[Illustration: ENGLISH SCHOOL, XVIII CENTURY PORTRAIT OF THE LADY GEORGIANA SPENCER. AFTER THE PAINTING IN THE COLLECTION OF EARL SPENCER. FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY HANFSTAENGL Catharine Read, Painter Died about 1786]
Some may think that Margaret Carpenter began the modern history of women painters in England; others may grant that distinction to the intuitive and radiant work of Lady Waterford, that most gifted of all amateurs. It seems truer to say that Margaret Carpenter is best described as a connecting-link between the old and the new, and that Lady Waterford is not only so faithful to herself but so spontaneous, that her good gifts belong to no particular school or period. They certainly owed much to the colour of the Venetian School, far more to that old source of inspiration than to any influence of the 19th century. But the main characteristics of Lady Waterford's appeal come to us from the painter's own heart and beautiful æsthetic intellect. The ease with which she composed, and the charming animation of all her designs, these were natural qualities uninfluenced by any teaching; and they won the ardent admiration of the late Mr. G. F. Watts. It is the spirit alone of Lady Waterford's art that we should admire; we must not look closely at the drawing, for Lady Waterford neither tried nor wished to perfect her faulty technical equipment. Most of her art-work was done after a day spent in other charities. It was Lady Waterford's joy to dole out alms herself, and it never occurred to her that she might do such good actions by proxy, just as Queen Charlotte picked up five old books in the booths of Holywell Street. The truth is that Lady Waterford valued practicalness more than imagination, as do the great majority of women; she longed to _see_ the good she did, and she could not realise to herself that art has a permanent ethical influence. Closing her eyes to this truth, Lady Waterford wrote as follows to one of her friends:--
"I could never attain to even one work that I see in my mind's eye, and if I could it would be less than those of the great men of old, _whose greatest works have not quelled evil or taught good_.... I could not live for art--it would not be what I am put in the world to do. I do not despise art, but I should feel that it was not given for that. Two homes have been given me, and it is to try to do what I can in them that they are given for brief life."