Kitty Fisher
Encyclopedia
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
courtesan
Courtesan
A courtesan was originally a female courtier, which means a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person.In feudal society, the court was the centre of government as well as the residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together...
. Her celebrity was boosted by the attention that Sir Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
and other artists paid her. By emphasizing Fisher's beauty, audacity, and charm, portraits promoted her reputation, and prompted spectators to view her with redoubled awe.
Life as a courtesan
Born Catherine Marie Fischer, she was originally a milliner, whom Lieutenant-General (then Ensign) Anthony George Martin (d. 1800) reportedly introduced to London high lifeUpper class
In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...
. With a flair for publicity, she became known for her affairs with men of wealth. Her appearance and dress were scrutinized and copied, scurrilous broadsheets and satires upon her were printed and circulated, and her portrait by Reynolds as Cleopatra Dissolving the Pearl was engraved.
When he visited London in 1763, Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Casanova
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova de Seingalt was an Italian adventurer and author from the Republic of Venice. His autobiography, Histoire de ma vie , is regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century...
met Fisher and wrote:
... the illustrious Kitty Fisher, who was just beginning to be fashionable. She was magnificently dressed, and it is no exaggeration to say that she had on diamonds worth five hundred thousand francs. Goudar told me that if I liked I might have her then and there for ten guineas. I did not care to do so, however, for, though charming, she could only speak English, and I liked to have all my senses, including that of hearing, gratified. When she had gone, Mrs Wells told us that Kitty had eaten a bank-note for a thousand guineas, on a slice of bread and butter, that very day. The note was a present from Sir Akins, brother of the fair Mrs Pitt. I do not know whether the bank thanked Kitty for the present she had made it..
Kitty maintained a famous rivalry with Maria Gunning, who became Lady Coventry, due to Kitty's affair with Gunning's husband, George William Coventry, 6th Earl of Coventry.
Giustiniana Wynne
Giustiniana Wynne
Giustiniana Wynne, was an Anglo-Venetian author. She was born January 21, 1737 in Venice and died on August 22, 1791 in Padua, Italy...
, visiting London at the time, wrote:
"The other day they ran into each other in the park and Lady Coventry asked Kitty the name of the dressmaker who had made her dress. Kitty Fisher answered she had better ask Lord Coventry as he had given her the dress as a gift." The altercation continued with Lady Coventry calling her an impertinent woman, and Kitty replying that she would have to accept this insult because Maria became her 'social superior' on marrying Lord Coventry, but she was going to marry a Lord herself just to be able to answer back.
Giustiniana also wrote that
"She lives in the greatest possible splendor, spends twelve thousand pounds a year, and she is the first of her social class to employ liveriedLiveryA livery is a uniform, insignia or symbol adorning, in a non-military context, a person, an object or a vehicle that denotes a relationship between the wearer of the livery and an individual or corporate body. Often, elements of the heraldry relating to the individual or corporate body feature in...
servants - she even has liveried chaiseChaiseA chaise, sometimes called chay or shay, is a light two - or four-wheeled traveling or pleasure carriage, with a folding hood or calash top for one or two people....
porters."
Immortalised in art, diaries and letters
Nathaniel Hone painted her in 1765, at the height of her popularity. http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?mkey=mw02230 His famous painting, now in the National Portrait Gallery, LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, shows her with a kitten
Kitten
A kitten is a juvenile domesticated cat.The young of big cats are called cubs rather than kittens. Either term may be used for the young of smaller wild felids such as ocelots, caracals, and lynx, but "kitten" is usually more common for these species....
('kitty'), which is trying to get at a goldfish
Goldfish
The goldfish is a freshwater fish in the family Cyprinidae of order Cypriniformes. It was one of the earliest fish to be domesticated, and is one of the most commonly kept aquarium fish....
in a bowl ('fisher'). Reflected in the bowl are the faces of a crowd of people, looking through a window.
Besides sitting multiple times for Sir Joshua Reynolds, http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp01587&rNo=2&role=sit http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/exhibitions/reynolds/img/roomguide_7_1.jpg she was painted by Philip Mercier
Philip Mercier
Philip Mercier was a portraitist active in England.Painter of portraits and a pioneer in England of conversation piece and ‘fancy pictures’; an important figure in the introduction of French taste into England.-Life:Born in France to a tapestry worker of French Huguenot stock working for the...
, James Northcote
James Northcote
James Northcote RA , was an English painter.-Biography:He was born at Plymouth, and was apprenticed to his father, a poor watchmaker. In his spare time, he drew and painted. In 1769 he left his father and set up as a portrait painter. Four years later he went to London and was admitted as a pupil...
, and Richard Purcell, among others. http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp01587&rNo=6&role=sit http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp01587&rNo=8&role=sit http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/portrait.asp?LinkID=mp01587&rNo=1&role=sit
Apart from the letters of Giustiniana Wynne
Giustiniana Wynne
Giustiniana Wynne, was an Anglo-Venetian author. She was born January 21, 1737 in Venice and died on August 22, 1791 in Padua, Italy...
, she is mentioned in the diaries and letters of people as varied as Madame D'Arblay
Fanny Burney
Frances Burney , also known as Fanny Burney and, after her marriage, as Madame d’Arblay, was an English novelist, diarist and playwright. She was born in Lynn Regis, now King’s Lynn, England, on 13 June 1752, to musical historian Dr Charles Burney and Mrs Esther Sleepe Burney...
and Horace Walpole.
In 1766, she married John Norris, son of the M.P. for Rye and grandson of Admiral Sir John Norris. She came to live at her husband's family house, Hemsted (now the premises of the prestigious English public school, Benenden School
Benenden School
Benenden School is an independent boarding school for girls in Kent, England. It is located in Benenden in the Kentish countryside, between Cranbrook and Tenterden....
). She settled into the role of mistress of Hemsted, building up Norris's fortune, and was liked by the local folk, especially as she was generous to the poor. She died only four months after her marriage, some sources say from the effects of lead
Lead
Lead is a main-group element in the carbon group with the symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal. It is also counted as one of the heavy metals. Metallic lead has a bluish-white color after being freshly cut, but it soon tarnishes to a dull grayish color when exposed...
-based cosmetics, some from smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, in 1767. Her last wish was to be buried in Benenden
Benenden
Benenden is a village and civil parish in the Tunbridge Wells District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the Weald six miles to the west of Tenterden...
churchyard dressed in her best ball gown.
She is immortalized in the nursery rhyme
Nursery rhyme
The term nursery rhyme is used for "traditional" poems for young children in Britain and many other countries, but usage only dates from the 19th century and in North America the older ‘Mother Goose Rhymes’ is still often used.-Lullabies:...
, Lucy Locket
Lucy Locket
"Lucy Locket" is an English language nursery rhyme. It has a Roud Folk Song Index number of 19536.-Lyrics:Common modern versions include:-Origins and meaning :...
:
"Lucy Locket lost her pocket,
Kitty Fisher found it;
But ne'er a penny was there in't
Except the binding round it."
Music publisher Peter Thompson also published a country dance bearing her name in Volume 2 of Thompson's Compleat Collection of 200 Country Dances (Publ. 1764).
A fictionalized version of Kitty Fisher appeared in the 1991 Channel Four historic musical fantasy Ghosts of Oxford Street, played by Kirsty MacColl
Kirsty MacColl
Kirsty Anna MacColl was an English singer-songwriter.MacColl scored several pop hits from the early 1980s to the early 1990s...
.