Mariana Griswold Van Rensselaer

Bronze relief portrait of Mariana Griswold by Augustus Saint-Gaudens, 1888. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Mariana Alley Griswold Van Rensselaer (February 21, 1851 – January 20, 1934), usually known as Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer or M. G. Van Rensselaer, was an American author focusing on architectural criticism. She wrote articles in American Art Review, Century Magazine, and Garden and Forest (in which she wrote many unattributed articles).

Early life Mariana Alley Griswold was born in New York City in 1851. She was the daughter of George Griswold Jr. and Lydia (née Alley) Griswold (1826–1908). Her younger brothers were Frank Gray Griswold (1855–1937), the stepfather of Cass Canfield, and George Griswold (1857–1917), the vice-president and general manager of the Tuxedo Park Association.

In 1868, she moved with her family to Dresden, Germany, where she remained for five years. The first woman architectural critic, she grew in influence in the 1880s. However, her publications encompassed also art and landscape architecture criticism, fiction, and children's literature. In 1910, she received the degree of D. Litt. from Columbia University,

Van Rensselaer also served several charitable organisations, including University Settlement Women's Auxiliary (president from 1896 to 1898), Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, and the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Her father died, in his early 60s, the following month.

George Griswold Van Rensselaer (1875–1894), who died during the family's time in Colorado, aged 19, and was a member of Harvard University's class of 1896. She was buried next to her husband and only child at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York.

Works Her writings include: American Etchers (New York, 1886) Henry Hobson Richardson and his Works (1888)

English Cathedrals (1892; fourth edition, 1892) Art out of Doors (1893) “The Development of American Homes” article in the book “Household Art” edited by Candace Wheeler (New York, Harper & Brothers, 1893) compiled for the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition). Mrs. Van Rensselaer’s article was also printed in The Forum magazine. "Fifth Avenue", The Century Magazine (1893) Examined the new development around Central Park. Should We Ask for the Suffrage? (1894) One Man Who was Content (1896) Niagara, a Description (1901) History of the City of New York in the Seventeenth Century (1909) Poems (1910) Wilhelm Reinhold Valentiner, The Art of the Low Countries, translated by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer (1914) In the foreword of his 1902 publication New York: Old & New, Rufus Rockwell Wilson acknowledged Van Rensselaer's New York and its Historians series of articles for their "helpful suggestiveness" when it came to writing his book.