All language subtitles for BBC.The.Story.of.Women.and.Art.2of3.720p.HDTV.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org

My search to uncover
female creativity,

and what stood in the way of it,

began 500 years ago
in Renaissance Italy,

where our modern idea of
Western art and the artist was born.

And that artist was male.

The ideal Italian woman hardly
ever left her house, even to shop.

So I marvelled at
the resourcefulness

and bloody-minded nerve
of those women who had outflanked

convention to make a lasting mark
with their art.

I think that's the biggest painting
by a female artist I've ever seen.

By the 18th century, it was Britain
that led the world in wealth,

industry and innovation.

Despite being classed as artistic
inferiors, exceptional women

grasped the moment to create art

and not just in traditional forms,

realising their imagination
in entirely novel ways.

The 18th century was
an era of dynamic,

technological and economic change,

presenting a galaxy
of fresh opportunities

for canny women to seize.

Like the woman who became the
first female sculptor in Britain,

commissioned by
the great and the good.

Or the designer
whose work revitalised

the British silk industry
and featured on dresses
across the world.

Or the history painter
collected on these walls

who took her art on to
the breakfast tables of Britain.

While in France,

the other great economic power
of the 18th century, two women -

a portrait painter and a fashion
designer - glamorised a queen,

immortalising the image of
Europe's most glittering court.

Female ingenuity built,
decorated, wove

and clothed this shiny new world.

And this is the story
of how they did it.

At first glance, though,

the female contribution to the image
of Georgian Britain seems slight.

The architecture
and art of this period

looked like a monument
to the talents of men.

Palatial houses, designed and
decorated by architect Robert Adam,

walls gleaming with the oils
of Joshua Reynolds

and Thomas Gainsborough,
define the age.

But what I see is a landscape
shaped and styled by women,

and blanketed with their work.

From tapestry and embroidery
to watercolours and miniatures,

to entire interiors,
a world in themselves.

But this was art
behind closed doors,

amateur art,

a word just coming into use to mean
someone who practised for love,

not payment.

But amateurish was not
the put-down it is today.

In this grand setting
in rural Wales,

a body of amateur work,
made here at Erddig Hall,

reveals just how imaginative
18th century women could be.

This is one of the
most surprising objects

I've ever seen created
by a female amateur.

It's literally fantastic.

It's a Chinese pagoda.

It's based on a fantasy
idea of the East,

part of chinoiserie, which was very
fashionable in the 1760s and 1770s.

It's made of wood on velum,

which is a kind of
treated calfskin,

and then it's encrusted with mica,
which is a ground-up mineral

and with mother-of-pearl
and little bits of coloured glass.

But in these
shivering Chinese bells,

I think we can still feel
the imagination of the artist.

This mix of manual dexterity,
architectural knowledge

and wild fantasy would be remarkable
in any provincial amateur,

male or female.

But even more surprisingly, the
maker wasn't mistress of this house,

or even an accomplished daughter...

she was one of the servants.

She was christened
Elizabeth Ratcliffe

but known to the family
as Betty the Little.

She dedicated her life
to the Yorkes,

working for them in London and
here at Erddig for over 30 years.

But Betty was no ordinary servant.

Betty Ratcliffe was hired by
the mistress of the house,

Dorothy Yorke, and trained up
to be a governess and lady's maid.

But remarkably, alongside her
tutorial and menial duties,

and for 18th century servants
these where demanding,

Ratcliffe developed an aptitude
for art and craft.

Doubtless, she inherited her eye for
detail from her clockmaker father.

Such sublime arty craftiness

could have been seen as
an absurd affectation in a servant,

but for the interest
of the young squire,

Philip Yorke.

So, Betty was painfully aware
that she owed her opportunity

to her master's indulgence,

as this deferential letter
to him demonstrates.

"Chester, July 12th 1770.

"Honoured Sir, I yesterday
received the honour of your letter

"and will,
to the utmost of my power,

"endeavour to execute
what you're pleased to request,

"instead of command."

He's commissioning her to produce
these models and pictures

and pieces of needlework.

And in fact, we know
from other letters

that she fulfilled other
commissions for his friends.

So, he seems to have fostered
her artistic endeavour

and been very proud of her.

And Erddig is still proud
of Betty's achievements.

Delicate paper cuts
and artful silk flowers

show off feminine accomplishment.

But there's another model
that demonstrates

the less conventional side
of Betty's artistic ambition.

This is a model of the ruins
of the Temple of the Sun at Palmyra,

which is in Syria.

It's one of those many sites
of excavations and ruins

that were being rediscovered
in the 18th century,

setting off a new wave
of neoclassicism.

