Hartley was the daughter of philosopher David Hartley. In 1775, from an address in London's fashionable Golden Square, Soho, she sent in six landscape drawings to the Society of Artists, including a chalk drawing of a coastal scene, and a wash drawing of a castle- The recent British Museum exhibition (see page xx ) included her drawing of Fountains Abbey, a shadow falling across its ruins. Kim Sloan's
research has revealed that it probably dates to after 1780. Around that date Hartley met and began a long correspondence with William Gilpin, having read some of his publications advising the amateur artist on how best to capture the 'picturesque' beauty of landscape while touring Britain. Hartley and Gilpin discussed composition and technique and their meaning. In a letter of January 1789 (published in Carl Barbier, William Gilpin, Oxford 1963}. Hartley declared:
'indeed I do not think that I am myself quite so fond of the rough stile as you are. I like to see the objects a little made out; tho I wou'd not. for the sake of that, abate one jot of spirit & genius, nor lose the least effect of light & shade.'
Hartley's subject matter was not restricted to landscape. In addition to the Tate etching, she is recorded as having made a portrait of Buxton, an arithmetician, in 1764. And among her five works in Richard Bull's Etchings and Engravings by the Nobility and Gentry of England (British Museum) is A Sketch of a Beggar from the Life of 1770. |
