How painter born near Bury St Edmunds almost 400 years ago defied prejudice to succeed in the male-dominated world of art

On March 26, 1633 a baby girl was born in a Suffolk rectory who would go on to defy the expectations of women in 17th century England.

Mary Beale, widely known as the country’s first successful professional female painter, became a pioneer in the male-dominated world of art.

For decades she was the lynchpin of a thriving family business at the heart of the artistic establishment in London.

Mary’s talent as a portrait painter saw her capture the likenesses of hundreds of sitters while still having to walk the tightrope of convention in 17th century society. Her husband Charles and sons Bartholomew and Charles Jnr assisted her, and dealt with the commercial aspects.

But her life began in the village of Barrow between Bury St Edmunds and Newmarket - the daughter of the Rev John Cradock and his wife Dorothy. Her father was a keen amateur painter and it was most likely he who encouraged her interest in art.

Today, the biggest collection of her works in public ownership is kept at Moyses Hall Museum in Bury, just a few miles from her childhood home.

Alex McWhirter, heritage officer at West Suffolk Council which runs Moyses Hall, did extensive research into Mary Beale’s life for an exhibition he curated at the museum in 2021. He found that looking deeper into her life opened his eyes to Mary’s approach to her art.

“Because of lockdown we had more time to spend curating,” said Alex. “My approach to the exhibition was from a social history perspective in the first instance.”

He even managed to get hold of a dish of dead body lice - widespread at the time - to add an extra flavour of the 1600s.

“I had always looked at her pictures and thought it is sadly typical of history, because they are basically the core beauties of the 17th century. But when I got the opportunity to start digging around I found there were interesting stories behind most of the sitters.

“It opened up a window to the 17th century and all those elements we are brought up with at school like the Fire of London, the Plague and the Civil War.

“Also there was a lot more to her paintings than just core beauties. Yes they were there, but also a lot of anonymous sitters and it’s them I find most interesting.

“From someone I would place very much upper middle class she seems to quite easily dance between the lines of class.”

The daughters of a footman at a nearby great house were among her subjects. “There was clearly a relationship, a bond, rather than just using local children,” he said.

Mary’s father John Cradock was the Puritan rector of All Saints Church in Barrow. The font in the church is the one she would have been christened in,” said Alex.

“Her father was a member of the Painters and Stainers Company, which was a guild, so you can see the link to the world of art.

Mary was lucky to grow up near Bury which had a flourishing art community. Even Sir Peter Lely, who became a Court favourite, is thought to have spent time in the town when he first arrived from his Dutch homeland.

“She would probably have been inculcated into this Bury school of art. I think her father would have almost certainly encouraged her to paint,” says Alex. “Girls didn’t get a lot of formal education in those days. She would have been educated in the home to the extent she needed to be.

“But her father, despite being a Puritan rector at a time when the whole of England was torn apart by religious conflict, seems to have been quite enlightened.

For a woman in the 17th century the best outcome in life was considered to be a good secure marriage. Mary achieved that, but to a husband who also supported her career.

She married in 1652. Charles Beale was an upper middle class landholder from a manor in Buckinghamshire, with a family who had jobs in Court, so probably of higher social standing than the Cradocks. He was also a talented painter.

“Charles had a maternal uncle who was rector of Ashbocking in Suffolk, so it may have been a deliberate introduction,” Alex explained. “When they married they finished up in London, in the Covent Garden artists’ quarter, and they were there until the Plague forced them out.”

With plague rife in the capital in the mid-1660s it could be difficult to leave. The King had declared a Covid-style lockdown and while the poor were trapped, wealthier people were able to avoid it.

“It’s a measure of the family’s position that they could get out of London, “ he says. “They left in around 1666 and went to a house called Allbrook in Hampshire, returning in about 1670. By the 1670s they were on the gravy train. They moved to Pall Mall which is as good as it got for artists in 17th century London.”

Her husband kept meticulous records of the family’s commercial activities in a series of notebooks, which survive. He also sold art materials.

