Elizabeth Emma Soyer

Elizabeth Emma Soyer, née Jones (1813–1842) was an English oil painter.[1]

Life

The daughter of a Mr. Jones who died in 1818, she was born in London in 1813, and was carefully instructed in French, Italian, and music. At a very early age she became a pupil of the Belgian painter Francois Simoneau (1783 - 1859), who in 1820 married her mother, Mrs. Jones. Finding that Emma had talents for drawing, Simoneau ultimately devoted the whole of his time to her instruction, and before the age of twelve she "had drawn more than a hundred portraits from life with gret fidelity".[1]

On 12 April 1837 she married Alexis Soyer, a senior cook at the Reform Club. She now turned her attention to portraits in oil, and, with Simoneau, travelled in the provinces, working in Canterbury, Ramsgate and Shrewsbury and gained great popularity. Upon her return to London she produced 'The Blind Boy,' 'The Crossing Sweeper,' 'The Bavarians,' 'Taglioni and the Kentish Ceres.' In 1842 she completed her last work, 'The Two Organ Boys.' She also showed two paintings at the 1842 Paris Salon ('L'aveugle de la tour de Londres' and 'Portrait de M. Soyer' - Nos. 1729-30). Her portrait of Soyer was engraved by Henry Bryan Hall.[2]

On 29–30 August 1842 she had complications with her pregnancy, owing to fright produced by a terrible thunderstorm, and she died the same night at her residence near Charing Cross, London. She was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery, London on 8 September, where her husband erected a large monument to her memory.[3]

Between 1823 and 1843 fourteen of her pictures were exhibited at the Royal Academy, thirty-eight at the British Institution, and fourteen at the Suffolk Street Gallery (Graves, Dictionary of Artists, pp. 130, 221).

In June 1848 one hundred and forty of her works were exhibited at the Prince of Wales's bazaar, under the name of Soyer's Philanthropic Gallery, on behalf of the Spitalfields soup kitchen, and a catalogue was printed. Among these pictures was 'The Young Savoyards Resting,' a work which obtained for Madame Soyer the name of the 'English Murillo.' Two of her pieces, 'The Jew Lemon Boys' and 'The English Ceres,' were engraved by Gérard. In Paris, where many of her pictures were exhibited, her reputation stood higher than in her native country.[4]

See also

English women painters from the early 19th century who exhibited at the Royal Academy of Art

References

  1. 1 2 Brian Stewart & Mervyn Cutten (1997). The Dictionary of Portrait Painters in Britain up to 1920. Antique Collectors' Club. ISBN 1 85149 173 2.
  2. ↑ "NPG D6822; Alexis Benoît Soyer". Portrait. National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 21 November 2010.
  3. ↑ Paths of Glory. Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery. 1997. p. 94.
  4. ↑  Boase, George Clement (1898). "Soyer, Elizabeth Emma". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography. 53. London: Smith, Elder & Co. [Redgrave's Dictionary of Artists, 1878, p. 241; Volant and Warren's Memoirs of A. Soyer, 1858, pp. 10, 27, 36, 81, 128, 136, 166, 276; Grinsted's Last Homes of Departed Genius, 1867, p. 291; Dodd's Annual Biography, 1843, p. 447; Gent. Mag. 1842, ii. 441; Morning Post, 2 Sept. 1842, p. 4.]
Attribution

 "Soyer, Elizabeth Emma". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900. 

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