Object of the Day, Museum Edition: Tombeau de Lipsius. Pyramide. Chefren. 1880-1890

Click on image to enlarge
"Tombeau de Lipsius"
Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven
1880-1890
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted in Egypt between 1880 and 1890 by the monumentally-named Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven (1828-1908), this work of watercolor over pencil is accented with white oil paint.

Titled, “Tombeau de Lipsius,” the image actually depicts a scene from Giza of the Pyramid of Khufu. Such a painting would have satisfied the growing desire for exotic images of Egypt which developed from late Nineteenth Century archaeological finds.

Unfolding Pictures: The Emily Beauclerk Fan, 18th C.

Click image to enlarge.
Hand Fan
French or British, Eighteenth Century
Watercolor on paper leaf with ivory sticks and guards.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, a variety of hand fans were imported from the East into Europe. China exported a vast array of fans into England and Europe and, soon, the Chiense style became quite fashionable for hand fans. European artists strove to emulate these Chinese fans in order to keep local business going. This fan, made in the Eighteenth Century, probably comes from either Britain or France and is a clever take on the Chinese style which was growing in popularity at the time.

With expertly carved and pierced ivory sticks, the fan sports a paper leaf which has been hand-painted with a watercolor Chinoiserie landscape. However, instead of depicting the usual Chinese figures in Eastern dress, the men and women in the scene are show in fashionable European dress. Their faces, nevertheless, are meant to look Asian. One of the figures, a woman, is shown holding a paper fan with a floral pattern in pink which nearly replicates the flowers which have been painted on the reverse of the leaf. 

The fan was donated to the V&A by one Emily Beauclerk, its last owner.

Ephemeral Beauty: A McLaughlin’s Coffee Paper Doll, c. 1890

"One of us.  One of us.  One of us.  One of us.  One of us."

Click on image to see what puts the fourth X in McLaughlin's XXXX Coffee.

This spoooooooky young lady with her glasses and her Audra Lindley curls is happily whipping up a little snack for you. Oh, and, her head comes off.

Thankfully for her, her arms are attached to her head. But, curiously, not to her frying pan.

Clearly, she’s a paper doll. She was part of a pretty clever ad campaign from the late Nineteenth Century for McLaughlin’s XXXX Coffee. I wonder what gave it the extra “x.” It must be because of the detachable head.

So…

McLaughlin’s had sixteen little, flat doll bodies with detachable heads which it offered as a premium. The idea was that you could swap their little heads around and put them in different outfits which folded over the heads. Most heads had arms, too, so that the figures could “hold” things and make flapjacks or something. The reverse of each was printed with some variation of the following--odd, random, incomplete ellipses and all:

16 DOLLS IN THIS SET 

.4 Baby Dolls.

..4 Girl Dolls.. 

...4 Boy Dolls... 

..4 Mamma Dolls.. 

THE HEADS COME OFF 

YOU CAN DRESS AN UN- 

DRESS THEM AS YOU PLEASE. 

SECURE THE WHOLE FAMILY. 

One Doll in Every Package of 

McLaughlin’s 

XXXX COFFEE 

What? No Papa Dolls? Hmph.

Since I’m told that I can dress and undress them as I please, I’d best get busy…  Just don't be surprised if you see some paper dolls in the next few days dressed like Wayland Flowers and Madame.  Or...Shirley Jones.  Or...Dick Gautier.  You know, the greats...

Oh!  Wait!  Elizabeth Montgomery and Agnes Moorehead!

Because that's what I please.

Unusual Artifacts: Wedding Favors, 1854

Click image to enlarge.
Wedding Favors
England, c. 1854
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The tradition of handing out wedding favors, especially to those who participated in the wedding party, goes back centuries. The origin of this custom is difficult to trace as it is not unique to any one culture.

