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Social Victorians/People/de Steiger

< Social Victorians‎ | People

Also Known As edit

  • Isabel de Steiger
  • Isabelle Elizabeth Lace
  • Isabel Steiger
  • Isabel Lace
  • Mme Isabella de Steiger (Küntz 212)
  • Esmé Suisse, pseudonyme 1866
  • Miss F. Steeger, on her single work exhibited at the Royal Academy (Davis1)
  • Golden Dawn motto: Alta Peto (Alastor) or Altiora peto — "I see the heights" (ODNB) or or Alta Peto — "I strive for the heights" (Küntz 212)
  • Juliette instead of Isabelle? (Harper 74 314; Howe index, 144)

Demographics edit

  • Nationality:

Residences edit

  • Aigburth, a suburb of Liverpool, 1861 – mid 1860s (Davis1)
  • Ramleh, Egypt, suburb of Alexandria, mid 1860s – (Davis1)
  • 8 Hornton Street, Kensington (a house owned by an artist, a Mrs. Charity), London, 1874–? (Davis1)
  • Bedford Park, Chiswick (to late 1888)
  • 32 Fern Grove, Sefton Park, Liverpool (1888)
  • 58 Blomfield Road, Paddington (1891)
  • Edinburgh in the 1890s, neighbor of the John and Frances Brodie-Innes
  • Liverpool

Family edit

Maternal Grandparents' Family (Davis1) edit

  • Colonel Hector Lochiel-Cameron (1777-1833)
  • Elizabeth Lovett Lochiel-Cameron
  1. Total 6 children, 2 daughters and 4 sons
  2. Helena Elizabeth Cameron (1816–1841)

Paternal Grandparents' Family (Davis1) edit

  • Joshua Lace
  • Margaret Clarke

Family of Origin edit

  • Joshua Lace, father (1805 – 28 February 1851)
  • Helena Elizabeth Cameron Lace, mother (1816–1841)
  1. Joshua Verney Lovett Lace (7 June 1832 – 1878)
  2. Constantia (Constance) Margaret Lace (24 July 1833 – )
  3. William Henry Lace (3 April 1835 – 1875)
  4. Isabelle Elizabeth Lace (29 June 1836? or 28 February 1836? – 1 January 1927)
  5. Helena Cameron Lace (Nina) (5 July 1838 – )
  6. Elizabeth Rosamund Lace (10 Sep 1840 – )


  • Isabelle Elizabeth Lace Steiger (28 February 1836 – 1 January 1927)
  • Rudolf Adolf von Steiger von Riggesberg (–1870)

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies edit

Acquaintances edit

de Steiger "was acquainted with most of the leading personalities in esoteric circles" ()

  • Charles Gordon (in Egypt)
  • Lady Anne Blunt (in Egypt) — and her husband Wilfred Scawen Blunt?
  • Mrs. Hollis-Billing
  • Anne Judith Penny
  • Mary Anne South Atwood
  • Helene Blavatsky
  • Alfred Percy Sinnett
  • Mabel Collins
  • Constance Wilde
  • William Wynn Westcott
  • Samuel Liddell Mathers
  • Annie Besant
  • Isabel Cooper-Oakley
  • Rudolph Steiner

Friends edit

  • William Crosfield and Fanny Elizabeth Job Crosfield and their daughter Dora Crosfield
  • Henry Cassels Kay, manager of bank in Alexandria and trustee of Isabelle de Steiger's estate after Rudolph's death
  • Charles Carlton (C. C.) Massey
  • Anna Bonus Kingsford
  • Dr. George Wyld
  • Francesca Arundale
  • Christian David Ginsburg (1831–1914) and his wife
  • Patience Sinnett
  • A. E. Waite
  • John Brodie-Innes, who was her mentor
  • Léonie Steele

Organizations edit

  • Heatherley School
  • Slade School of Fine Art, 1874–
  • Choir in the Royal Albert Hall (Davis1)
  • The Wagner Society (Davis1)
  • British National Association of Spiritualists
  • Royal Academy
  • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
  • Theosophical Society
  • Hermetic Society, Anna Kingsford's, 1884–1886
  • Society for Psychical Research
  • Albemarle Club (from 1881)
  • The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Isis-Urania Temple, the Outer Order and the Inner Order (Küntz 212). Also, the Horus Temple and the Amen-Ra Temple

Timeline edit

1851 February 28, Isabel Lace's father died, the house was sold and she and her siblings went to live with her uncle, Ambrose Lace, and his wife Margaret Clarke Lace (Davis1).