Her version, though, is rather
feminised and romanticised,

because it's dripping, these ruins,
with creepers and plants.

So, it's as if it's glimpsed
in a romantic dream.

It has a touch of
the fairy tale about it.

The family must have been
exceedingly proud of it

and of her talents,

because they commissioned
a special cabinet

from a London cabinet-maker
to show it off.

Why did Betty craft a Syrian temple?

The answer lies in the renewed
fashion for all things classical,

which swept Europe
from the 1760s onwards,

influencing everything from
architecture to wallpaper design.

I'd lay money that Betty had seen
the architectural plates

in a bestselling book
about the ruins of Palmyra.

So, the very latest
breakthroughs in aesthetics

had percolated down from the lofty
realms of the male cultural elite

to a servant.

But surely this would rankle
with everyone else in the house?

A servant making temples?
Has the world turned upside down?

Well, we get some sense from
a rather irritated letter

from his mother, Dorothy, who,

after all, is tasked
with running the household.

This is in June 1768.

"Betty the Little
is at work for you,

"but pray, my dear, do not employ
her in that way again

"for one year, at least. All her
improvements sink in drawing

"and then I shall never
have service from her

"and make too fine a lady of her,

"for so much is said on that
occasion that it rather puffs up."

I'm struck by the extraordinary
scope of Elizabeth Ratcliffe's
visual imagination.

Amateurism was no disengaged,
old-fashioned backwater,

it was at the very cutting
edge of the tastes and
preoccupations of the age.

Female handicrafts are ancient.

The Bible urged women to use
their needles to beautify the home.

But the 18th century was
the first time manufacturers

and retailers spotted
a fertile market for the taking.

And just like today, with a neat
box of water-colours or a craft kit,

almost anyone with time
and spare cash could have a go.

I've always been fascinated

by this weird and wonderful
set of interlocking boxes,

which have been kept in the store
here at the Museum of London.

It's probably from the 1790s,

it's a bit of
a tardis of femininity.

On the top here, a really exquisite
piece of embroidery in chenille

and then you go down
through the layers of the box.

This layer is celebrating
feather work.

What women do is take
the feathers off one bird,

and reapply them
to create images of others.

And then into the next box,

this lot have been stuck
with artificial ivy leaves.

In the corners, we have
this sort of chiffon work

and then, the final box.

Here, this is cut spangles,

which can be bought in leaves

and then you cut it out for yourself

and make your pattern
and then sew it on.

And then sequin spangles,

rather like sequins
you might still buy today.

Cumulatively,
I'm amazed by the testimony

these shrimp pink boxes
once gave to the diversity,

the fertility and the ingenuity
of female crafts.

However, public opinion considered
a woman's arts and crafts

to be for private viewing,
by friends and family only.

They were certainly not
to be seen by the general public

or sold for money.

The world of professional art
was still clearly male.

And that's what made the opening
of the Royal Academy of Arts

in London in 1768 such an apparent
step forward for women.

For the first time, the full range
of female creativity

was to be displayed and celebrated.

The academy had three goals - to
put on shows of contemporary art,

to protect the professional
interests of its members,

and thirdly, to offer training.

Perhaps the moment for female
artists had finally come.

But in the stalls of the academy

is this famous engraving
of its founders.

The male members gathered
for a life-drawing class

still look to me just
like a Boys' Own club.

32 men, two women.

The two founding female members,

Mary Moser and Angelica Kauffmann...

They're only here as portraits,

not people, sidelined.

The engraving epitomises
ambivalent attitudes

to female artists in the period.

Able to work but denied equality,

subject to a different
and altogether more demanding
set of rules.

Initially, the academy made
an open call for art to show

at its annual exhibitions.

And that did include women's crafts.

But within just one year,

the type of art that women
practised to perfection,

posed a threat to the prestige
of the fledgling institution.

I've got here the minutes
of the members of the academy

for the 9th of April, 1770.

There's clearly been some
internal argy-bargy.

"Resolved that no needle-work,
artificial flowers, cut paper,

"shell-work, or any such baubles,

"shall be admitted
into the exhibition."

What the Royal Academy
is doing there, in 1770,

is institutionalising the boundary
between professional and amateur,

drawing a sharp line between
the largely male world of painting,

sculpture and architecture

and the overwhelmingly female
world of applied art and craft.

The Royal Academy's ruling
was not a perverse exception.

They were re-enforcing
age-old prejudices.

In the hierarchy of art,

sculpture and paintings depicting
epic events were at the top...

needlework, at the very bottom.

And philosophers like Rousseau
knew which category

women should confine themselves to.

