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‘WE WOULD TAKE THE SCREEN BY STORM’: FEMALE ANTIQUARIAN AGENCY AND THE CAPTURE OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL PAINTING C 1830–50
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2023
Abstract
This paper explores the work of Harriet Gunn (1806–69) who began making drawings of rood screens c 1830. With the help of her sisters Hannah and Mary Anne, Harriet produced approximately 250 drawings, a remarkable number considering that rood screens received very little attention at this period. This substantial body of work merits analysis not least because it constitutes the first serious attempt to visually document Norfolk’s painted rood screens and provides an opportunity to shed light on an overlooked episode of female antiquarian activity. Drawing on previously unpublished letters, this paper confirms the active role Harriet and her sisters played in recording, discovering and enhancing the understanding of English medieval painting in the mid-nineteenth century. It also considers the influence of Harriet’s father, Dawson Turner FSA (1775–1858), in encouraging a new appreciation of the art historical value of painted rood screens. Turner’s objectives are situated within the wider cultural context of emerging tastes for early Italian art and new developments in art historiography seen in the 1820s and 1830s. Harriet’s sophisticated understanding of rood screens is therefore interpreted as a response to the intellectual milieu in which she was immersed. The paper concludes by exploring how her work, and the knowledge it promoted, was disseminated through the cultural machinery of archaeological societies in the mid-1840s through printed publications, exhibition and display.
Keywords
- Type
- Research paper
- Information
- Copyright
- © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Society of Antiquaries of London
References
Bibliography
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BL Add mss 23024–52Google Scholar
BL Add ms 23025 fols 14, 25Google Scholar
BL Add ms 23033 fols 217, 218, 223Google Scholar
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SDKA SDK/1/3/1/2Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A2/48Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/10Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/11Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/25Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/72Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/93Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/1–137Google Scholar
TCC/TURN3/A8/121Google Scholar
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Archaeological Institute 1846. ‘Catalogue of antiquities exhibited during the annual meeting at Winchester, in the gallery of the Deanery and at the St. John’s rooms’, in Proceedings at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland at Winchester, 1845, xxxix–liv, Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, London
Google Scholar
Archaeological Institute 1850. ‘Original papers, published under the direction of the committee of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological Society. Norwich, 1850’, Archaeol J, 7, 91–2Google Scholar
Archaeological Institute 1851. Memoirs Illustrative of the History and Antiquities of Norfolk and the City of Norwich Communicated to the Annual Meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, held at Norwich July 1847, Archaeological Institute, LondonGoogle Scholar
Avery-Quash, S and Meyer, C 2018. ‘“Substituting an approach to historical evidence for the vagueness of speculation”: Charles Lock Eastlake and Johann David Passavant’s contribution to the professionalization of art-historical study through source-based research’, J Art Historiogr, 2018, 1–49
Google Scholar
Bell, C F 1926. John Sell Cotman (The Bulwer Collection), vols 19–20, Walker’s Galleries, London
Google Scholar
Blackburne, E L 1847. Decorative Painting Applied to English Architecture During the Middle Ages, John Williams and Co, London
Google Scholar
Chun, D 2013. ‘Democratic principles and aristocratic tastes: William Roscoe’s patronage and art collecting’, Trans Hist Soc Lancashire and Cheshire, 162 (1), 107–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Close, F 1844. The Restoration of Churches is the Restoration of Popery, Hatchard, London
Google Scholar
Collier, C 2017. ‘Maria Callcott, Queen Victoria and the “Primitives”’, Vis Resourc, 33 (1–2), 27–47
CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collier, C and Palmer, C 2016. ‘Discovering ancient and modern Primitives: the travel journals of Maria Callcott 1827–28’, Vol Walpole Soc, 78, 1–121
Google Scholar
Colling, J K 1848–50. Gothic Ornaments, Being a Series of Examples of Enriched Details and Accessories of the Architecture of Great Britain, Bell, London
Google Scholar
Cotman, J S 1816–18. Specimens of Norman and Gothic Architecture in the County of Norfolk, J S Cotman, YarmouthGoogle Scholar
Dawson, W 1961. ‘A bibliography of the printed works of Dawson Turner’, Trans Cambridge Biblio Soc, 3 (3), 232–56Google Scholar
Gillam, S G 1984. The Douce Legacy: an exhibition to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the bequest of Francis Douce (1757–1834), Bodleian Library, Oxford
Google Scholar
Goodman, N (ed) 2007. Dawson Turner: a Norfolk antiquary and his remarkable family, Phillimore, Chichester
Google Scholar
