Julia Mary Cartwright Ady (7 November 1851 – 28 April 1924) was a British historian and art critic whose work focused on theItalian Renaissance.
Cartwright Ady was born atEdgcote,Northamptonshire, into a respected Northamptonshire family, the daughter of Richard Aubrey Cartwright and Hon Mary Fremantle, daughter ofThomas Fremantle, 1st Baron Cottesloe.[1] She had a liberal Anglican upbringing and was home-schooled in art, literature, languages, dance and music.[2]
Cartwright Ady developed a fascination with art early on, particularly of the Italian Renaissance. Her cousinWilliam Cornwallis Cartwright was an art collector and supporter of the Italian Risorgimento, and Cartwright Ady regularly visited his house atAynhoe Park where she had her first exposure to works of the Old Masters.[3] Her cousin's collection included paintings by Murillo, Canaletto, Spagnoletto and Albano.[4] Cartwright Ady read widely from a young age, covering historical Italian texts, contemporary fiction and current British art publications. She greatly admired the poetry ofRobert Browning and his collectionMen and Women (1855) with its poems ‘Fra Filippo Lippi’ and ‘Andrea del Sarto’, which, inspired by Italian Renaissance painters, had a substantial influence on her. She was also an avid reader[5] ofJohn Ruskin,George Eliot and early Italian writing and poetry such as bySavonarola andTorquato Tasso.[6]
In 1868, she toured France, Austria, and Italy with her family.[7]
Cartwright Ady was a respected author and authority on art who wrote for leading art periodicals and published 23 books on art and history.[8]
In 1871, Cartwright Ady contributed an article inAunt Judy's Magazine, and also wrote for theMonthly Packet, and for a series of "The Lives of the Saints". She read works on Renaissance art, including those ofAnna Jameson,John Ruskin,Charles Lock Eastlake,Walter Pater, and particularly theNew History of Painting in Italy byJoseph Archer Crowe andGiovanni Battista Cavalcaselle. In 1873, Cartwright Ady submitted an article onGiotto toMacmillan's Magazine, which was turned down at the time, but appeared in theNew Quarterly in 1877. Cartwright continued to write art criticism for journals such asThe Portfolio and theMagazine of Art. She visited Italy at least three times in the 1870s and on one of these occasions met Rev William Henry Ady whom she persuaded to take up the post of rector atEdgcote and married in 1880.[9]
In 1881, Cartwright Ady published her first art historical monograph,Mantegna and Francia, and later wrote books onSandro Botticelli[10] andRaphael.[7][11]
Cartwright Ady's most celebrated books were her biographies ofIsabella d'Este,[12] the Renaissance art patron, and her younger sister,Beatrice d'Este,[13]
Cartwright Ady highlighted the lives of women in other writings, including books onDorothy Sidney, mistress of Edmund Waller,Henrietta, Duchess of Orléans, sister of Charles II,Baldassare Castiglione andChristina of Denmark, the art-loving Danish expatriate.
In 1901, she publishedThe Painters of Florence from the Thirteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries[14] and in 1914,The Italian Gardens of the Renaissance and other Studies.[7][15]
Cartwright Ady also contributed to the scholarship of 19th-century art, including a book on the life ofJean-François Millet[16] and writings onJames Mallord William Turner,Edwin Landseer,James Abbot McNeil Whistler and thePre-Raphaelites,Dante Gabriel Rossetti, andEdward Burne-Jones.
She was positive about some forms of modern art, but was shocked by the 1912Post-Impressionist exhibition mounted byRoger Fry at theGrafton Galleries. Her art criticism was influenced byWalter Pater and the connoisseurship ofGiovanni Morelli, and her friendship with the writer and art authorVernon Lee.[7]
After her husband's death in 1915, Cartwright Ady moved to Oxford and died there in 1924. Her daughter,Cecilia Ady (1881–1958) was also a Renaissance historian.[17]
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