"At no cost would I want them
to learn landscape,

"even less the human figure.

"Foliage, fruits, flowers and
drapery is all they need to know

"to create their own
embroidery pattern."

So what of the only two
female artist members?

They where thriving.

One, flower painter Mary Moser,

had become a favourite of the Queen,

provoking envy in the men
when she won a lucrative commission

to paint a garden room
in the royal villa.

The other, who would have an even
greater impact, was a Swiss artist,

already celebrated across Europe
and now living in London.

Renowned for her talent,
sweetness and charm,

her name was Angelica Kauffmann.

Kauffmann was so well-known

that she was seen to
lend a bit of cachet and glamour

to the new Royal Academy

and was even asked to paint
four ceiling decorations

for the Royal Academy
council chamber,

now here in the entrance hall,

depicting invention,
composition, colour and design.

Kauffmann scrimped
to establish her studio,

here in Golden Square in London,

in sufficient style to attract
the posh for their portraits.

When she was asked by England's
premier artist, Sir Joshua Reynolds,

to paint his portrait,
her reputation seemed assured.

But the very fact of her success
attracted malicious whispers.

Virtually every artist
she associated with

was rumoured to be in love with her,

including the eminent Sir Joshua,
fuelling the suspicion

that Angelica owed her career
more to flirtation than to talent.

Given her prodigious celebrity,
though, it's easy to overlook

the sheer scale
of the challenge she faced.

To be truly acclaimed a great,
she had to master history painting,

the most prestigious genre.

But here, she confronted
her toughest obstacle.

History painting was the most highly
rated art in 18th-century Europe.

That's a classical, biblical or
historical scene on a broad canvas.

It was supposed to be founded
on philosophical understanding

and abstract thought - things women
were believed incapable of.

As a French critic scoffed,

"Women's lively imaginations
are like mirrors that reflect all

"and create nothing."

To achieve her ambition,

Kauffmann not only had
to overcome such prejudice,

she had to find
a way out of a catch-22.

History paintings were packed
with full-length figures

in dynamic poses,
often scantily clad.

A convincing attempt required
detailed knowledge of human anatomy,

the training of which
was something the Royal Academy

had been specifically
set up to provide,

even offering lectures
from surgeons.

This painting shows the leading
anatomist, William Hunter,

lecturing artists.

They are all male.

Propriety barred women
from the life-drawing class.

No 18th-century lady could
do what I'm doing -

gazing at this naked man,
never mind drawing him.

What was Kauffmann to do?

Her sketch book shows
how she tackled

her modest ignorance
of the male body.

This is some sort of Roman
or Greek hero in his sandals

and with a bit of
a cape over his arm,

his muscles are sharply delineated.

He has, you know, the impressive
pecs and also this muscle here

that footballers like to show off
in underwear adverts...

..but what's missing is the very
thing that defines manhood.

He's completely smooth in the loins,
rather like Barbie's Ken.

And, in a nutshell, this
demonstrates the problem

that Angelica Kauffmann faces.

If she can show that
she understands the male body,

a male genitalia,

and has been caught copying it,

then her reputation would be blown,

smashed to smithereens.

But on the other hand,

without detailed, exact knowledge
of the male body in movement,

she would never, ever become
a great history painter.

She's damned if she did

and damned if she didn't.

Kauffmann was not prepared
to risk her reputation

and restricted herself
to sketching sculptures,

a poor second
to flesh and blood bodies.

But ingeniously, she managed to
make a virtue of that necessity.

Saltram House, in Devon,

has a unique collection
of history paintings,

which hold the key to how
Kauffmann tried to overcome

the obstacle of anatomy.

I'm standing in front of a wall
of Kauffmann's history paintings.

Here, we have Penelope
Taking Down The Bow Of Ulysses.

And this painting epitomises one of
her favourite strategies, which is

focusing on the female heroines
of classical and British myth.

But when Kauffmann chose
to depict men as men,

she used, what is for me,
one her most ingenious strategies.

I'm sure most male painters
would have chosen to present

Hector out on the
battlefield defending Troy.

Instead, Kauffmann presents him

saying farewell to
the lovely Andromache,

who's weeping, "Don't leave me,

"don't make me a widow,
don't make our son an orphan."

Perhaps men wanted blood and guts in
their history paintings, but ladies

preferred something
altogether softer

and more sentimental
for their homes.

In this way,
Kauffmann feminised the genre

and changed art history
in the process.

But her reputation
has suffered since

because of the weakness
of her anatomical knowledge,

which the Royal Academy
had not helped her rectify.

