The antiques society I go to on a Friday morning had, as its subject today, cut-outs. Silhouettes and so on. Most interesting were two 18th century ladies called Anna Maria Garthwaite and Mary Delany, but the work of others was also truly remarkable. Anna Garthwaite ended up as a designer for the Spitalfields silk making business. I quietly went on to Amazon while he was speaking, couldn’t find anything specifically about her but did find the book about Mary’s flower pictures, which I promptly ordered. She didn’t start making them until she was 72 years old and they’re amazing.
Afterwards, i went back into Norwich and bought t-shirts and some underwear. I’m pretty well sorted for my holiday – not ready, I still have to do various things online and pack, but I can do that in a couple of efficient bursts – I’ve bought or got out everything. Wink and Weeza are having this weekend in London, so I might manage to get my act together while I’m on my own (or I might not).
Thank you for bringing these two remarkable ladies to my attention, I had never heared about them. What is a shame, especially Ms Garthwaite should have been mentioned in one of the histories of costume I have read – and she was not to my best knowledge.
She was married as a young girl to a man 50 years older, widowed quite quickly and left with status but no money, so had to earn her living. Later, she married a clergyman, who also died – i’d really like to know more about her. Here are some images of her textiles, but the book pictured, though having her portrait on the cover, doesn’t appear to be about her.
https://www.bing.com/images/search?form=IARRTH&q=anna+maria+garthwaite&first=1
This shows the paper cut-out that she made at the age of 17. It is really remarkable
https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78126/papercut-garthwaite-anna-maria/