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https://dictionaryofarthistorians.org/rigbye.htm

http://blogs.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscripts/2014/10/16/effie-lady-eastlake-and-the-evidence-in-the-archives/

http://www.quarterly-review.org/classic-qr-the-original-1848-review-of-vanity-fair/

Life

Elizabeth, the fifth of twelve children was born in Norwich to Edward Rigby (1747-1821) and his second wife, Anne Palgrave. Her father, a noted physician and obstetrician, took an active interest in local politics, was an amateur classical scholar, and wished for his children to be privately educated in the arts and sciences. This allowed Elizabeth to became fluent in French and Italian, as well as showing an early promise and enthusiasm for drawing.

The Rigby's family life was divided between Edward Rigby's medical practice in St Giles Street, Norwich and a 300-acre country estate in Framingham Earl, a small village south of Norfolk. During the long summer stays at Framingham Earl Elizabeth had free range of the idyllic estate, often "climbing trees, and haystacks, making fires in a dry ditch, and roasting potatoes."

In contrast to this Elizabeth's parents also included their children in their prominent social life, and it was here Elizabeth acquired her social skills which include conversing with prominent citizens and intellectuals. Elizabeth's father died when she was 12 years old, and from this event, it was she who decided the path her education was to continue.

In 1827 Elizabeth was sent Germany and Switzerland to convalesce after contracting typhoid fever. She stayed for two years and started a lifetime of publication with a translation of Johann David Passavant's essay on English art. Returning to England in her twenties Elizabeth took the opportunity to studying art at the National Gallery, in the hope of becoming a painter, (while also studied English literature at the British Museum).

Elizabeth's second trip to Germany in 1835 led to an article on Goethe. And after travelling to Russia and Estonia to visit each of her married sisters, she published letters and a travel book, A Residence on the Shores of the Baltic (1841) which led to an invitation to write for the Quarterly Review from its editor John Gibson Lockhart.

Portrait sketch, 1831, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake V&A Museum no. E.1009-1945

In 1842, Anne Rigby moved with her remaining unmarried family to Edinburgh where Elizabeth's literary career brought entry to an intellectual circle which included prominent figures such as Lord Jeffrey, John Murray and David Octavius Hill who photographed her in a series of about 20 early calotypes, assisted by Robert Adamson). And in 1857, she published an essay on the relationship between art and photography, demonstrating her knowledge about the "new and mysterious art" by discussing its strengths and weaknesses.

Despite a diary entry in 1846 saying there were many "compensations" for unmarried women, three years later, aged 40, Elizabeth married Sir Charles Eastlake. She joined him in an active working and social life, entertaining artists such as Landseer and mixing with a wide range of well-known people, from Macaulay to Lady Lovelace. Her continental travel continued through the 1850s and 1860s as she and her husband toured several European countries in search of new acquisitions for the National Gallery (where her husband had been appointed first as a trustee [[1]] then, in 1855 was appointed the Gallery's first Director).

Elizabeth continued to write prolifically, helping to popularise German art history in England, both as critic and as translator (Waagen and Kugler). Occasionally Elizabeth would also publish in collaboration with her husband (of whom she wrote a memoir after his death in 1865). Italian art also absorbed her attention. Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Titian, Raphael and Dürer were the subjects of her Five Great Painters (1883), published ten years before she died.

Activism

Elizabeth was an influential and an articulate figure in Victorian high society, offering herself as an embodiment of Victorian women's deportment of behavior and morals, where she lived by example and shared her values through the publications of articles and books, devoting much of her life to championing and setting the standards in the conduct of self-restraint, discipline and self-improvement, cultivating a resolute work ethic and an altruistic disposition tempered with humility. Elizabeth was unrelenting in her crusade and used her keen sense of propriety where a distinct separation between the sexes was embraced . This view was based on her belief that women had poor judgement due to their susceptibility to emotional turmoil, preventing them capable of rational thinking. Thereby in their fulfilling a subservient role of motherhood, domesticity and social appearances as a task orientating lifestyle, this cultural influence would act as a safeguard to society in general from their irrationality . This belief is likely to have been reinforced by popular eighteen century theories of women being the weaker sex (Bernard Mandeville’s Treatise of the Hypochondriack and Hysterick Passions (1711) and her preponderance to self-criticism: "My pen has been too silent in every respect. The Siren Music has been the temper [....] with my strong love for music I have indulged myself far too much." July 5th 1845 diary entry, and many other entries in letters too [[2]] pg 43 Letter to Dawson Turner, pg 47 & 63 Letter to John Murry.

Since Elisabeth was fortunate to have received an education and of 'being well travelled' (which was unusual for women in the 19th Century), it is from this first-hand experience that she thought the Victorian women would greatly benefit from her guidance in regulating their emotional management while also being mentored in rising to domestic excellence. While there is evidence Elizabeth could be judgmental about those she believed to lack the virtues she promoted (ADD CITATION Some Biographies of German Ladies. Pg 67), this strong minded willingness to express her opinion may be seen to demonstrate an interest in leaving a legacy of decency and clean living.

Art Critic

In addition to this rigorous moral conduct Elizabeth was also a leading voice in the Victorian art scene, and had many famous literary art contacts: John Gibson Lockhart, Charles Kegan Paul, Johann David Passavant, Giovanni Morelli, J.W. von Goethe, John Ruskin, and J. A. Crowe to name but a few.