And if painting in
the grand manner was difficult,

without training in life drawing,
another art form, sculpture,

would surely be impossible?

Not quite.

In 1784, a sculpture by a woman
was accepted for exhibition

by the Royal Academy.

So how on earth did she manage it?

Anne Seymour Damer was
unconventional, self-reliant,

cosmopolitan and privileged

and she drew on all these advantages

to take on the ultimate
male preserve in art

and emerge as the first
female sculptor in Britain.

The River Thames, near Henley,

is the unlikely home to two of
Anne Seymour Damer's public works,

although getting a good look
at them can be tricky.

Damer carved the two keystones

on either side of
Henley Bridge in 1787.

On this side, we've got
the river god Thame.

We can tell he's of the river
because of the fishes in his beard

and the bulrushes at his temple.

On the other side, we have his
female counterpart, Isis.

They are easy to miss, but they
represent the intriguing story

of what a woman had to risk
and withstand to leave her mark.

From the first, fate dealt Anne
an unusually promising hand.

She was born into a powerful
and enlightened family.

Her father was a statesman,

who employed the philosopher
David Hume as his secretary.

Her aristocratic mother
befriended leading artists.

As their only child, Anne was
lavished with the kind of learned

and worldly education
normally reserved for men.

But her unusual interest
in sculpture was only
ignited by chance.

Out strolling with David Hume,

they encountered an Italian boy
carrying plaster model figures.

Hume stopped to admire
the boy's models,

but Damer was sneeringly dismissive,

to Hume's annoyance.

He chided her, "I bet you
can't produce anything better."

Her pride was then piqued and she
was determined to prove him wrong.

Resenting the implication,

she got hold of tools and a block
of marble to demonstrate her skill.

Her indulgent parents paid for
tuition from practising sculptors

and from an eminent surgeon
and anatomist.

Anne now had the very knowledge that
the Royal Academy denied to women.

But her career was barely off
the ground before it was derailed

by what can best be called
an unfortunate marriage.

Aged 17, Anne was married off
to the son of a lord, John Damer.

It was not a love match,

and the lack of sympathy was
confounded by his gross extravagance

and massive gambling debts.

After seven years, her patience
ran out and she separated from him,

inviting public censure.

But far worse scandal was to come.

Two years later, in 1776,

in a pub near here in Covent Garden,

after a long night's entertainment
with four prostitutes

and a blind fiddler,

John Damer put a pistol to his head

and shot himself.

Rising from the ashes of scandal,

it was in widowhood that Anne
Damer's career began to take off.

The style she adopted was
neoclassicism,

as befitted her avid study
of Latin and Greek.

This is a marble bust of
the actress Elizabeth Farren

in the guise of the muse of comedy

and idyllic poetry, Thalia.

So, she has a bit of classical
drapery over her bosom

and she's crowned with
a wreath of ivy leaves.

So, in many ways, this is
quite a conventional bust.

But remember, it's
created by a woman

and a formidably
educated woman, at that.

And Damer wants to make sure
that point is remembered.

So, she's chiselled
on the side in Greek...

"Anna Damer, of London, made me."

What she's asserting here
is that there's substance

behind her classical style...

that she's a thinker
as well as a maker.

The bust was praised,

but Damer, going on
to further works,

was now encroaching on the territory
of her male contemporaries.

And they responded
and not with any generosity.

Gossip bubbled about her appearance.

One painter, Joseph Farington,

reported in his diary in 1798,

"The singularities of
Mrs Damer are remarkable.

"She wears a man's hat and shoes

"and a jacket also like a man's.

"Thus, she walks about the fields
with a hooking stick."

He insinuated that her close
friendships with women

were Sapphic.

Clare, what is this?

So, this is a bust of Mary Berry,

who was Anne Seymour Damer's
great friend

and a respected amateur writer
in her own right.

What's rather lovely about it,
though, is that on the headband,

she's inscribed their names,

Maria Berry and Anne Seymour Damer.

They seem to have been
soul mates together.

They write incredibly
charged letters to one another

and they certainly
seem to have seen each other

as their main source of
support and emotional comfort.

Clearly, there was some passionate
attachment between the two of them.

Whether or not it's a sexual
attachment, I suppose, who can know?

That's the big question
in the 18th century.

And these rumours originally
appear in the press in the 1770s,

with scurrilous poems saying
how fair Italia's maids

have felt the pressure of her hand,
the pressure of delight.

So, they're quite full-on!

But maybe these accusations about
her sexuality are more to do with

a deep cultural
uncomfortableness with the idea

of a professional woman sculptor.

The scandal around Damer
only grew when, in 1789,

her skills put her in
the firing line once again.

