‘WE WOULD TAKE THE SCREEN BY STORM’: FEMALE ANTIQUARIAN AGENCY AND THE CAPTURE OF ENGLISH MEDIEVAL PAINTING C 1830–50

Abstract

This paper explores the work of Harriet Gunn (1806–69) who began making drawings of rood screens c 1830. With the help of her sisters Hannah and Mary Anne, Harriet produced approximately 250 drawings, a remarkable number considering that rood screens received very little attention at this period. This substantial body of work merits analysis not least because it constitutes the first serious attempt to visually document Norfolk’s painted rood screens and provides an opportunity to shed light on an overlooked episode of female antiquarian activity. Drawing on previously unpublished letters, this paper confirms the active role Harriet and her sisters played in recording, discovering and enhancing the understanding of English medieval painting in the mid-nineteenth century. It also considers the influence of Harriet’s father, Dawson Turner FSA (1775–1858), in encouraging a new appreciation of the art historical value of painted rood screens. Turner’s objectives are situated within the wider cultural context of emerging tastes for early Italian art and new developments in art historiography seen in the 1820s and 1830s. Harriet’s sophisticated understanding of rood screens is therefore interpreted as a response to the intellectual milieu in which she was immersed. The paper concludes by exploring how her work, and the knowledge it promoted, was disseminated through the cultural machinery of archaeological societies in the mid-1840s through printed publications, exhibition and display.