Louise Jopling

Book excerpt: Louise Jopling: A Biographical and Cultural Study is the first in-depth study of this nineteenth-century painter who was among the first women admitted to the Royal Society of British Artists (in 1902). In part an engaging biography of a compelling celebrity figure and social campaigner in Victorian England, Patricia de Montfort?s book interweaves a vivid and rounded portrait of this Manchester-born artist, teacher, and author with insightful analysis of Jopling?s artwork and the aristocratic-bohemian social milieu that she inhabited. Painted by Whistler and Millais, Jopling herself portrayed Victorian-era celebrities like the actress Lillie Langtry and her patrons included members of the de Rothschild banking family. Her work also included figure compositions, interiors, landscape and genre scenes. Drawing upon Jopling's unpublished diaries, notebooks and correspondence as well as her 1925 memoir Twenty Years of My Life, de Montfort?s study opens the way for a twenty-first century rediscovery of this now little-known artist, who combined professional artistic practice with social activism, against the backdrop of an often troubled private life. The full scope of Jopling?s artistic endeavours are discussed in relation to the cultural framework for fin de si?e working women, as are her progressive views on education and women?s suffrage.