She accepted a significant
commission for the exterior

of the Drury Lane theatre...

a statue of the god Apollo.

The male body in public
and ten foot high.

Her Apollo no longer exists

but what remains is the
scurrilous cartoon it provoked.

Damer is depicted carving
the naked bottom of her Apollo

and wielding her mallet
with emasculating force,

while prudish classical figures
look on, hiding their genitalia,

worried for their own manhood.

The cartoon was humiliating

but Damer had fought too hard

to be dissuaded by mockery.

She went on to model
national hero Admiral Nelson

and even King George III himself.

And the Royal Academy
showcased 34 of her works

over three decades.

So Anne Damer stands as
one of the few female artists

whose work could actually be seen
by the 18th-century general public.

Another one was, of course,
Angelica Kauffmann,

who had already achieved her place
on the male-dominated gallery walls,

but had ambition
that lay way beyond them.

She had a shrewd understanding
of the new technologies

and the untapped markets
for art they could open up.

A good printmaker herself,

Kauffmann saw the revolutionary
power of reproduction.

A single etching or engraving
of her work could be printed off

in the hundreds, seen in any print
shop window on the high street.

The marketplace for decorative art
was also ripe for the taking.

Angelica Kauffmann
mass-produced in 3D.

This decorated porcelain

represents the very top end
of her merchandising.

These are German, from Meissen,

and this is from Worcester,
in England.

Kauffmann struck all sorts of deals
allowing her paintings

to be reproduced in prints,

but then transferred onto
an array of objects,

from teapots, cups and plates,

to fans, to snuff boxes,

to pieces of furniture,
even to commodes.

And in this way, Angelica's imagery
reached down to the middle market.

As one printer and engraver
said of her,

"The whole world is Angelica mad."

Kauffmann's ease with
industrial design

took her art onto
the breakfast tables

of the polite and
commercial classes

and made her extremely rich.

Manufacturing and trade
drove art in new directions,

industry offered fresh possibilities

for women to take their art
to the world.

Textiles were the most vivid

and ubiquitous source of colour
in 18th-century Europe.

Not everyone could
wear patterned silks,

but almost everyone
had glimpsed them.

While the wealthy bought
embroidered silks in huge amounts

for their grand homes
and their wardrobes,

in the industry itself, most women
were relegated to the low-paid,

low-status roles -
spinning and winding.

The weavers and designers
were typically men,

protected by their guilds.

But then, a woman came along
whose sheer talent

overcame the prejudices of
a male-dominated industry.

She is one of the great unsung
heroes of British design,

and she lived and worked here,
in Spitalfields in East London.

Her name is Anna Maria Garthwaite.

She defined the English style

and clothed her world
in cutting edge design

and brilliant colour.

Garthwaite's moment had come,

because the British silk industry

was being eclipsed by
its great rival, France.

The male weavers of Spitalfields

had not found a way
to compete convincingly.

I've got here a mere selection

of over 800 watercolour
designs by Garthwaite.

Being able to paint flowers
in watercolours,

this is a typical female, polite
accomplishment in this period.

But to be a designer,

you have to understand
how to lay out a design

with mathematical accuracy.

Here, she's laid her designs onto
squared paper to aid the weaver.

On top of that,
she has to have an understanding

of how a two-dimensional design,
like this, is going to look

in a very different
material altogether.

Just because something looks
good as a watercolour,

it does not follow that
it'll look great in textiles.

And there are messages on her
designs for the weavers.

This one...

..has reminders of what
the colours must be on the flowers.

And this extraordinarily ripe,
exotic design has instructions

on the bottom, "The white
in the flowers will be brocade."

What's impressive
to me about all of this,

is evidence of
the way that Garthwaite

used a traditional female talent,

watercolour painting of flowers,

and translated it
into an industrial product.

Researching the history of female
creativity has its challenges.

In this case,
there's a great legacy,

but the woman herself
is an enigma.

The very few scraps of evidence
about Garthwaite's childhood,

a vicar's daughter in Lincolnshire,

demonstrates some
education in amateur art.

Here's a papercut made
when she was just 17.

It reveals her flair for working
precisely on a minute scale,

sheer draftsmanship, as well as her
keen eye for repeating pattern.

When her father died, it seems that
Garthwaite was left a small legacy,

which she took along with her talent
on a wing and a prayer to London.

Here, Garthwaite set herself up

in the heart of the silk weaving
district, in the East End

and got down to work,
designing watercolour patterns

for the weavers of Spitalfields,
who used them to create

some of the most desirable fabrics
of the 1730s and '40s.

I met with
textile curator Clare Browne,

to discover how Garthwaite became
so prominent in a man's world.

