Anna Jameson’s “Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters”: German Art History and the National Gallery

Fascinating online lecture from the National Gallery on the 19th century art historian Anna Jameson.

I hadn’t come across Jameson before and was delighted to find out about her. Adele Ernstrom from Bishop’s University, Canada, delivered this inaugural Anna Jameson Memorial lecture clearly outlining her life story and the contribution she made to art history and the National Gallery. I certainly want to find out more.

In the 1840s she wrote a guide to public galleries of art in London, shortly after the National Gallery relocated to Trafalgar Square, which she followed up with essays on artists in “The Penny Magazine” and then her “Memoirs of the Early Italian Painters” in 1845.

She also advised the National Gallery on the gaps in their early collection as a result of which they acquired a Fra Angelico.

 

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