Gough, R 1800. ‘Figures painted on the screen of the church of St Peter at Walpole in Norfolk, described by Richard Gough, Esq Dir. SA’, in The Antiquaries Museum, J Nichols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Graham, J E 1965. ‘The cataloguing of the Holkham Manuscripts’, Trans Cam Bibliogr Soc, 4 (2), 128–54Google Scholar
Gunn, J 1869. Illustrations of the Rood Screen at Barton Turf, Miller and Leavins, Norwich
Google Scholar
Hart, R 1844. The Antiquities of Norfolk: a lecture delivered at the Norwich Museum on 14 March 1844, Charles Muskett, Norwich
Google Scholar
Hart, R 1847. ‘Description of the engraving from the Randworth screen, chiefly as it illustrates the ecclesiastical vestments of our church during the Middle Ages’, in Vol 1: Norfolk archaeology, or miscellaneous tracts relating to the antiquities of the county of Norfolk, 324–33, Charles Muskett, Norwich
Google Scholar
Hemingway, A 1980. ‘“The English Piranesi”: Cotman’s architectural prints’, Vol Walpole Soc, 48, 210–44Google Scholar
Kempe, A 1830. ‘Notices of Tavistock Abbey’, Gent’s Mag, 147 (pt 1), 113–18, 216–21, 409–12Google Scholar
Knowles, J 2007. ‘A tasteful occupation? The work of Maria, Elizabeth, Mary Anne, Harriet, Hannah Sarah and Ellen Turner’, in Goodman 2007, 123–40Google Scholar
Lepine, A 2017. ‘Theology and threshold: Victorian approaches to reviving choir and rood screens’, Brit Art Stud, 5, https://doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-05/alepine (accessed 21 May 2023)CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, D 1993. ‘Carlo Lasinio: curator, collector and dealer’, Burlington Mag, 135 (1079), 133–48Google Scholar
Mitchell, J 2000. ‘Painting in East Anglia around 1500: the continental connection’, in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: studies in memory of Andrew Martindale, ed Mitchell, J, 365–80, Shaun Tyas, Stamford
Google Scholar
Moore, A 2007. ‘Dawson Turner: art patron, connoisseur and collector’, in Goodman 2007, 17–42Google Scholar
Nadolny, J 2005. ‘A problem of methodology: Merrifield, Eastlake and the use of oil-based media in English medieval painting’, in ICOM Committee for Conservation 14th Trienniel Meeting, 1028–33, James & James/Earthscan, The Haigh https://www.icom-cc-publications-online.org/2172/A-problem-of-methodology--Merrifield-Eastlake-and-the-use-of-oil-based-media-by-medieval-English-painters (accessed 21 May 2023)Google Scholar
NNAS 1847. ‘Appendix - Extracts from the Proceedings of the Committee, with reference to Antiquities found in, or relating to, the County of Norfolk’, Norfolk Archaeol, 1, 363–75Google Scholar
Palmer, C 2019. ‘“A revolution in art”: Maria Callcott on Poussin, painting and the Primitives’, Interdisciplinary Stud Long Nineteenth Cent, 28, 1–16
Google Scholar
Peltz, L 2017. Facing the Text: extra-illustration, print culture and society in Britain 1769–1840, Huntingdon Library Press, San Marino
Google Scholar
Plummer, P 1979. ‘Report of the summer meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute at Norwich, 1979’, Archaeol J, 137 (1), 292–5Google Scholar
Schnebbelie, J 1800. The Antiquaries Museum: illustrating the antient architecture, painting and sculpture of Great Britain, J Nichols, LondonGoogle Scholar
Sheldon, J 2009. The Letters of Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake, Liverpool University Press, Liverpool
CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, R 2015. ‘“A Giotto conviene far ritorno”: the Arena chapel, the British, a futurist and the reputation of Giotto (c 1267–1337)’, Brit Art J, 16 (2), 3–19
Google Scholar
Turner, D 1841. Catalogue of Engravings, Etchings and original drawings and deeds etc. etc. collected towards the illustration of the topography of Norfolk and inserted in a copy of Blomefield’s History of that County, privately printed, YarmouthGoogle Scholar
Turner, D 1849. ‘Drawings by Mrs Gunn of Mural paintings in Crostwight church communicated by Dawson Turner Esq’, Norfolk Archaeol, 2, 352–62Google Scholar
Way, A 1845. Report of the Proceedings of the British Archaeological Association, at the First General Meeting Held in Canterbury in 1844, John Russell Smith, LondonGoogle Scholar
Way, A 1851. ‘Extracts from the account rolls of Norwich Priory illustrative of painting, pigments, etc’, in Memoirs Illustrative of the History and Antiquities of Norfolk and the City of Norwich Communicated to the Annual Meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Held at Norwich July 1847, 207–10, Royal Archaeological Institute, LondonGoogle Scholar
White, J F 1962. The Camden Society: the ecclesiologists and the Gothic revival, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Google Scholar
Wrapson, L 2013a. ‘East Anglian medieval church screens: a brief guide to their physical history’, Hamilton Kerr Institute Bull, 4, 33–47
Google Scholar
Wrapson, L 2013b. ‘Patterns of production: a technical art historical analysis of East Anglia’s late medieval screens’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of CambridgeGoogle Scholar
Wrapson, L 2015a. ‘A medieval context for the artistic production of painted surfaces in England: evidence from East Anglia c 1400–1540’, in Painting in Britain 1500–1630, ed Cooper, T, Burnstock, A, Howard, M and Town, E, 166–75, Oxford University Press, London
Google Scholar
Wrapson, L 2015b. ‘Ranworth and its associated paintings’, In Norwich: medieval and early modern art, architecture and archaeology, Brit Archaeol Trans 38, ed T A Heslop and H Lunnon, 216–37, Maney, LeedsGoogle Scholar