Born: 17 May 1794, Ireland
Died: 17 March 1860
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Anna Brownell Murphy
This biography is republished from The Dictionary of Irish Biography and was written by Frances Clarke. Shared by permission in line with Creative Commons ‘Attribution’ (CC BY) licencing.
Jameson, Anna Brownell (1794–1860), writer, feminist, and art historian, the eldest of five daughters of the miniature painter Denis Brownell Murphy and his English wife, was born 19 May 1794 at the family home on College Green, Dublin. In 1798 she was taken to England, where her father moved to pursue his career, and lived in Whitehaven in Cumberland, Newcastle upon Tyne, and later London, before beginning a lengthy career as a governess in 1810. In this capacity in 1821–2 she made the first of many trips to the continent, which inspired her earliest known published work, a poem, ‘Farewell to Italy’, which appeared in the London Magazine (November 1822). Her marriage to the London-based barrister Robert Sympson Jameson in 1825 proved unhappy and resulted in a separation in 1829; they had no children. She had by this stage made an impression as a writer with A lady’s diary (1825, republished 1826 as Diary of an ennuyée), a semi-fictionalised travelogue, which draws heavily on her own experiences of Italy. This was followed by several works on celebrated women, aimed at female readers, the best-known being her acclaimed study of Shakespeare’s heroines entitled Characteristics of women (1832).
Jameson was an enthusiastic traveller, particularly in Germany, where she befriended Ottilie von Goethe, a niece of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. In 1833 she was briefly reconciled with her husband, who had been appointed attorney general of Upper Canada, and in October 1836 she sailed for Canada to assist him in his (successful) efforts to be appointed vice-chancellor of the chancery court. Her protracted stay there resulted in the well-received Winter studies and summer rambles in Canada (1838), which told of her adventurous two-month journey by canoe and bateau to Lakes Erie, Huron, and Simcoe, and vividly described the beauties of Canada; it included several of her own illustrations. Turning to art history and criticism, from 1842 she produced several volumes on art and was a regular contributor to The Athenaeum, Art Journal, Monthly Chronicle, and Penny Journal. One of the earliest female art historians, she became a significant arbiter of taste in both Britain and America.
Her long experience as the primary breadwinner of her family – her father’s fortunes declined and she helped to support several of her sisters – led Jameson to focus, during her later career as both a public speaker and writer, on social issues, particularly the legal and educational position of women. The publication of her lectures Sisters of Charity (1855) and The communion of labour (1856) were influential, particularly among the group of young feminists who gravitated towards her. Her circle also included Fanny Kemble, Elizabeth Gaskell, the Brownings, Harriet Martineau, and Lady Augusta Byron (though she became estranged from Lady Augusta in 1852). In 1848 she published the first two volumes of what became a five-volume series, Sacred and legendary art; this was perhaps her most enduring legacy, the third volume in the series (Legends of the Madonna as represented in the fine arts) being reprinted in Detroit as late as 1972. Despite her many years outside Ireland, she always maintained a keen interest in the country, and returned in 1847, when she stayed with Maria Edgeworth, and in 1853, when she attended the opening of the Irish Exhibition. Her many years of financial worries were partly alleviated by a civil-list pension (awarded 1851), and an annuity of £100 which was purchased by her friends in 1855 after her husband failed to mention her in his will. At the time of her death in London on 17 March 1860 she was working on The history of our Lord as exemplified in works of art. It was completed by her friend Lady Eastlake and published in 1864. Her portrait was painted by her father as a sixteen-year-old, and by H. R. Briggs RA in 1835.
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
Anna Brownell Jameson, an English writer, born in Dublin. At sixteen years of age she became governess in the family of the Marquis of Winchester, and in 1825 she married Robert Jameson. The union proved uncongenial, and Mrs. Jameson devoted herself to literary work, while her husband went to fill a government position in Canada.
The first work which displayed her powers of original thought was her Characteristics of Women in 1832, these analyses of Shakespeare’s heroines are remarkable for delicacy of critical insight and fineness of literary touch. They are the result of a penetrating but essentially feminine mind, applied to the study of individuals of its own set, detecting characteristics and defining differences not perceived by the ordinary critic and entirely overlooked by the general reader.
Mrs. Jameson’s other important work was her series of Sacred and Legendary Art, a storehouse of delightful knowledge, as admirable for accurate research as for poetic and artistic feeling. She recognized the extend of the ground before her as a mingled sphere of poetry, history, devotion and art. She infected her readers with her own enthusiastic admiration, and produced a book which thoroughly deserved its great success.
Besides writing many other books on travel, biography and art criticism, Mrs. Jameson took a keen interest in questions affecting the education, occupations and maintenance of her own sex. To her we owe the first popular enunciation of the principle of male and female cooperation in works of mercy and education. Sisters of charity, hospitals, penitentiaries, prisons and workhouses all claimed her interest – all more or less included under those definitions of “the communication of love and communion of labor” which are inseparably connected with her memory.
To the clear and temperate forms in which she brought the results of her convictions before her friends in the shape of private lectures, may be traced the source whence later reformers and philanthropists took counsel and courage.
From Woman: Her Position, Influence and Achievement Throughout the Civilized World. Designed and Arranged by William C. King. Published in 1900 by The King-Richardson Co. Copyright 1903 The King-Richardson Co.:
Anna Jameson, British Authoress, 1797 – 1860 A.D.
As a writer on matters of art and taste Mrs. Jameson probably surpassed all other women writers and on the literature of art she is conceded by many to stand next to Ruskin. She possessed an intense love of the beautiful, a cultivated and discriminating taste, and her breadth of knowledge was almost phenomenal. Added to these were her natural and cultivated powers of eloquent description.
In quantity her writings were surpassing as quality, and the former does not seem to have impaired the latter.
Here again, birth and early training had a marked influence. Her father, Mr. Murphy, was a painter to the Princess of Charlotte (daughter of George IV, who married Prince Leopold afterward King of Belgium) and by him her inborn artistic tastes were trained with great care.
She became the wife of Mr. Jameson, who received a government appointment to Canada. The marriage was not a happy one and they lived apart. After traveling extensively in Europe, she devoted herself to literary work, at first chiefly in biographical lines and relating specially to women. Loves of the Poets is a series of sketches showing the influence of women on poetic minds. Lives of Celebrated Female Sovereigns needs no explanation. Characteristics of Women deals with the female characters of Shakespeare’s plays. She also prepared a work on Beauties of the Court of Charles II.
In artistic lines her work began with translating a German work on the life and genius of Rubens. She was now discovering her special forte. Next came A Handbook to the London Art Galleries, and a Companion to the Private Galleries of Art in London.
This development is interesting. Having begun with writing biographical sketches and then having taken up descriptions of great works of art, she combined the two and wrote Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters and of the Progress of Painting in Italy. then came memoirs and Essays, and Sacred and Legendary Art.