Celebrating the Arts – Page 5 – Elizabeth Hawksley

The Secret Life of a Victorian Screen

In the 19^th century, screens were very popular and many well-to-do day homes had one. They comprised three wooden frames hinged together, with hessian stretched across each frame and painted to create a base for illustrations. The owners would decorate the screen themselves. They could buy a whole range of painted decorations – often flowers, birds or animals – and customize the screen to suit their own tastes. Looking at the oval photographs of Princess Beatrice (Queen Victoria’s youngest child) and Prince Henry of Battenburg which probably celebrates their wedding in 1886, I’m guessing that my screen dates from the late 1880s, and I suspect that the original owner was female, romantic and about thirteen. I’ve named her Muriel after my great-grandmother.

One of the pictures is interestingly misleading.

Three boys pulling girl in sleigh on the ice

Continue reading The Secret Life of a Victorian Screen

Please share this page...

British Library Victorian Entertainments: There Will Be Fun

Last Thursday, I was lucky enough to be invited to the preview of this small but fascinating exhibition at the British Library. It celebrates late 19^th century popular entertainment through vividly-coloured posters, playbills, and various magical artefacts. It concentrates on major entertainment characters, such as Dan Leno, Mr Evanion, ‘Lord’ George Sanger, and John Nevil Maskelyne.

I love this cut-out novelty of Ada Blanche as Dick Whittington on a swing, plus cat in Dan Leno’s pantomime at the Theatre Royal, London in 1894.

Ada Blanche as Dick Whittington advertising novelty

Theatre Royal novelty: Now in full swing, Dick Whittington at Drury Lane

Continue reading British Library Victorian Entertainments: There Will Be Fun

Please share this page...

J. E. Millais and the Seductive Mariana

This is Mariana – and she has a problem. She was betrothed to Angelo, a man she was passionately in love with, but, when her dowry was lost in a shipwreck, the rat Angelo repudiated her. She now lives a lonely life in a moated grange. But things are about to change…

Mariana brighter

Millais’s painting ‘Mariana’

Continue reading J. E. Millais and the Seductive Mariana

Please share this page...

Jane Austen and the Missing Grandparents

In this post, I want to look at the curious fact that none of Jane Austen’s heroines (whose ages range between seventeen and twenty-seven) or her heroes (whose ages range from about twenty-four to thirty-seven) have living grandparents. Indeed, that older generation of, say, sixty plus, seems to be missing. Can this be true? And, if so, what difference does it make? To answer these questions, we need a bit of background information about life expectancy in the early 19^th century. Edwin Chadwick’s ground-breaking 1842 survey on public health, tells us that the life expectancy of a member of the gentry or professional class in Rutland (chosen as a typical rural location) was fifty-two; and for an artisan or labourer, it was thirty-eight. There are, of course, a number of factors to be taken into account: infant mortality rates, for example, but for the purpose of this post, I’m staying with the basic facts, as near as we can get them.

after Cassandra Austen, stipple engraving, published 1870

The only young lady in Jane Austen’s novels with a living grandparent is Jane Fairfax in Emma who has the aged Mrs Bates, ‘a very old lady, almost past everything but tea and quadrille.’ I’ll be looking at how old Mrs Bates actually is later.

Continue reading Jane Austen and the Missing Grandparents

Please share this page...

The Fabulous Decorative Work of the Cosmati family

What happened to the Roman temples and public buildings after the fall of the Roman Empire when they suddenly became redundant? The answer is simple: they were robbed for building materials.

C Castellana mosaic

Cathedral church of Santa Maria Maggiore, Civita Castellana: exterior Cosmati decoration (note the gold for added glitter)

Just think how much material there was to take! All over the Roman Empire there were thousands of temples, expensively clad in marble – some of it carved, and with marble or stone columns supporting pediments and roofs of dressed stone. And that was just the temples. Every Roman town would have had its forum, with colonnades, amphitheatre, public baths, and dozens of other public buildings, all made of expensively cut stone and marble.

Continue reading The Fabulous Decorative Work of the Cosmati family

Please share this page...

V & A Museum: Three Cheers for Live Theatre

The V & A’s exciting new exhibition Curtain Up: Celebrating 40 Years of Theatre in London and New York celebrates the creative cross-fertilization between Broadway and London’s West End theatres since 1975. The exhibition rooms have been transformed into a backstage space, full of mysterious shadows and bright ever-changing lights in neon blues and reds. The V & A wants to entice you into a world which is larger, brighter and more glamorous than ordinary life. And, on this chilly February day, it’s more than welcome!

Exhibitiion entrance

Exhibition entrance

Theatrical spectacle is all about creating the right effect: everything is bigger, bolder and more glitzy than in real life, and there’s nothing like seeing the actual costumes from big hits to be struck by their impact.

Phantom 1

Michael Crawford’s suit for Phantom of the Opera

Continue reading V & A Museum: Three Cheers for Live Theatre

Please share this page...