Kirsten Tambling: Sense & Sensibility
Kirsten Tambling discusses "Mrs Kauffman and Madame Le Brun: The Entwined Lives of Two Great Eighteenth-Century Women Artists" by Franny Moyle.
Artistic Talents
Angelica Kauffman was a woman of many talents. She was adept with a glass harmonica, and in 1768, the Danish poet Helfrich Peter Sturz described her playing it in her London studio, eliciting "haunting chimes from a set of gradated glasses, with ‘her large expressive eyes devoutly cast upwards’".
- She also played the cittern
- Delighted guests with poetry recitations
her large expressive eyes devoutly cast upwards
Meanwhile, her studio was also a place for portrait sittings, such as the one with the Duchess of Brunswick in 1767.
Author's summary: Kirsten Tambling reviews a book about two 18th-century women artists.