Margaret Murray Cookesley or Murray-Cookesley (1844–1927), born Margaret Deborah Cookesley, took the name Murray upon marriage, and was an English painter. She traveled to the Middle East and painted oriental scenes in oils and water colours. She exhibited at the

Royal Academy The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its pur ...

and the Society of Women Artists.

Life and career

As reported by Clara Erskine Clement, Cookesley visited Constantinople where the sultan commissioned a portrait of his son; he was so pleased with this that he asked her to paint his wives as well, but she did not have time for this commission. She was awarded the

Order of the Chefakat The Order of Charity ( ota, نشانِ شفقت), sometimes referred to as the Order of the Chefakat, was an order of the Ottoman Empire founded in 1878 by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It was bestowed on selected women for distinguished humanitarian ...

and the Medaille des Beaux-Arts in the Ottoman Empire. Her ''Circe resplendens'' (1913) is in the collection of

Glasgow Museums Glasgow Museums is the group of museums and galleries owned by the City of Glasgow, Scotland. They hold about 1.6 million objects including over 60,000 art works, over 200,000 items in the human history collections, over 21,000 items relating to ...

Work

Some of her paintings are held in collections, including the

Victoria Art Gallery The Victoria Art Gallery is a public art museum in Bath, Somerset, England. It was opened in 1900 to commemorate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee. It is a Grade II* listed building and houses over 1,500 objects of art including a collection of ...

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

(''Frederick Harrison, Author''); Towneley Hall, Burnley (''The Gambler's Wife''); the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (''Cleopatra''); and the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield (''The Egg Seller''); and Cartwright Hall,

Bradford Bradford is a city and the administrative centre of the City of Bradford district in West Yorkshire, England. The city is in the Pennines' eastern foothills on the banks of the Bradford Beck. Bradford had a population of 349,561 at the 2011 ...

(''Rich and rare were the gems she wore''). However, Cookesley's work is poorly represented in art museums. Yet, her paintings regularly appear in the catalogues of leading auction houses such as Sotheby's and Christie's. Scholar, Julia Kuehn, has explained this by pointing out that Cookesley's work was intended for a mass market rather than as a form of high art. Thus, her paintings entered private collections where they continue to be traded among collectors. She painted numerous harem scenes.

Selected works

* ''Consulting the Oracle, After Waterhouse'' undated * ''Contemplation'', 1895 * ''Smoking the Pipe'', 1893Reina Lewis, Gendering Orientalism (London and New York: Routledge, 1996). Plate 23 etween 126 and 127 URL: http://journals.openedition.org/cve/docannexe/image/1375/img-3.jpg * ''Entertainment in the Harem'', 1894 * ''Idle Moments'', 1894 * ''Handmaidens'', undated * ''Peaceful Thoughts'', 1899

References

External links

* * 1844 births 1927 deaths 19th-century English painters 19th-century English women artists 20th-century English painters 20th-century English women artists English women painters Orientalist painters {{England-painter-stub