Some of the most famous wedding favors are those which were presented at the 1840 marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. “The Times” reported that white favors were given out at the lavish nuptials:

Every lady exhibited a white favour, some of which were admirable specimens of refined taste. They were of all sizes, many of white satin riband, tied up into bows and mixed with layers of rich silver lace. Others merely of riband intermixed with sprigs of orange flower blossom.

While the custom of orange blossoms at a wedding pre-dates Victoria’s wedding considerably and actually arose in Asia, the interest in the blooms was rejuvenated after that Royal wedding. After witnessing the gorgeous orange blossoms at Queen Victoria’s wedding, many brides wished to have similar favors and turned to more permanent imitation blossoms.

Take, for example, this pair of wedding favor froms an 1854 union. The orange blossoms on these favors are made of cloth and feature silvered paper leaves and trimmings of cream silk satin ribbon. These items are associated with the wedding of Elizabeth Wroughton Richards to the Reverend Andrew Nugee on August 8, 1854.

Unfolding Pictures: Queen Victoria's Pastoral Fan, c. 1850

Hand Fan
Presented to Queen Victoria by Prince Albert, circa 1850

Queen Victoria once favored this painted paper fan with carved and gilded mother-of-pearl sticks and guards.

The fan was a gift to the Queen from Prince Albert circa 1850. The obverse boasts a central cartouche which has been hand-painted with a lush scene of a lady with a sewing box. Flanking this are two pastoral scenes and symmetrical ovoid-roundels painted with floral scenes.

The verso is painted with an elegant and delicate depiction of flowers and a butterfly with Rococo tendencies.

The guards terminate in a metal pin set with a diamond paste.

Unfolding Pictures: The Georges Barbier Fan, 1912

Hand Fan
Georges Barbier and Madame Paquin
French, 1911
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Georges Barbier (1882-1932), a celebrated Parisian fashion illustrator of the early Twentieth Century, collaborated with the most avant-garde fashion designers in France at the time. Barbier worked with such famous names as Paul Poiret and Madame Paquin (1869-1936) whose elaborate oriental costumes for the Ballets Russes tremendously influenced fashion in the 1910s.

Madame Paquin and Barbier worked together to design a series of fans on that Eastern theme. This decorated fan of printed and hand-colored paper and hand-painted silk is an example of the collaboration. Looking ahead to the designs which would dominate the Art Deco ideals of the 1920s, the fan features sticks and guards of bone which have been adorned with painted grapes and butterflies. Tassels of mulit-colored silks hanf from the gold rivet. A woman is also depicted. She wears a headdress which is identical to one which was designed by Madame Paquin. When folded, this fan, made in 1911, displays a zig-zag pattern between the guards.  

Unfolding Pictures: The Emily Beauclerk Fan, 18th C.

Click image to enlarge.
Hand Fan
French or British, Eighteenth Century
Watercolor on paper leaf with ivory sticks and guards.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, a variety of hand fans were imported from the East into Europe. China exported a vast array of fans into England and Europe and, soon, the Chiense style became quite fashionable for hand fans. European artists strove to emulate these Chinese fans in order to keep local business going. This fan, made in the Eighteenth Century, probably comes from either Britain or France and is a clever take on the Chinese style which was growing in popularity at the time.

With expertly carved and pierced ivory sticks, the fan sports a paper leaf which has been hand-painted with a watercolor Chinoiserie landscape. However, instead of depicting the usual Chinese figures in Eastern dress, the men and women in the scene are show in fashionable European dress. Their faces, nevertheless, are meant to look Asian. One of the figures, a woman, is shown holding a paper fan with a floral pattern in pink which nearly replicates the flowers which have been painted on the reverse of the leaf. 

The fan was donated to the V&A by one Emily Beauclerk, its last owner.

Painting of the Day: Tombeau de Lipsius. Pyramide. Chefren. 1880-1890

Click on image to enlarge
"Tombeau de Lipsius"
Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven
1880-1890
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted in Egypt between 1880 and 1890 by the monumentally-named Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven (1828-1908), this work of watercolor over pencil is accented with white oil paint.

