Eliza Bridell Fox, née Eliza Florance Fox, was a British painter.
Background
Her father believed in the value of an education for women, but felt that the art of drawing was unnecessary, leading his daughter to study the art by herself.Eliza Fox became a copyist by first studying Bernhard Siegfried Albinus" Anatomy, which her father bought for her, and later, by copying paintings in the National Gallery and the British Museum.
Education
In 1847 she graduated and her pastel portrait of her father was shown in 1847 at the Royal Academy.
Career
Receiving encouragement from artists, she finally convinced her father to let her study for three years at Sass"s School under the directorship of Francis Stephen Cary. The next year she showed a historical portrait of Gainsborough when a boy sketching from Nature. She then started to hold drawing evenings at home in her father"s library where she and other women artists could draw from "undraped" models.
After a few years she began instruction with the purpose of educating women to the point that they would qualify for admittance to the Royal Academy schools, and one of her pupils, Laura Herford, succeeded on the basis of a drawing that only included her first initials.
Herford was admitted to the Antique School as the first woman to do southern In this period she is known for portraits of visiting friends and their company.
Mistress Bridell then took a long trip to Algiers where she continued to make portraits of visitors.