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Margaret Fuller

Margaret Fuller
Artist
Thomas Hicks, 18 Oct 1823 - 8 Oct 1890
Sitter
Margaret Fuller, 23 May 1810 - 19 Jul 1850
Date
1848
Type
Painting
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
Stretcher: 41.9 x 31.8cm (16 1/2 x 12 1/2")
Frame: 71.1 x 53.3 x 6.4cm (28 x 21 x 2 1/2")
Topic
Exterior\Architecture
Artwork\Sculpture\Statue
Vehicle\Boat\Gondola
Margaret Fuller: Female
Margaret Fuller: Journalism and Media\Newspaper editor
Margaret Fuller: Education and Scholarship\Educator\Teacher
Margaret Fuller: Education and Scholarship\Scholar\Translator
Margaret Fuller: Literature\Writer\Essayist
Margaret Fuller: Society and Social Change\Reformer\Feminist
Margaret Fuller: Rulers and Aristocracy\Aristocrat\Marchioness
Portrait
Place
Italia\Lazio\Roma\Rome
Credit Line
Gift of Constance Fuller Threinen, great-granddaughter of Margaret Fuller's brother, the Rev. Arthur Buckminster Fuller, who was a Unitarian minister in Boston, a chaplain in the Civil War, and was killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg in 1862
Restrictions & Rights
CC0
Object number
NPG.2016.123
Exhibition Label
Born Cambridgeport, Massachusetts
During an era when few women had professional careers, Margaret Fuller was a prominent journalist, critic, and women’s rights activist known for her pointed commentary. Together with Ralph Waldo Emerson and George Ripley, she edited the Dial, a journal dedicated to advancing the literary and philosophical movement known as Transcendentalism, which stressed the unity of all creation. In 1839, Fuller began a women’s conversation group in Boston that led to her landmark publication, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845). Countering contemporary law, Fuller argued that women should enter into true partnerships through marriage, with equal property rights.
While working in Italy as a war correspondent covering the revolutions of 1848–49, Fuller met artist Thomas Hicks in Rome. In this portrait, he imagined her in the atmospheric gloom of a Venetian palazzo with a gondola in the distance. In 1850, Fuller perished in a shipwreck while returning to the United States.
Nacida en Cambridgeport, Massachusetts
En tiempos en que pocas mujeres tenían carreras profesionales, Margaret Fuller fue una destacada periodista, crítica y activista por los derechos de la mujer, conocida por su estilo directo. Junto a Ralph Waldo Emerson y George Ripley editó el Dial, periódico que promovía el movimiento literario y filosófico conocido como trascendentalismo, el cual enfatizaba la unidad de toda la creación. En 1839 Fuller creó una tertulia femenina en Boston que dio lugar a su histórica publicación La mujer en el siglo XIX (1845). Refutando las leyes de la época, Fuller afirmaba que el matrimonio debería ser una unión igualitaria, en la cual la mujer tuviera igual derecho a la propiedad que el hombre.
Trabajando en Roma como corresponsal durante las revoluciones de 1848–49, Fuller conoció al artista Thomas Hicks, quien en este retrato la imaginó en la penumbra de un palacio veneciano con una góndola en la distancia. En 1850, Fuller pereció en un naufragio cuando regresaba a EE.UU.
Provenance
Margaret Fuller [1810-1850]; Arthur Buckminster Fuller [1822-1862]; Arthur Ossoli Fuller [1856-1936]; George Minot Fuller [1891-?]; Constance Fuller Threinen; gift to NPG in 2016.
Data Source
National Portrait Gallery
Exhibition
Out of Many: Portraits from 1600 to 1900
On View
NPG, East Gallery 112