1861 summer, Isabel Lace and Rudolph von Steiger von Riggesberg married.

1872 December 31, Rudolf died in Egypt (Davis1).

1874, after, de Steiger studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London sometime after 1874.

1878, de Steiger joined the Theosophical Society.

1881, de Steiger was elected to the Albemarle Club (Davis2).

1887 or after, de Steiger attended some of Constance Wilde's "famous Saturday afternoons; as Sally Davis says, <quote>Isabel says that when she was going to Lady Wilde’s Saturdays, they were in Chelsea; so she can’t have been invited before 1887</quote> (Davis2)

1888 February 22, Anna Kingsford died.

1888 October, de Steiger joined the the Golden Dawn, the Isis-Urania Temple (Küntz 212).

1891 May 8, Helena Blavatsky died.

1894–1895, de Steiger illustrated The Unknown World, for its editor A. E. Waite.

1896 May 4, Steiger joined the Inner Order of the Golden Dawn (Küntz 212).

1897 December 21 or 22, circa, de Steiger signed Frederick Gardner's petition in support of Annie Horniman (Howe 144).

1900, fire

1903, with A. E. Waite, de Steiger left the Golden Dawn and joined his Holy Order of the Golden Dawn.

1912, de Steiger founded the Alchemical Society.

Anthology edit

n.d.: <quote>Isabelle herself features in the correspondence and memoirs of contemporary Theosophists, in various histories of the [Theosophical] movement, and also in reference work on Victorian painters, so her self-portrait [in her autobiography] is rounded out. In general they reflect the image of the vivacious, forthright, humorous lady wearing a becoming Greenaway dress and casually holding palette and brushes, who appears in a photograph of her autobiography.</quote> (Holden 46)

Quoting from de Steiger's 1927 memoir, n.d.: <quote>The last time I saw Oscar Wilde was at a private view in the Grosvenor Gallery. He addressed me on my entrance: "Where have you been, Madame de Steiger, and where are you going?" I said briefly: "I am going to leave London and live in Liverpool." He drew himself up (he was a tall, fat, large man) and addressing the crowd around us, said in a clear, loud, vibrating, platform voice: "Liverpool? Where is Liverpool?", whereupon there was a buzz of delight. What idiots we were!</quote> (qtd. in Holden, p. 53, n. 8).

1885: Review of art: <quote>Among the figure-subjects Mr. E. S. Kennedy's "Viola and Malvolio," and Miss Isabel de Steiger's "The Sorceress," are most important. Miss de Steiger apparently takes Mr. Alma Tadema as her model. There is much sound work in her picture; it needs, however, to be purer in colour and less black in the shadows.</quote> ("The Nineteenth Century in Art Society")

1885: <quote>Two or three years ago the Dudley Gallery Society, judging from the character of its exhibitions, was by many considered to be moribund, and with good cause, perhaps; but lately there have been signs of fresh life and renewed energy. This promise of improvement has been to a very great extent fulfilled, and the exhibition of cabinet pictures now on view is in all respects much superior to what we were prepared for…. Miss Isabel De Steiger's "Lost Pleiad" (140) is noticeable as the only attempt in the direction of imaginative art in the gallery.</quote> ("Cabinet Pictures at the Dudley Gallery")

1889: <quote>That splendour and variety of colour are not absolutely indispensable to pictures of remarkable beauty and brilliancy the fine array of drawings in black and white at Mr. I. P. Mendoza's gallery in King-street, St. James's-square, suffices to prove. The collection, highly diversified both in style and subject, is especially interesting for its many excellent contributions by female artists who have had the courage to attempt and the skill to achieve works of much higher importance than the fruit and flower pieces and the servile copies of figures and landscapes to which, with a few brilliant exceptions, ladies have heretofore too often limited their ambition…. Favourable mention is also due to such other drawings by female hands as Jane H. Morten's "Moonlight in Sussex," Esther M. Bakewell's "In the Bargello, Florence," Jane Dealy's "Fruitseller in the West Indies," Jane Inglis's "Harbour of Rostrevor," Marion Gemmel's "Study of a Head for Pompilia," and the various works of Minnie Asprey, Ellen Ranken, Ethel Hastings, and Isabel de Steiger. These and other pictures, too many to enumerate, attest the artists higher technical skill, and a more sympathetic feeling for the true and the beautiful in art than are usually to be found in any except the élite of female painters.</quote> ("St. James's Gallery")

