Fanny Steers

[1] Both William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow bought her paintings, and a poetic quote from her work appears in the first edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations.

Steers created it using the chine-collé technique, where a print is made on delicate paper in order to show fine details but afterward bonded to sturdier material.

[7] As a new exhibitor in the association's 1846 show, Steers was described as "an acquisition to the gallery" by a critic who added "we know of no female artist who handles the pencil so boldly; but she must be careful not to make her skies too splashy".

The critic suggested, however, that she should progress from small paintings to what he described as "the great ultimatum of artistic ambition, the production of large and elaborately composed pictures".

[9] In May 1856, The Spectator harshly criticized the NSPW exhibition but praised Steers as "the only exhibitor who has struck a full chord of artistic beauty, and reached that point at which we rest satisfied on the attainment instead of feeling the deficiency".

The first (1856) edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations[15] includes this quote from Steers:The last link is broken That bound me to thee, And the words thou hast spoken Have render'd me free.