Anna Maria van Schurman

Anna Maria van Schurman was a poet and scholar as well as a visual artist, for whom engraving was one of many artistic pursuits including painting and engraving calligraphy on glass with a diamond. She learned to engrave from the professional engraver Magdalena van de Passe in Utrecht.

Van Schurman was remarkably erudite (she was the first female student at the University of Utrecht) and was celebrated by male intellectuals in her time for her knowledge of several languages. She published an essay on the education of women: her conclusion was that women should be educated in all matters if it did not interfere with their domestic duties, a radical position at the time. She saw engraving and other arts as a means by which a virtuous woman could occupy idle time. Here, she presents herself as a learned lady (composing a legend in Latin) who is also modest. The legend reads: “No pride or beauty prompted me to engrave my features in the unforgiving copper; but [it was] because my un-practiced graver was not yet capable of producing good work, [and] I would not have risked a weightier task the first time.”