Women artists in all ages and countriesEllet, E. F. (Elizabeth Fries)
History
Women artists in all ages and countries
Ellet, E. F. (Elizabeth Fries)
Women artists
The fellow had been induced to seek the poor girl’s hand from motives
of cupidity alone, desiring to possess himself of the property she had
acquired by her labors. He now wished to compel her to a hasty flight
from London. Believing herself irrevocably bound to him, Angelica
resolved to submit to her fate; but her firmness and strength of nature
enabled her to evade compliance with his requisition that she should
leave England, till the truth was made known to her--that he who called
himself her husband was already married to another woman still living.
This discovery made it dangerous for the impostor to remain in London,
and he was compelled to fly alone, after submitting unwillingly to the
necessity of restoring some three hundred pounds obtained from his
victim, to which he had no right.
The false marriage was, of course, immediately declared null and
void. These unhappy circumstances in no way diminished the interest
and respect manifested for the lady who, in plucking the rose of
life, had been so severely wounded by its thorns; on the contrary,
she was treated with more attention than ever, and received several
unexceptionable offers of marriage. But all were declined; she chose to
live only for her profession.
One of Angelica’s biographers pronounces her “proof against flattery.”
Nollekens, on the other hand, accused her of having been a coquette
in her youth. While at Rome, before her marriage, he said she
was extremely fond of personal admiration. “One evening she took
her station in one of the most conspicuous boxes of the theatre,
accompanied by two artists, both of whom, as well as many others, were
desperately enamored of her. She had her place between her two adorers;
and while her arms were folded before her in front of the box over
which she leaned, she managed to press a hand of both, so that each
imagined himself the cavalier of her choice.”
After fifteen years’ residence in England, when the physician who
attended her suffering father advised return to Italy, and the invalid
expressed his fear of dying and leaving her unprotected, Angelica
yielded to his entreaties, and bestowed her hand upon the painter
Antonio Zucchi.
This gentleman was born in Venice in 1728, and had worked there
upon historical pieces. He afterward took to landscape-painting and
architecture, and many of his designs were published in learned works
of the day. Being induced to go to England, he obtained an excellent
place, and won the warm friendship of Mr. Kauffman. The marriage
with his daughter took place in 1781, and proved a most happy one,
undisturbed by any untoward occurrence till the death of Zucchi.
Angelica, with her husband and her father, now returned to the sunny
south. Stopping in Schwarzenberg to visit their relatives, they
proceeded to Italy, settling themselves for a prolonged stay. In
January of the following year Kauffman expired in the arms of his
loving child.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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