Susanna Drury, later Susanna WarterSusanna Drury
''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Retrieved January 10, 2018. (c. 1698 – c. 1770) was an Irish painter. Though little is known of her life or work, she was very influential in the development of Irish

landscape painting Landscape painting, also known as landscape art, is the depiction in painting of natural scenery such as mountains, valleys, rivers, trees, and forests, especially where the main subject is a wide view—with its elements arranged into a cohe ...

. She is chiefly noted for her watercolor drawings of the

Giant's Causeway The Giant's Causeway () is an area of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcano, volcanic fissure eruption, part of the North Atlantic Igneous Province active in the region during the Paleogene period. ...

County Antrim County Antrim (named after the town of Antrim, County Antrim, Antrim, ) is one of the six counties of Northern Ireland, located within the historic Provinces of Ireland, province of Ulster. Adjoined to the north-east shore of Lough Neagh, the c ...

, which brought international attention to the site.

Life

Drury was born around 1698. A work entitled ‘One Tree Hill, Greenwich Park’ (signed and dated 1733) suggests that she received instruction and lived in London around this time.
''Dictionary of Irish Biography''. Retrieved March 05, 2025. She was associated with the Royal Dublin Society, Dublin Society (later the Royal Dublin Society), which presented her with an award £25 in 1740 for her paintings of the

.Arnold, ''Irish Art'', p. 62. She was the first woman in Ireland to receive this award. She had traveled to

Ulster Ulster (; or ; or ''Ulster'') is one of the four traditional or historic provinces of Ireland, Irish provinces. It is made up of nine Counties of Ireland, counties: six of these constitute Northern Ireland (a part of the United Kingdom); t ...

to observe the site firsthand, and spent several months there working. Her drawings are composed of

gouache Gouache (; ), body color, or opaque watercolor is a water-medium paint consisting of natural pigment, water, a binding agent (usually gum arabic or dextrin), and sometimes additional inert material. Gouache is designed to be opaque. Gouach ...

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. It is often distinguished from parchment, either by being made from calfskin (rather than the skin of other animals), or simply by being of a higher quality. Vellu ...

and present two views of the Causeway from the east and west. These paintings show accurate details of the jointing forming the basalt columns of the Causeway. The paintings brought attention to the formation, and the popularity of Irish monument paintings boomed in their wake. Engravings were made by François Vivares between 1743 and 1744. Prints made from these engravings were popular in Europe and were widely circulated in scientific communities; in 1765 an entry for the Causeway appeared in volume 12 of the French ''

Encyclopédie , better known as ''Encyclopédie'' (), was a general encyclopedia published in France between 1751 and 1772, with later supplements, revised editions, and translations. It had many writers, known as the Encyclopédistes. It was edited by Denis ...

'' which clearly relied on the engraving of Drury's paintings. A plate made from the engraving of Drury's "East Prospect" itself later appeared unattributed in a volume of plates published for the ''Encyclopédie''. It was included in the geology section along with two other plates depicting similar basalt formations in France, and included a caption by

Nicolas Desmarest Nicolas Desmarest (; 16 September 1725 – 20 September 1815) was a French geologist and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'', in particular, the multi-volume ''Géographie-ph ...

proposing, for the first time in print, that the structures were volcanic in origin."Susanna Drury, the Causeway, and the Encyclopédie, 1768"
This was to help resolve a long-argued dispute on the origin of the basalts, and other igneous rocks, that had raged between the Neptunists and the Vulcanists. . Lindahall.org. Retrieved March 14, 2007. As a Susannah Warter is mentioned in the will of Franklin Drury (1770), it is thought that she had married by this date. Her original gouache drawings of the Giant's Causeway now hang in the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures ...

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Notes

References

* Arnold, Bruce (2002). ''Irish Art: A Concise History''. New York: Thames & Hudson. * Anglesea M. and Preston,J.(1980). 'A Philosophical Landscape': Susanna Drury and the Giant's Causeway. Art History, 3, 252-273. {{DEFAULTSORT:Drury, Susanna 1690s births 1770 deaths 18th-century Irish painters 18th-century Irish women artists Irish landscape painters Artists from Dublin (city) Irish women painters 18th-century women painters