“Charles was not just a technically-capable painter - we have two of his paintings at Moyses Hall - he was the man sourcing materials to make canvas and prep canvas,” said Alex.

And he also seems to have been clever at improvising. “One of the quotes from him was ‘someone’s face on an onion bag’.

“Also there was a touch of the scientist about him in terms of experimentation in mixing paint colours. He was selling to people likeSir Peter Lely, providing the paint to the painting world.

From his notebooks we know that Mary’s fee for a three-quarter length portrait was £10 - equivalent to around £1,800 today. Her best year was 1678 when she made £430.

But everything had to be done within a very tight frame of the acceptable.

Some of her paintings were done as ‘favours’ - in other words exchanged for some kind of favourable deal from the recipient.

“For all her life she had to tread that very fine balance of what was commercially acceptable for a woman,” Alex says. “But sometimes it was hard cash.”

“Mary Beale was the first successful female commercial painter making a living in England - not the first to try, but the first to succeed. In Europe you had women painting commercially 100 years before.

“She was not the only strong woman in the 17th century doing something amazing. There were women in science, on the stage, but all having to negotiate their lives within a tight framework of what a male dominated society found acceptable.

“Mary’s sitters are largely women. It could be that in that sexist world men would rather sit for men. But there are also portraits of prominent men.

“We have her painting of the Rt Rev Gilbert Burnet, a very noted figure in Restoration England and the church, who was Bishop of Salisbury.

“Every member of her four person family seemed to be involved in every area of the business. Both sons seem to have been employed at some stage.”

“Mary’s artistic output slowed in the 1680s. In her later days she may have been becoming a little bit infirm, but her style of art was also declining in popularity. She died in 1699.

“Her son Bartholomew went on to be a doctor. Charles Jnr went on to be a failed painter, maybe because he was still painting in her style.”

Moyses Hall has almost 30 of Mary Beale’s pictures. Many of them came in a bequest from historian and collector Richard Jeffree, who became fascinated with the painter - by then largely ignored by the art world - after reading an article about her in the 1950s.

He later collaborated with the author Elizabeth Walsh on an intensive study of her work which resulted in an exhibition ‘The Excellent Mrs Mary Beale’ in London in 1975.

“When he co-curated the exhibition he came to see two paintings in the Cullum Collection in what was then the Manor House Museum in Bury,” said Alex.

“When he died in the early 1990s we were told we had been left his Mary Beale collection. We were very lucky. Since then we have acquired more.”

Some of the paintings are on display at Moyses Hall, while others are in storage. They also lend them out for exhibitions. “We are lending three to the National Portrait Gallery next year, and sent one to Madrid in October for a very high profile exhibition of female artists.”

Meanwhile Mary Beale’s star has risen. “One of her paintings came up for auction a couple of years ago,” says Alex. “The estimate was £300-£400, and it sold for £100,000.”

Cllr Ian Shipp, Cabinet Member for Leisure and Culture at West Suffolk Council which runs Moyse’s Hall, said: “Our history and heritage is a key part of our culture in West Suffolk.

“We are honoured to be able to recognise, celebrate and tell the story of local nationally important artists such as Mary Beale through our collection at Moyse’s Hall and I would encourage people to come along and discover these pieces for themselves.”

And Vicky Ryall, who works at the museum, says: 'I am a new addition to the heritage team, but not to the art world, having worked in galleries and art education for more than 20 years.

“I am so thrilled to handle works by Mary Beale, one of the most prolific female portrait artists of the 17th century. I really admire her dedication and resilience in a male dominated industry. Her work evokes a unique gentleness which makes her portraits very appealing.”

Some of the museum’s Mary Beales will be included in an exhibition in March and April 2024 focusing on how women were presented in fine art in the 17th century.

Alex added that the catalogue produced for the 2021 exhibition, which includes high resolution images of all the museum’s works by the artist, is still on sale there.

For more information go to moyseshall.org or phone 01284 706183.