Anna Maria van Schurman

Dutch scholar and artist

• Born: November 5, 1607
• Birthplace: Cologne (now in Germany)
• Died: May 14, 1678
• Place of death: Wiuwerd, Friesland, United Provinces (now in Netherlands)

Internationally renowned as one of the greatest female scholars of the seventeenth century, van Schurman was skilled in several languages and was a scholar in philosophy and theology. Her influential Latin treatise Dissertatio (1641) argued that women not only could succeed intellectually in education but also had a right to higher education. She also was an accomplished artist who worked in a variety of media.

Early Life

Anna Maria van Schurman (SHUHR-mahn) was one of three children born to the noble family of Frederik van Schurman and Eva von Harff. Although her father’s Calvinist family was originally from Antwerp, they moved to Cologne during the late sixteenth century suppression of Protestantism in the Netherlands under King Philip II of Spain and the duke of Alva. Following the Dutch revolt against Spain for independence, the family returned to the Netherlands in 1610 and eventually settled in the city of Utrecht. It was in this university city that van Schurman commenced, with her father’s encouragement and support, her pursuit of artistic and scholarly accomplishments.

It is believed that van Schurman initiated her artistic training in 1620 with Magdalena van de Passe, the daughter of a famous family of engravers. Thus, van Schurman began her artistic pursuits engraving and etching portraits and self-portraits. She was also the first woman allowed to study at a Dutch university, where she became interested in philosophy and theology. She mastered an ability to read and write in several languages, which, according to a famous contemporary, Jakob Cats, included Dutch, German, French, English, Latin, Italian, Greek, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Arabic, Syrian, Persian, and Samaritan. In addition to acquiring knowledge of classical philosophy, she studied poetry, rhetoric, dialectics, and mathematics. Although van Schurman had to keep a low profile while attending classes with male colleagues, she eventually obtained the approbation and encouragement of several prominent male scholars, who encouraged her to publish and to pursue her scholarly interests.

Life’s Work

In addition to etching and engraving in copper, van Schurman created artistic works in glass, oil, boxwood, wax, pastels, gouache, embroidery, paper, pencil, and ivory. This demonstration of artistic skill in such a wide variety of media was unusual and reveals her eagerness to experiment with and master several diverse techniques. Her art consists primarily of portraits in miniature, but she also did paper cuttings of coats of arms, as well as decorative texts in glass engravings and calligraphy on parchment.

In 1643, she was admitted to Utrecht’s Guild of St. Luke, the painter’s guild. Her membership appears to have been primarily honorary, as she essentially stopped producing works after this date. Nevertheless, her artistic accomplishments received so much attention that she continued to be applauded in collections of artist biographies for several decades, including that of Cornelis de Bie and of Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719), who was also a painter. De Bie praised van Schurman particularly for engaging in the traditionally male pursuit of creating art. Moreover, he wrote that this “manly” endeavor won her “manly” honor.

Van Schurman’s supporters encouraged her to publish her first important text, Dissertatio (1641; The Learned Maid: Or, Whether a Maid May Be a Scholar? A Logick Exercise , 1659), in which she defended a woman’s right to pursue higher education. For its time, the Dissertatio was remarkable for its logic and strong insistence that women were equal to men in their ability to think and learn. She makes the scholastic argument that anyone who has a desire for the arts and sciences is suited to such study. Therefore, because women have this desire, they are capable of these pursuits. A French translation of van Schurman’s ideas on women’s education was published in 1646, and an English translation appeared in 1659. In 1648, van Schurman also published a compilation of her letters and poetry, Opuscula hebraea, graeca, latina, gallica: Prosaica et metrica (partial English translation, 1998). As the title suggests, the text demonstrates her facility in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and French. These texts helped earn her international fame and a number of glorifying epithets including Star of Utrecht, Miracle of Nature, and the Tenth Muse.

Van Schurman had many admirers and correspondents, including the poet and diplomat Constantijn Huygens, the artist Gerard Honthorst, the theologians Gisbertus Voetius (Gijsbert Voet) and André Rivet, the lawyer-poet Cats, the doctor-author Johann van Beverwijk, the French philosopher René Descartes , the Dutch poet Ann Roemers Visscher, and Princess Elizabeth of the Palatinate. Indeed, van Schurman became an important local attraction for visiting scholars and dignitaries, who had heard of her wisdom and learning. She kept international correspondence with curious and admiring letter writers from around Europe. Eulogies to her knowledge and skills appeared frequently in both texts and images.

