17thwomen

17th Century Women --Part 4

R - S - T - U - V - W - X - Y - Z

Note: to view the full-scale image, right-click on the reduced picture, and choose "view image"

Marquise de Rambouillet, Catherine de Vivonne (the mother) - the mistress of the most famous literary salon in France in the first half of the century. Mother of Julie d'Argennes (see picture).

Saskia Rembrandt. Wife of the famous Dutch painter. 1647. See also Hendrickje Stoffels for the companion mistress.

Mary Rich. Countess of Warwick.

Madame de Sable. Author of a remarkable book on aphorisms, a predecessor of La Rochefoucauld.

Madame de Sabliere. One of the most educated French women of her time, the patron of La Fontaine.

Charlotte de Sauves. Mistress of Henri IV, King of France, whose wife is shown above. If I may say so, I would have stuck with Marguerite de Valois (see picture) rather than frolicking about with Charlotte.

Anna-Maria Van Schurman. One of the most learned women of the 17th Century, someone like Cornaro (see above): linguist, writer, religious thinker, miniaturist. A prodigy. Lived in Utrecht and Antwerp.

Madeleine de Scudery. A writer of long romances, one of the leading literary figures in France.

Madame de Sevigne. A brilliant letter-writer, the hostess of "Hotel Carnavalet", the present museum of the history of Paris.

Ume Shukishi - a Japanese haiku poet (1668 - 1725) She was the student of Kikaku, Basho's favorite disciple. She wrote the following poem at the age of 13 during the cherry viewing festival in Ueno Park in Tokyo:
    Be careful, be careful!
    of the cherry tree by the well
    you're drunk with sake.

Elisabetta Sirani.(1638 - 1665) Italian painter and engraver by age seventeen, Sirani opened her own studio in Bologna early in her career, supported chiefly by private commissions. She was so prodigious an artist that by the time of her death at 27, she had completed approximately 170 paintings, 14 etchings, and a number of drawings. Several stories attest to Sirani's rapid working methods, such as when the Grand Duke Cosimo III de Medici visited her studio in 1664. After he watched her work on a portrait of his uncle Prince Leopold, Cosimo ordered a Madonna for himself, which Sirani allegedly executed quickly so that it could dry and be taken home with him!

Tsarina Sophia of Russia.(1638 - 1665) cruel female ruler in Russia in the 1680's, whom Peter the Great had no option but to ... send to a monastery.

Sophie of the Palatine, the elder (1630 - 1714) - daughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia (see picture). She was the intellectual and cultural focus at the Court in Hanover. Her son became the first Hanover King George. She supported Leibniz together with her daughter Sophie-Charlotte of Brandenburg (see picture also). Both mother and daughter are universally recognized as women philosophers of the XVII'th century.

Sophie-Charlotte, Electress of Brandenburg (1668 - 1705) -- daughter of Sophie of the Palatine (see picture) and granddaughter of Elizabeth of Bohemia (also see picture). Using the words of her grandson Frederick the Great of Prussia:

"this princess had the genius of a great man and the knowledge of a savant"

As her mother, she supported Leibniz and was a part of his circle. She died at the early age of 37, and left the following note on her deathbed:

"Don't grieve for me, for I am about to satisfy my curiosity about things that even Leibniz was never able to explain (space, the infinite, being, and nothingness) and for my husband, the king, I am about to provide a funeral-spectacle that will give him a new opportunity to display his pomposity and splendour!"

I am not sure how this statement ought to be interpreted!

Frances Stewart. Among all of King Charles II of England's loves (see also Moll Davis, Barbara Villiers, Lucy Walter), she is the only one believed to have consistently refused his advances. Like Hortense Mancini who would capture the king's interest nearly ten years later, Frances Stuart indulged in the Restoration's fashion of dressing in men's clothing. At the time of Charles's infatuation with her, Barbara Palmer, who was pregnant with the king's child, made a great effort to befriend her potential rival. They even went through a mock marriage ceremony with Frances as bride, Barbara as groom, and the two of them bedded in the traditional post-wedding ceremony. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this odd lovers' triangle was that Barbara would offer to share her bed with Frances, then invite the king into the room to watch the other woman sleeping. Frances eloped with the Duke of Richmond in April 1667. The king was furious, but eventually forgave her and made her husband ambassador to Denmark. The Duke died young, but Frances never remarried. She devoted her later years to cats and cards; at her death her cats were bequeathed to various female friends, with money for their upkeep.

Hendrickje Stoffels. Mistress of Rembrandt van Rijn. Painted by him in 1656. Unlike the French mistresses above, Hendrickje and Saskia, Rembrandt' wife shown above, had a friendship relation of sorts.

Barbara Strozzi, baroque composer, singer and performer. She may not look like the most musical of people on this painting but her voice was described as magnificent. This 17th Century Celine Dion equivalent also played at least 10 different instruments. Whaw!

Anne Stuart, Queen of England. Last monarch in the Stuart line. Out of 18 pregnancies, she had 5 children, but, sadly, none survived to adulthood.

Mary II Stuart, (arranged) wife of William III and 15 years younger than the King. She found William absolutely repulsive, but ended up loving him until her untimely death due to smallpox in 1694.

Mary Herbert Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1561 - 1621) - Probably, the best woman writer of her time, an excellent poet, sister to Sir Philip Sidney, and aunt of Lady Mary Wroth (see picture).