Clare, Garthwaite was
commended for introducing

the principles of
painting into the loom.

Is that just airy flattery or does
it have some technical purchase?

I think to some extent it reflects
what a very fine artist she was.

But it also may refer to, for
example, a particular technique

that she introduced from
the French industry,

a technique called point rentre.

It was a way of feeding lighter
and darker shades of colour into

each other, so that you get a sense
of a three-dimensional curved form.

And it allows you to have a curve
in a petal, or a piece of fruit.

Do you think it was hard for her
to break in to silk design?

Curiously, some of her designs
have the inscription,

"Sent to London before I came down."

And of course they wouldn't
necessarily have needed to say

they were by a woman.

And so, a possibility is that
these designs were shown to weavers

or mercers, "Would you like
more where this come from?"

And then the weavers or mercers
were hooked by this extraordinary

talent and carried on patronising
her, even though she was a woman.

That's interesting.
I hadn't thought about that,

that a male agent
might have acted for her.

It's possible. It was a very
male-dominated business.

The weavers' company
was all about men. Yes.

It's rather fantastic,
then, isn't it,

that one of their most
successful designers was a woman?

It entirely, I think, reflects
her extraordinary talent.

They knew that they
could be confident

that she would produce
designs they could sell

to their most important customers
and that's the crux of it.

Garthwaite's designs

were not only sported by
the fashionable around town.

Thanks to the British
dominance of trade,

her fabrics were in demand
across Europe and even in America.

Here, a Garthwaite silk is proudly
worn by Mrs Charles Willing,

a Philadelphia matron...

a demonstration of how Garthwaite
truly dressed the world.

While Garthwaite was revitalising
a key British industry,

in Northern France, a young woman
was growing up in obscurity.

She would go on to use her
imagination to revolutionise

the defining industry of the French.

Her story leads us to the most
fabulous court of the 18th century -

that of Louis XVI
and Marie Antoinette.

Her name was Rose Bertin.

Now, you may not have heard of her,
but she ingeniously built herself

into the world's first
celebrity fashion designer.

If it wasn't for Bertin, Dior
and Chanel would never have existed.

And Paris might never have become
the undisputed capital of fashion.

Yet Bertin's start in life
in no way suggested

the glittering
possibilities to come.

Born into an
artisan family in Picardy,

at nine, Bertin was apprenticed
to a dressmaker to learn

the mysteries of a trade for
centuries the preserve of men.

In the late 17th century,
bands of intrepid seamstresses

broke the male monopoly
on dressmaking,

earning the right to cut
and construct clothes

for women and children,

establishing their own
all-female guilds.

Within a century, the canniest
had established themselves

as flourishing businesswomen,
not sweated labour,

adept at predicting aesthetic change

and able to capture
the Zeitgeist in clothes.

With women now having
the right to dress women,

Bertin followed her dream to Paris

and, aged just 16, charmed her
way into a chic fashion emporium.

Her inventiveness in trimmings

and her ability to attract
noble patrons served her well.

The female proprietor of the shop
invited her into partnership.

In 1770,

Bertin got financial backing from
an aristocratic client to go solo.

Rose Bertin's shop
was on the Rue Saint-Honore.

She called it Le Grand Mogul
after a famous diamond,

a title that was glittering
with exoticism and exclusivity.

It was made,
the exterior, of marble,

faux marble in
lemon and lavender.

Inside, it was
decorated with portraits

of her royal clients
from all across Europe.

Bertin displayed literally
hundreds of fully trimmed outfits.

So what was her secret?

I've come to meet
designer Fanny Wilk,

who specialises in recreating
historical fashions,

to find out just what it was that
made Bertin such an innovator.

Fanny, you've modelled for us
two different kinds of looks.

And I can see that this
is a formal court dress

and this is for more informal,
I would think, afternoon wear.

What did Rose Bertin
do differently on a dress like this?

What marked her out
from her competitors?

She finds new models,
she finds new shapes,

new materials, new colours,

new matching between all the
accessories and the hat...

It was possible for her to work
with dresses like empty canvas.

She put a lot of jewels,
trims, laces, feathers,

a lot of things that make
the dress much more beautiful.

So, really, she is what
we might think of as a stylist,

in the Hollywood sense of a stylist.

Not only dresses but the whole...

Yeah, the tout ensemble.

But Bertin's ambitions lay beyond
just fashioning the nobility.

This lowborn artisan had set her
eyes on impressing a future queen.

When the young Austrian princess,
Marie Antoinette,

arrived in France in 1770,
she was accused of being dowdy.