Titled, “Tombeau de Lipsius,” the image actually depicts a scene from Giza of the Pyramid of Khufu. Such a painting would have satisfied the growing desire for exotic images of Egypt which developed from late Nineteenth Century archaeological finds.

Painting of the Day: Portrait of Henry Kirke White, 1805

Henry Kirke White
Unknown Artist
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Through the late Eighteenth Century, watercolor artists worked primarily on topographic scenes on vellum, and portraits on ivory. These media proved to be expensive and were the stuff of the upper classes. However, by the Nineteenth Century, artists began perfecting watercolor techniques and found that the medium was well-suited to paper and card. The use of less expensive materials allowed for a broader group of patrons to commission and collect watercolor paintings.

A distinctive style of watercolor portraiture developed, often echoing the growing trend of portraits in profile. However, artists had not accounted for the instability of paper. Whereas earlier miniature watercolors on vellum or ivory retained their color, those on paper tended to yellow and/or deteriorate with time. We can see that with this example from 1805. The background of the portrait was never intended to have that ochre color, and was originally a bright, crisp white. This also effects the pigmentation of the colors which, when new, were quite vivid and bright.

The portrait miniature depicts Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) in profile. The trend of profile portraits began in the late 1770s when archaeological discoveries of Roman sites at Herculaneum and Pompeii elicited a new taste for Neo-classicism. Furthermore, Johann Kaspar Lavater published a celebrated tome, “Essays on Physiognomy” wherein he proposed that one could divine a person’s character by concentrating on his or her main profile features.

Henry Kirke White was a promising English poet whose death at an early age (in 1806, a year after the portrait was painted) was thought to have deprived the world of a great talent.

The artist is unknown.

Unfolding Pictures: The Emily Beauclerk Fan, 18th C.

Click image to enlarge.
Hand Fan
French or British, Eighteenth Century
Watercolor on paper leaf with ivory sticks and guards.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, a variety of hand fans were imported from the East into Europe. China exported a vast array of fans into England and Europe and, soon, the Chiense style became quite fashionable for hand fans. European artists strove to emulate these Chinese fans in order to keep local business going. This fan, made in the Eighteenth Century, probably comes from either Britain or France and is a clever take on the Chinese style which was growing in popularity at the time.

With expertly carved and pierced ivory sticks, the fan sports a paper leaf which has been hand-painted with a watercolor Chinoiserie landscape. However, instead of depicting the usual Chinese figures in Eastern dress, the men and women in the scene are show in fashionable European dress. Their faces, nevertheless, are meant to look Asian. One of the figures, a woman, is shown holding a paper fan with a floral pattern in pink which nearly replicates the flowers which have been painted on the reverse of the leaf. 

The fan was donated to the V&A by one Emily Beauclerk, its last owner.

Unusual Artifacts: Wedding Favors, 1854

Click image to enlarge.
Wedding Favors
England, c. 1854
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The tradition of handing out wedding favors, especially to those who participated in the wedding party, goes back centuries. The origin of this custom is difficult to trace as it is not unique to any one culture.

Some of the most famous wedding favors are those which were presented at the 1840 marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. “The Times” reported that white favors were given out at the lavish nuptials:

Every lady exhibited a white favour, some of which were admirable specimens of refined taste. They were of all sizes, many of white satin riband, tied up into bows and mixed with layers of rich silver lace. Others merely of riband intermixed with sprigs of orange flower blossom.

While the custom of orange blossoms at a wedding pre-dates Victoria’s wedding considerably and actually arose in Asia, the interest in the blooms was rejuvenated after that Royal wedding. After witnessing the gorgeous orange blossoms at Queen Victoria’s wedding, many brides wished to have similar favors and turned to more permanent imitation blossoms.