(The Blessed) Kateri Tekakwhita --founder of the Catholic Church in Canada. Born in Auriesville, New York, in 1656, she lost her parents and her brother at age 4 due to smallpox. She was baptized at age 20 on the North bank of the Mohawk under the name of Catherine or Kateri in Iroquois. To avoid religious persecution she fled into Canada in 1677. Even though she was nearly blind and illiterate, she became the first person to found religious cells within several native American communities. She wore only one dress in her entire life and she died of cold and weakness at the age of 24. Almost immediately after her death, throughout New France, natives and immigrants began to receive great blessings and experience miracles upon invocation of her name. Her biography was translated in 14 languages, among which Spanish. This lie at the basis of the establishment of the first native religious orders in Mexico to whom belonged among others a descendant of Montezuma. She was blessed in 1980 by pope JP II and is presently awaiting her canonization to sainthood.

Catherine Cockburn Trotter -- writer, playwright and philosopher. She wrote five plays before the age 17,which were rather successful. One of them was "Agnes de Castro" based on the novel translated into English by Aphra Behn. Then she turned to philosophy and wrote a defence of the "Essay Concerning Human Understanding" of John Locke. Now she is considered one of the most important women philosophers of that period.

Leonora Christina, Countess Ulfeldt (1621 - 1698), Danish writer. She was the daughter of King Christian IV (one of the brightest persons in Danish history, the builder of Rosenborg in Copenhagen) and Christine Munk. She was a gifted writer. She spent 22 years in prison (on account of her husband!), giving her plenty of time to write a brilliant autobiography entitled "Misery of the Imprisoned Countess Leonora Christina", which was not published until 1869.

Mademoiselle de La Valliere, age 26, royal mistress of Louis XIV, one of his several mistresses in this gallery.

Marguerite de Valois. First Wife (yep, not mistress!) of Henri IV (Henri de Navarre) King of France.

Madame de Villedieu (Marie-Catharine Desjardins) No picture available at the present time.

Barbara Villiers. Mistress of King Charles II of England (see also Moll Davis, Frances Stewart, Lucy Walter). Mother of six children, five of whom were acknowledged by Charles: three boys and two girls; the identity of the father of her youngest child - another daughter - is uncertain, but it may have been John Churchill. She became Charles' mistress whilst married to Roger Palmer. She later became Duchess of Cleveland and then Duchess of Castlemaine.

Mary Villiers-- later Stuart, duchess of Richmond & Lennox (1622-1685) (the "Ephelia" poet and the Butterfly"). Daughter of the famous Duke of Buckingham, Lady Mary Villiers was a celebrated beauty, wit, and outrageous prankster. She was rumoured to have dueled a romantic rival and to have cross-dressed for portraits. Her petname "Butterfly" did not derive from her busy social agenda, as pointed out by an authority on MV, but rather from an amusing trick of hers, circa 1636, in the royal gardens on the future Charles II. She married into three prestigious lines: Herbert, Stuart, and Howard. The attribution of the hotly contested "Ephelia" texts to Mary Villiers by Maureen E. Mulvihill (1996) is discussed in a monograph-length multimedia archive (text, image, sound) on the ReSoundings website (to appear shortly). In this allegorical portrait by Van Dyck, circa 1636 (North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, N.C.), a young Lady Mary appears with Lord Arran as Cupid.

Anna Roemers Visscher. (1583-1651). One of the most famous literary figures in the 17th Century. She communicated with people such as Hooft, Huygens, and Rubens. She belonged to the cultural elite of her time. She was known also for her glass engraving skills and produced a large oevre of which unfortunately only five have survived up to this day.

Lucy Walter. Mistress of King Charles II of England (see also Moll Davis, Frances Stewart, Barbara Villiers). Mother of the famous James Scott, Duke of Monmouth, who rebelled against his father. About this rebellion one can read the third part of "Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister" by Aphra Behn (see picture in this Gallery). Lucy also had a daughter named Mary who claimed to be the child of Charles II and later became some sort of faith healer in Covent Garden under the name of Mrs. Fanshawe.

Anna Waser, (1675-c.1713) Swiss painter. From an early age she demonstrated her talent as an artist-- the early self-portrait shown was executed with considerable technical skill was painted when she was only twelve. Her reputation as a skilled miniaturist enabled her to receive commissions from all over Europe.

Susanna Wesley (b. 1669). Founder of Methodist church (see more about her at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw/wesley).

Elizabeth Jane Weston - poetess from Prague, English by origin, but mostly wrote in Latin and supported her family by her writings.

Anne Wharton. English poetess. Stump Cross Books publishes women's poetry in scholarly editions. It is wholly financed by the proprietor, Professor Germaine Greer. Their third publication is The Surviving Works of Anne Wharton, edited by Greer and Susan Hastings.

Lady Mary Wroth - poet and writer, author of the scandalous romance "Urania" (a friend of mine -- Violetta-- read this book and claims that it is not all that interesting) She is the niece of the famous Mary Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (see picture)

Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590 - 1661/69) Spanish novelist, born of noble blood in Madrid. Using the framework established by Baccoccio in Decameron, Zayas wrote 2 books of short stories (1637, 1647) with the stories bound together by a narrator. In the first volume, the noblewoman Lysis's friends decide to hold a series of soirees, where they will tell true or true-to-life stories, at her home to entertain her while she is recovering from quatran fever. In the second volume, while still recovering, Lysis herself organizes the soirees. In both books, all of the story tellers are women, telling their stories about women from a woman's perspective. No flowery, addled visionary of women's reality, Zayas denounces the abuses, violations, and injustices perpetrated against women in a male-dominated society. She repeatedly warns women about men's treacheries and she encourages them to stand on their own feet.

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