Bertin saw her chance and, through
one of her aristocratic clients,

secured an introduction.

From that moment,
a new collaboration was born.

Marie Antoinette's
dowdy days were behind her.

Fashion and history were set
on a new and momentous course.

Shortly after they met, Marie
Antoinette invited Rose Bertin

behind the scenes to her own private
apartments, and so it was here,

not in the grand formal bedroom,

that they had their biweekly
meetings to design her entire look

and to perform the fittings.

Out of those meetings
came the unforgettable image

we all know today.

Bertin dressed Marie Antoinette
for her husband's coronation.

Not in the traditional
ceremonial garb,

but in the contemporary
galant style,

covered in whimsical embroidery
and sparkling with sapphires.

But it was the towering Bertin pouf,

a raised coiffure quite literally
built with scaffolding,

pads and pomade, which truly
inflated the Queen's stature,

adding three feet to her height.

A courtier remarked, "To be
the most a la mode woman alive,

"seemed to Marie Antoinette
the most desirable thing."

The young Queen had become
a walking art installation

and the architect of all this,
Rose Bertin,

demanded full recognition
for her genius.

Challenged by a client's husband
about the whopping size of her bill,

Bertin reportedly brushed him off,

comparing herself
to a feted male painter,

and querying
whether he was only paid

according to the size
of his canvas and colours.

If his fee was not based
on the price of his materials,

then why should hers be?

Bertin had grasped
something that women

striving in a creative field
had to learn -

the importance of the right persona.

Was she really that arrogant?

We can never know.

But clearly, she recognised
the signal importance

of projecting
a memorable personality

and titanic self-belief.

The prototype of
the demanding empress

and diva of fashion was born here.

But Bertin's creation also changed
the course of economic history.

What makes all this so important
is the fact that Marie Antoinette

disposed of her dresses
at the end of every season

and got a whole new set.

So what that means is, something
akin to the modern fashion cycle

was whirring into life.

Business boomed.

Bertin's designs sped across Europe
on the backs of dolls -

or Pandoras, as they were known.

They took prototypes
of French fashion to every court,

from Spain to Russia.

Bertin's exuberant confections

fed Marie Antoinette's
reputation for extravagance.

But in the end,
it was a simple gown

that would surprisingly
draw the greatest uproar.

In 1783, Bertin dressed the Queen

in an informal muslin chemise.

It was a sea change
in fashion history.

All over Europe, women abandoned
their stiff, formal silk dresses

in favour of lighter,
less structured clothes

made out of Indian cottons.

But to the French public,

it looked as if the Queen was
displaying her underwear.

It was an insult to France itself.

The silk industry was
up in arms at the betrayal.

It's at this point
that telling Bertin's story

brings me face to face
with another female artist

who stamped her style on Europe,

thanks to the patronage
of Marie Antoinette.

Her name is Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun.

Bertin may have dressed the Queen,

but it was Lebrun who became the
Queen's favourite portrait painter,

displaying the monarch
and her style to the world.

Vigee-Lebrun was one of the
greatest portrait painters

of her generation.

But for Joshua Reynolds,

she was one of the greatest
portrait painters of any generation,

surpassing even van Dyck.

This is just one
of at least 30 paintings

she completed of Marie Antoinette.

And it's a beautiful symphony
in colour, in grey and pink.

It's also masterful
in its depiction of texture,

from the sheen on the grey silk,

the airiness of the lace

and the softness of those feathers.

I feel you can touch them.

But above all,
what she's managed to do

is transform
a really rather plain queen

into a vision of ravishing,
radiant, enchanting prettiness.

From the outset, Vigee-Lebrun
had a number of advantages.

She was born in Paris,

the capital of power,
taste and fashion.

Her artist father mentored her

and as a teenager she was already
painting portraits and had a studio.

In return, she supported the family.

In 1776, aged 20,
she wed an art dealer.

She could copy his collection
of Old Masters and, naturally,

he shared his contacts with her,
opening up a rich seam of clients.

The wife benefitted from
the husband's business,

but the husband recognised
a talented asset when he saw one.

And one of her assets,
she traded on mercilessly.

"In those days,
beauty was really an advantage,"

she wrote in her memoirs.

Over her career,
she painted 37 self-portraits,

convinced they were her most
effective calling card.

Vigee-Lebrun even credited
this one with gaining her entry

into the prestigious
French Academy, aged 28.

But she was far more than
just a pretty face.

She had an inspired ability
to read the cultural Zeitgeist.

In late 18th-century France,
thanks to Enlightenment philosopher,

Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
good parenting was a hot topic.

In the past,

the rich had tended to outsource
the raising of their children.

