Viva Brighton Issue #72 February 2019

CURATOR’S CITY
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BRIGHTON’S VERY OWN COLOURWOMAN:
THE MARVELLOUS MARY PHILADELPHIA MERRIFIELD
The only known portrait of Merrifield, taken between 1877 and 1885. Courtesy of East Sussex
Record Office, The Keep, East Sussex. Photograph: Alexandra Loske
teacher Mary Gartside (active in London 1781–
1809), who presented her books as watercolour
painting manuals for young ladies, but they were
actually important works on colour theory, with
astonishingly beautiful abstract illustrations.
I couldn’t believe my luck when I realised that the
next significant woman in colour history, Mary
Philadelphia Merrifield (1804–1889), had spent
most of her life in Brighton. Merrifield was a remarkable
self-taught artist, researcher and writer,
who left a significant mark on colour research
and literature in the 19th century. She started her
career by translating and publishing the works of
15th century Italian painter Cennino Cennini,
and wrote several more books on art and colour,
as well as a remarkable book on dress history,
the first of its kind, in which she highlights the
detrimental effects of corsets on women’s bodies.
I have been researching colour history for many
years and have made it my mission to create a
library of women who have written and published
on colour. The subject was firmly in male hands
until well into the 20th century and examples
of women in the field before then are extremely
rare. Many women taught painting in watercolour,
some even carved out careers as artists, and
the majority of allegorical figures of colour are
female, but those who wrote and lectured about
colour were mostly men. Traders in pigments and
other artists’ materials were known as Colourmen,
of which the most remarkable 19th century
British example was George Field.
The earliest example of a woman publishing on
colour that I have identified is flower painter and
Vignette from Merrifield’s 1851 essay for the Great Exhibition. Photograph: Alexandra Loske
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