1894: A photograph published as the frontispiece in Andrew Glendinning's The Veil Lifted: Modern Developments of Spirit Photography, "Cyprian Priestess," shows a woman's head floating over the head of a seated Glendinning; the woman was thought to be a spirit, and the photography occasioned a great deal of debate. <quote>Isabelle de Steiger, a member of the Theosophical Society who lived in Edinburgh, stated she had seen an identical print in a friend's parlor and offered to travel to London to show experts that it had been faked. "The photo in my friend's house is from the real picture," she wrote to Stead. "I do not say that the alleged spirit-photograph was not one, but I do say that like all such 'spiritual' productions, falsehood is at the bottom of them." Steiger brought to London written testimony from a Scottish solicitor, Brodie Innes, who testified that he had purchased the photograph at a print shop on Fleet Street in 1872 or 1874. "They were certainly not sold as spirit photographs, nor did the shopman look on / them as such," he wrote. "The shopman told me he got them from a traveler from a German house, and that they were photographs of German pictures by a well-known artist."</quote> (Tucker 122–123)

Questions and Notes edit

  1. When was de Steiger at the Slade School? Did she meet or know Moina Mathers or Annie Horniman there? Or did she attend earlier than they did?
  2. de Steiger left the Golden Dawn after the Horos trial (Howe 240).
  3. de Steiger thought John Brodie-Innes showed "a desire to rule over others and to show forth his knowledge and play the Initiate here among admiring neophytes!!" (Howe 190).

Bibliography edit

de Steiger's Works edit

  • 1866: Suisse, Esmé [pseudonym for Isabelle de Steiger]. Article on Davos, Switzerland, for The Queen (Davis1).
  • 1894–95: de Steiger, Isabelle, illustrator. The Unknown World, ed., A. E. Waite.
  • 1896: de Steiger, Isabelle, translator and notes. The Cloud upon the Sanctuary, by Karl von Eckartshausen. Preface by J. W. Brodie-Innes. London, 1896.
  • 1907: de Steiger, Isabelle. On a Gold Basis: A Treatise on Mysticism. London: Philip Wellby, 1907.
  • 1910: de Steiger, Isabelle, translator. A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery: With a Dissertation on the More Celebrated of the Alchemical Philosophers Being an Attempt Towards the Recovery of the Ancient Experiment of Nature, by Mary Anne Atwood. 1910.
  • 1916: de Steiger, Isabelle. Superhumanity. 1916.
  • 1927: de Steiger, Isabelle. Memorabilia: Reminiscences of a Woman Artist and Writer. London: Rider & Co., 1927.

de Steiger's Paintings edit

  • Cleopatra and the Priestess (c. late 1870s?)
  • Aurora at Dawn (c. late 1870s?)
  • Cleopatra After the Battle of Actium (1879), shown at the Walker Art Gallery and bought by William Crosfield and Fanny Elizabeth Job Crosfield (Davis?)
  • Portrait of Patience Sinnett, shown at the Grosvenor Gallery (Davis?)
  • Phaedra, shown at the Grosvenor Gallery (Davis?)
  • Portrait of Mabel Collins, shown at the Grosvenor Gallery (Davis?)
  • Spirit of the Crystal, <quote>inspired by Anna Kingsford and fresh from the Grosvenor Gallery</quote> (Holden 44)
  • Portrait of Morya, one of Helena Blavatsky's Mahatmas, <quote>later sent to the Theosophical Society’s ashram at Adyar, just outside Madras</quote> (Davis2)

Papers edit

  • The National Library of Wales has some letters from de Steiger, possibly from when she was living in Liverpool.
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