{{short description|English miniature painter}} {{Distinguish|Kitty da Costa}} {{use dmy dates|date=August 2020}} {{Use British English|date=August 2020}} {{Infobox person | name = Catherine da Costa | birth_name = Catherine Rachel Mendes | birth_date = 1679 | birth_place = London, England | death_date = {{death year and age|1756|1679}} | death_place = London, England | other_names = Catharina da Costa, Catherine Rachel da Costa | occupation = Miniaturist | image = Catherine da Costa - Self-portrait.jpg | caption = Self-portrait attributed to Catherine da Costa }} '''Catherine Rachel da Costa''' (1679–1756), {{nee}} '''Mendes''', was an English miniaturist. She grew up in London and studied painting under Bernard Lens III. Most of her surviving portraits are of family and friends, and there is also a picture of Mary Queen of Scots. Da Costa was the first female Anglo-Jewish artist of note. In her personal life, she married Moses da Costa and had six children.
== Early life == Commemorative plaque in Highgate (with date of birth as 1678, not 1679)|alt=Commemorative plaque in Highgate|thumb|right Catherine Rachel Mendes was the eldest daughter of Fernando and Isabel Mendes, Portuguese Jews who had fled the Spanish Inquisition and married in London.<ref name="CdC">{{Cite ODNB|id=72024|title=Costa [née Mendes], Catherine [Rachel] da}}</ref><ref name="FM">{{Cite ODNB|id=18553|title=Mendes, Fernando Moses}}</ref> Her father was doctor to both King Charles II and Queen consort Catherine of Braganza, having converted to Roman Catholicism. Catherine Mendes was baptized at Somerset House (but given the Jewish name of Rachel) and Catherine of Braganza became her godmother.<ref name="CdC" />
The family lived between Budge Row in the City of London and Highgate House (later known as Cromwell House), sharing the houses with Fernando Mendes' cousin Alvaro da Costa and raising the children as Jews. On 13 August 1698, Catherine Mendes married da Costa's son Moses da Costa in a synagogue.<ref name="CdC" /> Moses da Costa was a wealthy merchant, and together with him, Catherine da Costa had six children.<ref name="MdC">{{Cite ODNB|id=39728|title=Costa, Anthony Moses da}}</ref>
== Career == Catherine da Costa was taught to paint miniature portraits by Bernard Lens III and most of her surviving works are portraits of friends and family.<ref name="CdC" /><ref name="JHNA">{{cite journal |last1=Wieseman |first1=Marjorie E. |title=Bernard Lens's Miniatures for the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough |journal=Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art |date=2018 |volume=10 |issue=2 |doi=10.5092/jhna.2018.10.2.3 |url=https://jhna.org/articles/bernard-lenss-miniatures-for-the-duke-and-duchess-of-marlborough/ |accessdate=22 August 2020 |archive-date=22 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822231016/https://jhna.org/articles/bernard-lenss-miniatures-for-the-duke-and-duchess-of-marlborough/ |url-status=live |doi-access=free }}</ref> These include a miniature of her ten-year-old son Abraham da Costa, which is now owned by the Jewish Museum. However, a full-length watercolour portrait of her father hangs in the Bevis Marks Synagogue and da Costa also painted the ''Imaginary Portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587)'', which hangs at Ham House in Surrey.<ref name="JE">{{cite book |last1=Adler |first1=Cyrus |last2=Singer |first2=Isidore |title=The Jewish Encyclopedia: A Descriptive Record of the History, Religion, Literature, and Customs of the Jewish People from the Earliest Times, Volume 4 |date=1964 |publisher=Ktav |page=289}}</ref><ref name="Benezit">{{cite journal |title=Costa, Catharina da |journal=Benezit Dictionary of Artists |doi=10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00042952 |date=31 October 2011}}</ref><ref name="LLF">{{Cite ODNB|id=66537|title=Lens [Laus] family}}</ref>
Da Costa was well-regarded as a painter and also impressed Voltaire with her wit when he visited London in the mid-1720s.<ref name="CdC" /><ref name="TSC47">{{cite book |last1=Hemming |first1=T. D. |last2=Freeman |first2=E. |last3=Freeman |first3=Ted |last4=Meakin |first4=David |title=The Secular City: Studies in the Enlightenment : Presented to Haydn Mason |date=1994 |publisher=University of Exeter |isbn=978-0-85989-416-6 |page=47 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2Sv87BSjIksC&pg=PA47 |language=en |access-date=2020-08-22 |archive-date=2020-08-22 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822231012/https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2Sv87BSjIksC&pg=PA47 |url-status=live }}</ref> He recorded an exchange{{ref|french|a}} between her and a priest in his notebooks:
{{Blockquote |text= Madame Acosta [sic] said in my presence to a cleric hoping to convert her to Christianity: * "Was your God born Jewish?" * "Yes" * "Did he die Jewish?" * "Yes" * "Well then, become Jewish" |author=Voltaire |title=''Notebooks'' page 26 <ref name="CdC" /><ref name="TSC47" /> }}
== Death and legacy == Catherina da Costa died on 11 December 1756 and was buried in the Mile End Jewish cemetery. Her son Abraham inherited her artworks, and some are now owned by the Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam. She was the first female Anglo-Jewish artist of note.<ref name="CdC" />
A book called ''Smitten by Catherine'' was published in 2016 about her life and work.<ref name="Review">{{cite news |last1=Gibbs |first1=Stephanie |title=Book review: 'Smitten by Catherine' |url=https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/books/216130/book-review-smitten-catherine/ |accessdate=22 August 2020 |work=Jewish Journal |date=6 March 2017 |archive-date=22 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200822231012/https://jewishjournal.com/culture/arts/books/216130/book-review-smitten-catherine/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
== Gallery == <gallery> File:Catharina da Costa - An allegory of summer, 1713.jpg|''Allegory of summer'', 1713 File:Catharina da Costa - The Penitent Magdalene.jpg|''The Penitent Magdalene'', 1714 File:Catharina da Costa - Portret van Alvaro Lopes Suasso (1696-1751).jpg|''Portrait of Alvaro Lopes Suasso (1696-1751)'', 1718 (Joods Historisch Museum) </gallery>
== Notes == # {{note|french|a}} "Madame Acosta dit en ma presence a un abbé qui vouloit la faire chrêtienne. Votre Dieu, est il né juif? Ouy. Est il mort juif? Ouy. Eh bien soyez donc juif".<ref name="CdC" />
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == * {{cite journal |last1=Lang |first1=Andrew |title=Portraits and Jewels of Mary Stuart |journal=The Scottish Historical Review |date=1906 |volume=3 |issue=11 |pages=274–300 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/25517735 |issn=0036-9241}} * {{cite journal |last1=Rubens |first1=Alfred |title=Francis Town of Bond Street (1738–1826) and his family: With Further Notes on Early Anglo-Jewish Artists |journal=Transactions (Jewish Historical Society of England) |date=1953 |volume=18 |pages=89–111 |url=http://www.jstor.com/stable/29777924 |issn=2047-2331}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:da Costa, Catherine}} Category:1679 births Category:1756 deaths Category:17th-century English painters Category:17th-century English women painters Category:18th-century English painters Category:18th-century English women artists Costa, Catherine da Catherine Category:English people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Category:English Sephardi Jews Category:Painters from London Category:Artists from the City of London Category:English portrait miniaturists Category:18th-century English women painters