Born: 19 May 1794, Ireland
Died: 17 March 1860
Country most active: United Kingdom
Also known as: Anna Brownell Murphy
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.