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Mary Delany

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Portrait of Mary Delany by John Opie, 1782.

Mary Delany (nee Granville) (14 May 1700 – 15 April 1788) was an English Bluestocking, artist, and writer; most famous for her "paper-mosaicks."

Early Life

Mary Delany was born at Coulston, Wiltshire, a niece of the 1st Lord Lansdowne. Her parents were Colonel Bernard Granville and Mary Granville, both loyal to the Crown. Mary had one brother, Bernard, and a sister, Anne.[1] When Mary was young, her parents moved the family to London and Mary attended a school taught by a French refugee, Mademoiselle Puelle. Mary came into close contact with the Court when she was sent to live with her aunt, Lady Stanley, who was childless[2] the intention being that she would eventually become a Maid of Honour.[3]

While living with the Lady Stanley, Mary became learned in, "English, French, history, music, needlework and dancing..."[4] Mary came in contact with Handel while at the household, listening to music he had composed; this contact with Handel would stay with Mary for the rest of her life.[5] Mary's plans to become a lady in waiting were ruined with Queen Anne's death in 1714, which led to a change in power, and a Hanover on the throne. The Granvilles moved to a manor at Buckland in Gloucestershire, where they were quite isolated from English society. However, Mary was able to continue her education and her pursuit of paper cutting, which had developed at an early age for her.[6]

Mary was invited to stay with her uncle, Lord Lansdowne, in Wiltshire near the end of 1717. Mary was introduced to Alexander Pendarves during this stay, and it soon became clear that her family had an interest in a marriage between the two. Alexander was a Member of Parliament for Launceston and was sixty years old, whereas Mary was still just 17. In February 1718 she was unhappily married to Alexander Pendarves, a marriage brought on by her parents' financial dependence on Lord Lansdowne, and Lord Lansdowne's hope to have political influence through the nuptials.[7]

Married Life

Mary and Alexander left for Roscrow Castle in April; once settled, Mary was able to enjoy the great views that Roscrow offered, and Mary was able to get in quite a bit of riding. Alexander's gout became worse and worse as the year progressed, and in the second year of their marriage, Mary was forced to nurse Alexander. In 1721, the two took a house in London and Alexander began to drink excessively while Mary was able to be reunited with many of her old friends. In 1724, Alexander died suddenly in his sleep and Mary was left a widow.[8] Alexander did not change his will before his death, leaving Mary a poor widow, "Mr. Pendarves, concerned with the bottle that allowed him to forget the loss of part of his fortune, had had no time to consider settling the rest of it on his wife."[9]

Without a husband, Mary was left to pursue her own interests within society. Due to her own unhappy marriage, Mary did not like the position women of the eighteenth century held, saying, "Why must women be driven to the necessity of marrying? a state that should always be a matter of choice! and if a young woman has not fortune sufficient to maintain her in the situation she has been bred to, what can she do, but marry?"[10] Mary was a very perceptive woman, "She judged everything and everybody for herself; and, while ridiculing all empty-headed or vain insipidity, whether fashionable or eccentric, was always ready to applaud the unusual, if sincere and worthy. She was eager in the acquisition of knowledge of all kinds to the end of her life..."[11]

After Alexander's death, Mary lived with her aunt and uncle, Lord and Lady Stanley. After her aunt's death, Mary spent time in Ireland with the family of her friend Mrs Donellan. In Ireland, Mary made acquaintance with Dr Patrick Delany, and Irish Clergyman who was already married to a rich widow, but took notice of Mary. It was not until 1743 that on a trip to London Dr Delany proposed to Mary, much to the dismay of her family. Mary chose to take Dr Delany as her husband, and the two were married in June of 1743.[12]

The Delanys passed a year in London before moving to Dublin, where Dr Delany had a home. Mary and Patrick were married for twenty five years, most of it spent in Ireland. They were very interested in botany and gardening, "Their mutual pleasure in their garden at Delville near Dublin in particular, hi encouragement of her gardening, painting, shell-work and needlework resulted in a surge of activity in a variety of media in all of which the basic theme was the flower, whether in stocking the Delville garden, painting garden landscapes, decorating interiors with shells, or working embroideries"[13] The happiness of the Delany couple ended in 1754 when Dr Delany died at the age of eighty-three.[14]

Later Life

As a widow, Mary Delany spent a lot of time with the Dowager Duchess of Portland, a close friend. The two shared a kinship in botany, often going out to look for specific specimens. It was during her stay with the Duchess that Mary became acquainted with two well-known botanists of the time Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander. This contact with the botanists only encouraged Mary's interest in botany and also created knowledge for which many of her flower paper-cuttings are based on.[15]