As an art critic, her sensibilities were based on the idea "... that the artist especially was to control his or her vain cravings for recognition and produce art that benefited the viewer rather than the artist. According to the double standard by which the artist was judged, emotional energy constituted a vital part of the process of artistic creation, but vanity was an impermissible motivation. The ambiguous status that emotion occupied was the source of immense complication for many artists, as excess of emotion was unrespectable, whereas lack of emotional enthusiasm made for a weak and boring work of art., and Eastlake Smith, Journal and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake. And to Elizabeth "..... the artist’s pride was immoral because she viewed art as the universal possession of all humankind; beyond any rewards to be hoped for him or her as a person. The self of the artist was never to be the object of the creative endeavor: “It is the business of the painter not to represent the individual, but the individuality—not to copy a specimen, but to show forth a species.” of selected subjects did not make a great artist. He or she was meant to render an atmosphere; a sensitivity, rather than to present a perfect demonstration of stylistic skills. A work of art should never consciously promote the artist but instead benefit the community. Eastlake’s general advocacy of self-effacement took on moral urgency when the artist was concerned, as her diary shows: “Self-forgetfulness and self-possession are the extremes which meet—they are essential to all excellence.” Excellence was annulled by the desire to be excellent—true greatness was the product of rigour and self-control. Self-realisation, according to Easterlake, had no place in art.

Examples of Elizabeth's disparaging views on this theme, where the artist does not measure up to these ideals, are noted in her diary. After meeting JHW at a dinner on 4th March 1844: "Turner, the artist, a queer little being, very knowing about all the castles he has drawn—a cynical kind of body, who seems to love his art for no other reason than because it is his own.”  Her distaste for John Ruskin was made plain in her submission to the Quarterly Review, March 1856 p 384-433.

Some eight year prior to this Elizabeth had submitted a scathing review to the Quarterly Review on the then controversial novel "Jane Eyre" written by Currer Bell / Charlotte Bronte. Elizabeth accused the author of "moral Jacobinism" (trying to start a revolution), because of the book's anti-Christian tone, its portrayal of the concept that love could transcend class, and the emotions expressed in the novel were deemed coarse: "the tone of mind and thought which has overthrown authority and violated every code human and divine … is the same which has also written Jane Eyre" ('A review of Vanity Fair and Jane Eyre', Quarterly Review, No. CLXVII, December, 1848, pp. 82–99).  Elizabeth also speculated that, if indeed the author of the book was female, she must be a "fallen woman".

Philanthropic Contributions

Supported the Society of Women promoted the fortunes of single women recomended nurses to Florence Nightingale and governesses to ladies of her acquaintance Supported several charities & lent her name to causes that appealed for sponsors in the pages of the Times towards the end of her life she became an anti-vivisectionist

Reputation

Elizabeth is considered "as one of the most articulate, representative and influential figures of Victorian England." (Redgrave 1946, p.474) In the 21st century she is chiefly remembered for her scathing review of Jane Eyre and for marrying Charles L. Eastlake.

Her literary attacks on John Ruskin were assumed to be linked to her role as confidante to his estranged wife, Effie Gray, who subsequently divorced Ruskin on the grounds of their marriage not being consummated.[3] However, Ruskin had, in January of 1847, publicly attacked and criticised her husband Charles L. Eastlake in a letter to the Times with regard to his competence of being "Keeper of the Collection" of the National Gallery, London (1843-7). [4]

So contrarily, Lady Elizabeth Eastlake can be better understood to be a women of her time and social standing. Her high moral principles coupled with a strong conservative Victorian ethic dominated her work even though she took advantage of the opportunities newly offered to women of her class (i.e. having an education). As the historian Rosemary Mitchell, observes that Elizabeth's work as an art historian and writer was significant and original, and considers Elizabeth to have been a scholarly and perceptive critic and a pioneer of female journalism. (ODNB)

Publications online

A Resident on the Shores of the Balitic

Letters from the Shore of the Baltic: with etchings

Livonian Tales

Music, and the Art of Dress. 2 Essays

Mrs Grote: A Sketch

Fellowship: Letters addressed to My Sister Mourners

Elizabeth Eastlake, from "Lady Travellers" (1845)

Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake Vol I

Journals and Correspondence of Lady Eastlake Vol II

Treasures of Art in Britain: Gustav Friedrich Waagen, translated by Lady Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the English Romantic School: Alois Brandl Edited by Elizabeth Rigby Eastlake,  

Life of John Gibson, RA: Edited by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake

Handbook of Painting, The Italian Schools: Translation of Franz Kugler by Lady Elizabeth Ripley Eastlake

Handbook of Painting, The Italian Schools: Part 2, Translation of Franz Kugler by Lady Elizabeth Ripley Eastlake

Western Barbary: Its Wild Tribes and Savage Animals By John H. Drummond Hay and edited by Lady Elizabeth Ripley Eastlake

Works of Art

Tate Collection

Victoria & Albert Museum

Additional Reading

Elizabeth Rigby, Lady Eastlake: Marion Lochhead

‘EQUALLY LENDERS AND BORROWERS IN TURN’: THE WORKING AND MARRIED LIVES OF THE EASTLAKES: Adele M. Ernstrom

National Gallery's pioneering collector celebrated with exhibition: Guardian newspaper article (Sunday 24 July 2011)

PCCA Criticism of Lady Elizabeth Eastlake's photographic article of 1857

"My Name Is the Right One" Lady Elizabeth (Rigby) Eastlake's Professional Art Criticism: By Kanwit, John Paul M.

Contemporary reaction to Jane Eyre: UWGB Commons, Heather Rupiper

Photographic quotes by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake

A Photographic quote by Lady Elizabeth Eastlake

Claire Thomas's article: The Eastlakes, Nationhood, and the Purchase etc.

Meaghan Clarke, “1894: The Year of the New Woman Art Critic”

A 2016 review published in the Independent newspaper offers an additional 21st Century insight to Elizabeth's review stance to Jane Eyre [5]