But Rousseau insisted that women
should not shirk their natural role.

Vigee-Lebrun cleverly reflected

and shaped these ideals in a
sentimental style of portraiture

and she started with herself

and her daughter Julie.

Madonna and child,
tender, informal...

but, for me, a bit too saccharine.

She's responding here
to Rousseau's call

for a return to the maternal,
the dutiful, and the natural

but, rather brilliantly, she's taken
the idea of nature

and transformed it into fashion.

But one maternal portrait

challenged Vigee-Lebrun's skills
to the maximum.

In 1787, she accepted
a daunting commission -

to change the nation's
perception of its monarchy.

The task?

To present Marie Antoinette
not as a flamboyant queen,

but as a compassionate mother.

With the storm clouds
of revolution gathering,

this was fundamentally
a political portrait.

The aim of this huge painting

is to save the Queen's reputation.

So, the Queen, by this point,

has already developed a
reputation for ostentation, excess,

and there's a lot of criticism
of her finances, is there not?

Yes. Absolutely.

Because Marie Antoinette
was so much hated,

the intention here is to make her
look simple and serious.

This is why you have
the jewel casket at the back,

making a reference
to a Roman episode.

It's the story of
Cornelia, Mother Of The Gracchi.

When asked by a friend
to show her jewels,

Cornelia said that her only jewels
were her children,

and she presented her children,

which is exactly what
Marie Antoinette is doing here.

She's putting forward her children,
her three children.

But I think what's also interesting
is that it shows that Vigee-Lebrun

can fulfil a very complicated brief.

She really thought about the message
that the painting should convey.

But given the bankruptcy
of royal finances,

it would take more than a portrait,

however brilliantly executed,

to rescue the reputation
of the French Queen,

or for that matter, the two artists
who helped create it.

Critics saw these women

as feeding the Queen's taste
for ostentatious luxury,

flaunting exquisite excess
while the state went bankrupt.

When Revolution erupted in 1789,
the mob attacked Versailles

and their immediate target showed
just how much the people hated

Rose Bertin.

The tapestries and
the paintings went untouched.

Instead, the mob went straight
to Marie Antoinette's wardrobe

and tore Bertin's
fairy-tale creations to shreds.

Bertin tried to ride out the storm,

presenting herself as a citoyenne,

gamely selling
revolutionary cockades.

But her brand was toxic now.

She was too closely associated with
the frills of the Ancien Regime.

Business suffered and in 1792,
she decamped to London.

Before she fled, however,

she did one last service
for her royal client.

In the wake of the King's execution,

she sent Marie Antoinette
a mourning outfit.

She wore it day and night
for months until her own execution,

by which time it hung
on her body in tatters.

Bertin opened
a modest shop in London,

hoping to recover her debts,
but it came to nothing.

Her moment had passed.

Yet her legacy lives on.

She had established Paris
as the capital of haute couture

and not even revolutionaries
could take that away.

For Vigee-Lebrun, however,

the outcome of the Revolution
was very different.

Bold and ambitious still,
she fled Paris for Italy,

achieving a level
of international success

in the courts of Italy and Russia,

matched by few men and
no other women of the period.

Here in Florence,
in the famous Vasari Corridor,

lined with self-portraits
by the great artists of Europe,

she is one of only
a handful of women

permitted to stake
their claim to posterity.

The unrepentant Vigee-Lebrun,

still painting away.

Still with that
impossible prettiness

which masks her grim,
gritty determination.

And here she is painting
Marie Antoinette.

She still allied herself
with the Ancien Regime,

and with the woman that made her.

There is a contradiction here.

Marie Antoinette is the
ultimate symbol of elitism,

yet she was also an enabler
of female talent,

in sharp contrast
to what was to come.

While one might have thought a
revolution with a credo of liberty,

equality and fraternity
would have helped creative women,

that wasn't to be.

The old academy,
open to exceptional women,

was replaced by
the Institute of France,

that barred women artists
altogether.

It is one of the great ironies
that the Ancien Regime

was actually more receptive to
female creativity than the Republic.

Because revolutionaries, despite
their egalitarian rhetoric,

are often invincibly sexist.

The story of women and art

is no simple onward march
to formal recognition.

There were setbacks
as well as breakthroughs.

Back in England, after Mary Moser
and Angelica Kauffmann,

the Royal Academy defaulted
to the boys' club

it had always wanted to be.

It would elect no more female
members for another hundred years.

But in that century,
female artists would emerge

who didn't need the sanction
of an art establishment.

In my next programme,
women strike out on unique paths

to redefine our idea of art and
the role it can play in our lives.