In discussions of 18th- and 19th-century British landscape painting, the names that crop up tend to be men’s. This exhibition at the Courtauld tells another story, displaying the work of 10 British women who consistently painted landscapes at a time when men dominated the scene (28 January–20 May). Especially skilled in watercolours, the artists highlighted in this display include the intrepid Amelia Long, Lady Farnborough, one of the first British artists to visit France in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars; Harriet Lister and Lady Mary Lowther, who rendered the Lake District with Edenic grandeur; and Elizabeth Batty, nine of whose drawings recently entered the Courtauld’s collection. These pen, brush and wash drawings, made on her travels to Italy in 1817, were well received after being engraved and published in 1820, but 44 of her Italian works spent nearly two centuries wrongly attributed to her son – which makes correctives such as this exhibition all the more necessary.
Find out more from the Courtauld’s website.
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