Career as an Artist

Mary had always been an avid artist, but it was during her marriage to Dr Delany that she finally had the time to hone her skills. She was an avid gardener, something that she shared with Dr Delany, and was also quite good at needlework, drawing, painting, and cutting paper. Mary is most known for her paper-cutting, "For these 'mosaicks' are coloured paper representing not only conspicuous details but also contrasting colours or shades of the same colour so that every effect of light is caught"[16]

In 1771, Mary began to create cut out paper artworks (decoupage) as was the fashion for ladies of the court. Her works were exceptionally detailed and botanically accurate depictions of plants. She used tissue paper and hand colouration to produce these pieces. She created 1,700 of these works, calling them her "Paper Mosaiks [sic]" [17], from the age of 71 to 88 when her eyesight failed her. During this time, Mary made nearly 1,000 of the paper flowers.[18]

"With the plant specimen set before her she cut minute particles of coloured paper to represent the petals, stamens, clayx, leaves, veins, stalk and other parts of the plant, and, using lighter and darker paper to form the shading, she stuck them on a black background. By placing one piece of paper upon another she sometimes built up several layers and in a complete picture there might be hundreds of pieces to form one plant. It is thought she first dissected each plant so that she might examine it carefully for accurate portrayal..."[19] Mary took great care to make sure that each of her flowers were correct, in number of stamens and petals. She also became so well-known that many donors began to send her flowers to cut.[20] They can still be seen in the Enlightenment Gallery at the British Museum today. Upon her death, "The ten volumes of Mrs. Delany's Flora were inherited by Lady Llanover, the daughter of Georgina Mary Ann Port. Lady Llanover, who died in 1896 at the age of ninety-four, bequeathed these volumes to the British Museum..."[21]

When the Dowager Duchess died, George and Charlotte gave her a small house at Windsor and a pension of 300 pounds a year. Mary had become familiar with the Queen Charlotte during her time paper-cutting, and while living in the house at Windsor, became an important part within the King and Queen's lives.[22] The King and Queen were great supporters of Mary's paper-cutting, "The King and Queen...always desired that any curious or beautiful plants should be transmitted to Mrs. Delany when in blossom."[23]

Frances Burney (Madame D'Arblay) was introduced to her in 1783, and frequently visited her at her London home and at Windsor, and owed to her friendship her court appointment. Delany, in her eighties at this time, had a reputation for cutting out and making the intricate paper mosaics (collages) now in the British Museum. She had known many of the luminaries of her day, had corresponded with Jonathan Swift, Sir Joseph Banks, and Young, and left a detailed picture of polite English society of the 18th century in her six volumes of Autobiography and Letters (ed. Lady Llanover, 1861–1862). Burke calls her "a real fine lady, the model of an accomplished woman of former times".

In the year 1980, a descendant of Mary Delany's sister Anne, Ruth Hayden, published a book on Delany's work: Mrs. Delany and Her Flower Collages, which was reissued in 2000 as Mrs. Delany: Her Life and Her Flowers (British Museum Press).

References

  1. ^ Dewes, Simon. Mrs. Delany. London: Rich & Cowan, Ltd.
  2. ^ Dewes, Simon. Mrs. Delany. London: Rich & Cowan, Ltd. (20).
  3. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  4. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  5. ^ Dewes, Simon. Mrs. Delany. London: Rich & Cowan, Ltd. (22).
  6. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  7. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  8. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  9. ^ Dewes, Simon. Mrs. Delany. London: Rich & Cowan, Ltd. (79).
  10. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  11. ^ Johnson, R. Brimley. Mrs. Delany. London: Stanley Paul & Co. Ltd. 1925. (xxiv).
  12. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  13. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980. (12).
  14. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  15. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  16. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980. (13).
  17. ^ Mrs Delany and Her Circle ,Yale Press ISBN 978-0-300-142792
  18. ^ Laird, Mark and Weisberg-Roberts, Alicia. ed. Mrs. Delany & Her Circle. New Haven: Yale University Press. 2009. (36).
  19. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980. (132-133).
  20. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980. (143).
  21. ^ Vulliamy, C. E. Aspasia: The Life and Letters of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany. London: J. and J. Gray. 1935. (256).
  22. ^ Hayden, Ruth. Mrs Delany: her life and her flowers. London: British Museum Publications Ltd. 1980.
  23. ^ Vulliamy, C. E. Aspasia: The Life and Letters of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany. London: J. and J. Gray. 1935. (254).

Bibliography

  • Blain, Virginia, et al., eds. "Delany, Mary." The Feminist Companion to Literature in English. New Haven and London: Yale UP, 1990. 278-79.
  • Public Domain This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
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