1997|title=The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920|isbn=1-85149-173-2}}
Life and career
London-born Moser was trained by her Swiss-born artist and enameller father George Michael Moser (1706–1783), George III's own drawing master.{{Cite web|last=ANDRÉA|first=FERNANDES|date=27 October 2009|title=Scandalous Academician: Mary Moser|url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/23116/scandalous-academician-mary-moser|website=Mentalfloss.com}} Her talents were evident at an early age: she won her first Society of Arts medal at 14,{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2003/sep/24/arts.artsnews|title=Gallery honours pioneering woman painter|date=24 September 2003|newspaper=The Guardian|accessdate=10 March 2010 | location=London | first=Fiachra | last=Gibbons}} and regularly exhibited flower pieces, and occasional history paintings, at the Society of Artists of Great Britain. Ten years later, however, her thirst for professional recognition led her to join with 35 other artists (including her father) in forming the Royal Academy, and, with Angelica Kauffman, she took an active role in proceedings.{{Cite web |url=http://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/mary-moser-and-angelica-kauffman |title=Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffman: the RA's founding women |last=Bluett |first=Amy |date=2 March 2015 |website=Royal Academy of Arts |access-date=17 April 2019 }}
File:Brooklyn Museum - Flowers Still Life (Jardiniere of Flowers) - Mary Moser.jpg
File:The Royal Academicians in General Assembly.png by Henry Singleton, 1795. Moser and Angelica Kauffman are next to each other at the rear of the group.]]
In a group portrait by Johan Zoffany, The Academicians of the Royal Academy (1771–72; Royal Collection, London), members are shown gathered around a nude male model at a time when women were excluded from such training in order to protect their modesty. So that Moser and Kauffman could be included, Zoffany added them as portraits hanging on the wall. They were both later included in the 1795 group painting The Royal Academicians in General Assembly by Henry Singleton.
George Romney (c. 1770) painted a portrait of Moser at work on a still life which was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery, London in 2003.{{Cite web |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw69339/Mary-Moser |title=Mary Moser |website=National Portrait Gallery |access-date=17 April 2019}}
Her influences include the older Dutch masters, famed for glowing color against dark backgrounds. From the beginning, her approach was "bold and luxurious,"{{Cite book|last=Greer|first=Germaine|title=The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work|publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux|year=1979|location=Great Britain|pages=248}} writes Germaine Greer.
In the 1790s, Moser received a prestigious commission, for which she was paid over £900, from Queen Charlotte to complete a floral decorative scheme for a room in Frogmore House in Windsor, Berkshire.{{cite DNB|wstitle=Moser, Mary |first=Freeman Marius |last=O'Donoghue|volume=38}}
This was to prove one of her last professional works. At 53,{{Cite book|last=Greer|first=Germaine|title=The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work|publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux New York|year=1979|location=Great Britain|pages=247–249}} she married Captain Hugh Lloyd, the widower of a friend on 23 October 1793. She retired and began exhibiting as an amateur under her married name. She continued showing at the Royal Academy until 1802.
At this period Moser had a brief affair with artist Richard Cosway, who was then separated from his wife Maria Cosway, an Anglo-Italian artist. Moser travelled with him for six months on a sketching tour in 1793.
"One of the most celebrated women artists of 18th-century Britain,"{{Cite web|last=FERNANDES|first=ANDRÉA|date=2009|title=Scandalous Academician: Mary Moser|url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/23116/scandalous-academician-mary-moser|website=Mental Floss}} Moser died in Upper Thornhaugh Street, London, on 2 May 1819, and was buried, alongside her husband in Kensington Cemetery.
Moser's pieces in the British Royal Collection show that she was not only "the first significant British flower painter, she was also one of the best."{{Cite book|last=Greer|first=Germaine|title=The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work|publisher=Farrar Straus Giroux|year=2009|location=Great Britain|pages=248}} Her portrait of famed British sculptor Joseph Nollekens hangs in the Yale Center for British Art.{{Cite web|last=Moser|first=Mary|title=Artworks|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/joseph-nollekens-246296|archive-url=|website=Artuk.org}}
Legacy
No further women were elected as full members of the Academy until Dame Laura Knight in 1936.{{cite web |author=|url=http://www.racollection.org.uk/ixbin/indexplus?record=ART13732 |title=Artist of the Month, Dame Laura Knight RA (1877–1970) |date=July 2013 |accessdate=16 October 2017|work=Royal Academy}}
References
{{reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- de Bray, Lys (2001). The Art of Botanical Illustration: A history of classic illustrators and their achievements, p. 72. Quantum Publishing Ltd., London. {{ISBN|1-86160-425-4}}.
- Paris Spies-Gans, “Mary Moser: Portraitist,” Journal18 Issue 8 Self/Portrait (Fall 2019), https://www.journal18.org/4228.
External links
- {{Art UK bio}}
- [http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp64834 Info and pictures from the National Portrait Gallery]
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Moser, Mary}}
Category:English women painters
Category:English women illustrators