One of her self-portraits was used as a frontispiece and dedication page for a popular text by Cats, who introduced the portrait with a verse praising van Schurman’s artistic skills and her intelligence. The aggrandizing image is reminiscent of portrayals of her famous male contemporaries. Scholarly texts, the instruments of her fame, are laid out on the table beside her in this image, and a view of the Utrecht church appears out the background window. These elements, combined with her bold pose, declare her prestigious position as the Minerva of Utrecht. Van Beverwijk also dedicated a text to van Schurman dealing with the superiority of women. In his extensive description of van Schurman, he reveals even more of her virtues by extolling her musical abilities and praising her writings and her character.

Increasingly after this early recognition, van Schurman began to withdraw from public attention to care for her elderly aunts. Her fame suffered when she joined the religious community of Jean de Labadie, a Reformed Swiss minister dismissed for heretical beliefs. Although her friends tried to dissuade her from joining, she defended the group in her writings and accompanied the sect in its travels searching for a protected haven. In 1673, she published Eucleria seu melioris partis electio (English translation, 1673), which was both an autobiography and an argument for the purer reformation she had found with de Labadie. Van Schurman followed the group to Germany and then to Friesland, where it settled at Walta Castle near Wieuwerd. She died there in 1678.

Significance

Even during her lifetime, van Schurman achieved a scholarly reputation at the international level, an achievement that was unprecedented for women. The many portraits of her and the eulogizing verses dedicated to her indicate that she was an important role model for girls and women. Her prominence in art and scholarship encouraged other women, particularly Dutch women, to pursue such “manly” endeavors. The artist and scholar Margarita van Godewyk and the artist Joanna Koerten Blok, for example, were both compared to van Schurman favorably. Women outside the Dutch Republic, however, were also encouraged by her writings and reputation. Indeed, van Schurman’s assertions regarding women’s intellectual abilities and their rights to an education influenced the arguments of later feminists and others concerned with human rights.

Bibliography

Baar, Mirjam de, et al., eds. Choosing the Better Part: Anna Maria van Schurman (1607-1678). Translated by Lynne Richards. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1995. A multidisciplinary collection of nine essays on the life, writings, art, and influence of van Schurman.

Dykeman, Therese Boose, ed. The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers, First to the Twentieth Century. Boston: Kluwer Academic, 1999. Provides a 1659 English translation of Dissertatio and a brief biography of van Schurman, discussing her philosophical contribution in a contemporary context.

Israel, Jonathan. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1995. Includes a brief discussion of van Schurman’s involvement with de Labadie.

Kersey, Ethel M. Women Philosophers: A Bio-Critical Source Book. New York: Greenwood Press, 1989. Gives a brief overview of van Schurman’s life and a critical discussion of her writings.

Kloek, Els, Nicole Teeuwen, and Marijke Huisman, eds. Women of the Golden Age: An International Debate on Women in Seventeenth-Century Holland, England, and Italy. Hilversum, the Netherlands: Verloren, 1994. Several essays in this anthology discuss the position of van Schurman in Dutch society.

Saxby, Trevor J. The Quest for the New Jerusalem: Jean de Labadie and the Labadists (1610-1744). Hingham, Mass.: Kluwer Academic, 1987. Although focused mainly on Labadie, this work also gives details on the later life of Schurman and provides translations from Eucleria unavailable elsewhere.

Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. This now-classic cultural history briefly discusses van Schurman in the general context of the position of women in Dutch society and culture.

Schurman, Anna Maria van. Whether a Christian Woman Should Be Educated and Other Writings from Her Intellectual Circle. Translated and edited by Joyce L. Irwin. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Centers on English translations of van Schurman’s defense of women’s education, with excerpts from Dissertatio, Eucleria, and her letters to other women. Also included are translations of reactions to her work from her male contemporaries.

Waithe, Mary Ellen. The History of Women Philosophers: Modern Women Philosophers, 1600-1900. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic, 1991. A critical review of van Schurman’s writings on the education of women.

Warnke, Frank J., and Katharina M. Wilson, eds. Women Writers of the Seventeenth Century. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989. Includes English translations of several of van Schurman’s letters and excerpts from Dissertatio and Eucleria.