Maria Graham (England, 1785-1842)
Maria Graham arrived in Rio de Janeiro in December 1821 and left for Chile in March 1822, where her husband died. Even as a widow, she continued to travel and returned to Rio in 1823, where she offered her services as preceptor to Princess Maria da Glória. After facing difficulties at court, she left her post, but remained in Rio until 1825, devoting herself to writing and painting. During her stay, she made botanical collections in Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, and her watercolors, acquired by the National Library, include vivid descriptions of the local flora. Among the 135 collectors who contributed to Flora brasiliensisthe landmark work by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, only two were women: Maria Graham and Princess Teresa of Bavaria. Her botanical samples were sent to England and incorporated into the Kew herbarium collection. In 1827, she married the painter Augustus Wall Callcott and died in 1842, aged 57, under unknown circumstances. A writer, teacher and traveler, Graham was a woman who stood out not only for her solid intellectual background, but also for her political stances and incisive criticism of the slave system and human exploitation she saw in Brazil.
Image: Portrait of Maria Graham, aged 57, created with AI from archive images of the young artist-scientist. 56 x 70 cm, 2024.
References:
CURATOR. "Maria Graham: Witness and Agent of Brazilian History in the Times of Independence." BBM Blog (blog), December 14, 2022. https://blog.bbm.usp.br/2022/o-olhar-de-uma-viajante-inglesa-sobre-o-brasil-do-seculo-xix/.
Peixoto, Ariane Luna, and Tarciso de Sousa Filgueiras. "Maria Graham: notes on the flora of Brazil." Acta Botanica Brasilica 22 (December 2008): 992–98. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0102-33062008000400010.
Priore, Mary Del. The English Traveler, the Lord of the Seas and the Emperor in the Independence of Brazil. São Paulo: Vestígio, 2022.
Souza, Maria De Fátima Medeiros De, and Emerson Dionisio Gomes De Oliveira. "Women in 19th-century illustrated scientific publishing: Maria Graham, Anna Atkins and Matilda Smith." Cadernos Pagu, no. 63 (2021): e216308. https://doi.org/10.1590/18094449202100630008.