Tart of the Week: Mary Moser

Of the numerous great female artists of the eighteenth century, Mary Moser is usually shortsighted. An odd fact, especially considering that Mary, with Angelica Kaufman, was a founder of the Royal Academy.

Art was in Mary's genes. Her father was an artist and noticed his daughter's talent at an early age and took it upon himself to train her. Mary's favourite subject was flora. In an age where paintings of flowers went out with the Dutch Golden age, Mary picked up where the Dutch masters left off and resurrected the subject-matter. She craved recognition and was twenty-four when she aided in forming the Royal Academy in hopes it would get her name out. Perhaps that is what helped her to get the commission to paint floral motifs for the queen's house, Frogmore. But Mary's participation in the Royal Academy founding wouldn't be the last time Mary displayed her Scorpio sense of assertive and competitive nature.

Mary was almost fifty when she finally settled down and married (she was such a Samantha!). Almost as soon as she was married she began having an affair with the flamboyant miniature artist, Richard Cosway. The two went on an artist pilgramage tour together and his sketches from that time are dabbled with little notes about his sex life with Mary. She was a freak in bed! In some notes he directly compared Mary's carnal skill with his wife's (Mary came out out on top, no pun intended). For an old macaroni, Mary really brought the raunchy side of Cosway out.

Mary lived out the rest of her years in retirement, and died quietly in 1819 at the ripe old age of seventy-five.

Preserving Those 'Fine Eyes' in Miniature

Supposedly it is a person's eyes that we first notice when we fall in love. I'm sure that's what the Prince of Wales was looking at when he first became smitten with the busty Mrs. Fitzherbert. Either way, he presented his shy lover a token of his affection in the form of an eye miniature. Eye portraits became a common lovers' token in the late eighteenth century and into the Regency period. After all, eyes are not as conspicuous as a full miniature. This makes them difficult to identify today. If you find one of these rare miniatures in a museum they seldom know whose eye is depicted. Many letters from the time talk of how supposed lovers had "exchanged eyes."

Eye portraits were created the same way miniatures were and usually by miniature artists such a Richard Cosway (who painted the eye for the prince to give to Mrs. Fitzherbert). The eyes would be placed on jewelery such as brooches or rings to display that the wearer's heart belonged to someone. Some settings even have a wife's eye surrounded by her childrens'. Other eyes were not put on constant display and only shown to select parties, but that usually meant that they already had someone else's eye, if you get my drift, wink wink.

Immortal Companion: Richard Cosway

Richard Cosway is best known as the leading miniature portrait artist of the Georgian era. He was also known for being married to the fashionable Maria Cosway (whom Thomas Jefferson was in love with at one point) and for being the definition of a macaroni. His white hair was arranged in a high point and Cosway was not adversed to wearing the typical macaroni makeup and colorful clothing. Despite his foppish exterior, Cosway was well respected, a favourite artist of the Prince of Wales, and a founding member of the Royal Academy. Like Gainsborough and Reynolds, anyone who was anyone would have Cosway paint their miniature.

So when it came time for Cosway to commision a painting of his beloved he chose the leading animal portraitist, George Stubbs. Of course, the macroni had the most fashionable type of pet, a tiny white dog. Can't you just see the flamboyant Cosway walking through the streets cradling this little white puff ball? His pup is portrayed with every enlightened sensitibility. Romping in the Rousseau wilderness, he is distracted by a moth and poses in an alert stance with his focus on the airborn insect. Here we have an example of a portrait that totally focuses on the dog and not the dog's owner; an example of the value put on pets. And if your pet just happened to be of the upmost fashion, then it really couldn't hurt to put your dog on display!