Enfilade

Caroline Gonda recently published this essay on The British Museum’s Blog, with lots of images and links for relevant items, including the drawing reproduced here.

Caroline Gonda, “Anne Seymour Damer: Public Life, Private Love,” The British Museum Blog (27 June 2024). Gossip about Anne Seymour Damer’s sexuality nearly wrecked her relationships and reputation, but in this queer love story, love beats scandal.

John Downman, Study for a Portrait of Anne Damer, charcoal, touched with red chalk, 1788 (London: The British Museum, 1967,1014.181.141).

‘Social media’ ruined lives in the 18th century, just as it does today. Anne Seymour Damer (1748/9–1828) was a sculptor (a highly unusual career for a woman artist at the time) and an aristocrat, which made her a part of celebrity culture and particularly exposed to gossip. Damer was also the subject of scandal because of her intimate relationships with other women. One of her contemporaries, the writer and literary hostess Hester Piozzi, described her as ‘a lady much suspected for liking her own sex in a criminal way’. Damer was repeatedly labelled as a Sapphist. The term was an allusion to the ancient Greek poet Sappho; famous for her love poems, many of them addressed to other women, Sappho was beginning to be seen in this period as the original lesbian (a term drawn from her birthplace of Lesbos). The gossip put Damer’s reputation at risk, but also sabotaged her chances of finding—and keeping—love. . .

The full essay is available here»

Caroline Gonda is College Associate Professor and Glen Cavaliero Fellow in English at St Catharine’s College, Cambridge.