Margaret Gillies: Difference between revisions

Smith and Gillies lived together at Hillside, Fitzroy Park, [[Highgate]] from 1844.<ref name="ODNB"/> Smith, an ordained Unitarian minister, and Gillies associated with the group around the ''[[Monthly Repository]]'', a Unitarian periodical; Mary Gillies was involved in editing it from 1836.<ref name="WaP">{{cite book |last1=Rogers |first1=Helen |title=Women and the People: Authority, Authorship and the Radical Tradition in Nineteenth-Century England |date=2017 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781315318004 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lgckDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT200 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Gaze |first1=Delia |last2=Mihajlovic |first2=Maja |last3=Shrimpton |first3=Leanda |title=Dictionary of Women Artists: Artists, J-Z |date=1997 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=9781884964213 |page=583 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_0Y0PALzQMC&pg=PA583 |language=en}}</ref> Margaret Gillies illustrated in 1842 Smith's first report as a mines inspector, on a tour in Leicestershire and West Yorkshire.<ref>Darley, Gillian. ''Octavia Hill: Lessons in Campaigning.”'' Octavia Hill, Social Activism and the Remaking of British Society, edited by Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell, School of Advanced Study, University of London, London, 2016, pp. 27–44, at p. 31. {{jstorJSTOR|j.ctv4w3whm.9}}</ref>

After Smith's death, Margaret and Mary Gillies lived for many years at [[Church Row, Hampstead|25 Church Row, Hampstead]], and worshipped at the Unitarian Chapel, [[Rosslyn Hill]]. Living with her was Charles Lewes, son of [[George Lewes]] the lover of [[George Eliot]], and his wife Gertrude, Southwood Smith's granddaughter.<ref name="DH"/> Mary died in 1870 and early in 1887<ref name="DNB"/> Margaret moved to The Warren, [[Crockham Hill]], Kent, where she died later that year, on the 20th20 July, of [[pleurisy]], after a few days' illness.<ref name="DNB"/> Among her pupils was [[Marian Emma Chase]],<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=32379|title=Chase, Marian Emma|first=Charlotte|last=Yeldham}}</ref> and she gave early encouragement to [[Anna Mary Howitt]]<ref>{{cite ODNB|id=63040|title=Howitt, Anna Mary|first=Pam|last=Hirsch}}</ref> and the portraitist Mary Field, wife of the architect [[Horace Field]].

In 1866 Margaret bought a grave plot in the [[dissenter|dissenters']] section of the western side of [[Highgate Cemetery]] for a stillborn baby of Charles and Gertrude Lewes. Mary was later interred in this grave on the 23rd23 July 1870, as was Catherine, the widow of the poet and critic [[Richard Henry Horne|Richard Hengist Horne]], on the 6th6 September 1893. In the adjoining grave rests [[Caroline Southwood Hill]] (buried on 3rd3 January 1903), Southwood Smith's daughter and mother of the social reformers [[Miranda Hill]] and [[Octavia Hill]], the latter of whom jointly founded the [[National Trust]]. The ashes of Caroline's youngest daughter Florence was the last interment in December 1935.<ref>{{cite journal |title=Listing of Grave entries for Grave 14900 |journal=Highgate Cemetery |date=10 April 2021}}</ref> Although Margaret Gillies is memorialised on this grave she is buried elsewhere, presumably in Crockham Hill.

During the 1830s and 1840s Gillies was a career portrait artist, and for many successive years contributed portraits to the exhibitions of the [[Royal Academy]].<ref name="DNB"/><ref name="Vic">{{cite book |last1=Orr |first1=Clarissa Campbell |title=Women in the Victorian Art World |date=1995 |publisher=Manchester University Press |isbn=9780719041228 |page=61 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2y68AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA61 |language=en}}</ref> Her subjects included feminist figures: [[Mary Leman Grimstone]], [[Mary Howitt]] and her daughter Anna Mary Howitt, [[Harriet Martineau]] of the ''Monthly Repository'' group.<ref name="Vic"/><ref>{{cite book |last1=Peart |first1=Sandra J. |title=Hayek On Mill: The Mill-Taylor Friendship and Related Writings |date=2015 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781317562344 |page=25 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tJusBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA25 |language=en}}</ref> She also painted the poet and critic [[Richard Henry Horne|Richard Hengist Horne]] and the novelist [[Anne Marsh-Caldwell]] the novelist.<ref name="DNB"/>

[[File:RichardPortrait Henryof (orCharles Hengist)John HorneHuffman by Margaret GilliesDickens.jpgpng|thumb|left|[[Charles ''RichardDickens]], Henry (or Hengist) Horne''portrait by Margaret Gillies, {{circa|lk=yes|1840}}1843]]

Her portrait of [[Charles Dickens]], painted during the period when he was writing ''[[A Christmas Carol]]'', was in the [[Royal Academy of Arts]]' 1844 summer exhibition.<ref name="Brown">{{cite news |last1=Brown |first1=Mark |title=Lost portrait of Charles Dickens turns up at auction in South Africa |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/nov/21/lost-portrait-charles-dickens-turns-up-auction-south-africa-margaret-gillies |accessdate=22 November 2018 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=21 November 2018 }}</ref> After viewing it there, [[Elizabeth Barrett Browning]] said that it showed Dickens with "the dust and mud of humanity about him, notwithstanding those eagle eyes".<ref name="Brown" /> A simplified form was used as the frontispiece of a book, ''A New Spirit of the Age'', in the same year. The painting's location was unknown, (from later in Gillies' lifetime, when she was unable to trace it,) until it was rediscovered in [[Pietermaritzburg]], South Africa,<ref name="Brown" /><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/charles-dickens-portrait-scli-intl/index.html|title=Lost portrait of Charles Dickens found in South Africa|date=2018-11-21|work=CNN Style|access-date=2018-11-25|language=en}}</ref> and acquired and restored by the art dealer [[Philip Mould]] in 2018.<ref name="Mould">{{cite web |title=Charles Dickens: The Lost Portrait Now Open |url=https://philipmould.com/gallery/edit/charles-dickens-the-lost-portrait-open |publisher=[[Philip Mould]] |accessdate=22 November 2018 |date=8 November 2018}}</ref>

[[Category:PortraitBritish portrait miniaturists]]