Take, for example, this pair of wedding favor froms an 1854 union. The orange blossoms on these favors are made of cloth and feature silvered paper leaves and trimmings of cream silk satin ribbon. These items are associated with the wedding of Elizabeth Wroughton Richards to the Reverend Andrew Nugee on August 8, 1854.

Painting of the Day: Portrait of Henry Kirke White, 1805

Henry Kirke White
Unknown Artist
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Through the late Eighteenth Century, watercolor artists worked primarily on topographic scenes on vellum, and portraits on ivory. These media proved to be expensive and were the stuff of the upper classes. However, by the Nineteenth Century, artists began perfecting watercolor techniques and found that the medium was well-suited to paper and card. The use of less expensive materials allowed for a broader group of patrons to commission and collect watercolor paintings.

A distinctive style of watercolor portraiture developed, often echoing the growing trend of portraits in profile. However, artists had not accounted for the instability of paper. Whereas earlier miniature watercolors on vellum or ivory retained their color, those on paper tended to yellow and/or deteriorate with time. We can see that with this example from 1805. The background of the portrait was never intended to have that ochre color, and was originally a bright, crisp white. This also effects the pigmentation of the colors which, when new, were quite vivid and bright.

The portrait miniature depicts Henry Kirke White (1785-1806) in profile. The trend of profile portraits began in the late 1770s when archaeological discoveries of Roman sites at Herculaneum and Pompeii elicited a new taste for Neo-classicism. Furthermore, Johann Kaspar Lavater published a celebrated tome, “Essays on Physiognomy” wherein he proposed that one could divine a person’s character by concentrating on his or her main profile features.

Henry Kirke White was a promising English poet whose death at an early age (in 1806, a year after the portrait was painted) was thought to have deprived the world of a great talent.

The artist is unknown.

Unfolding Pictures: Queen Victoria's Pastoral Fan, c. 1850

Hand Fan
Presented to Queen Victoria by Prince Albert, circa 1850

Queen Victoria once favored this painted paper fan with carved and gilded mother-of-pearl sticks and guards.

The fan was a gift to the Queen from Prince Albert circa 1850. The obverse boasts a central cartouche which has been hand-painted with a lush scene of a lady with a sewing box. Flanking this are two pastoral scenes and symmetrical ovoid-roundels painted with floral scenes.

The verso is painted with an elegant and delicate depiction of flowers and a butterfly with Rococo tendencies.

The guards terminate in a metal pin set with a diamond paste.

Unfolding Pictures: The Great Exhibition Fan, 1851

Click image for larger size.

Souvenir Fan from the Great Exhibition
England, 1851
This and all related images from:
The Victoria and Albert Museum

Created in England in 1851, this fan of hand-colored, printed paper and pierced bone sticks and guards inlaid with silver, commemorates the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations of 1851—a.k.a. Prince Albert big “Look What We Can Do” festival at Joseph Paxton’s ‘Crystal Palace’ in Hyde Park in London.

Fans were not only a major part of the exhibition, but they were also available for sale as souvenirs. This fan was made as a souvenir, but a high-end souvenir. Versions were also made without the silver inlay and with less-expensive wooden sticks and guards.

The reverse of the fan is printed in gilt with vignettes of female silhouettes between various coats-of-arms. The obverse features, in the center, a façade of the Crystal Palace flanked by the flags of participating nations.

Prince Albert, in all of his Coburg cleverness, saw to it that the proceeds of the Great Exhibition were used to purchase a large plot of land which would allow the building of the South Kensington Museum, now the V&A. Furthermore, a large portion of the winning entries in the exhibits were purchased for display in this proposed museum. So, without the Great Exhibition, we’d have no Victoria & Albert Museum. 

Click image for larger size.

Unusual Artifacts: An Early Florentine Straw Fan, 1620

Brisé Fan
Silk, Straw, Cardboard, Metal, Gold Paper, Thread
Florence, 1620
The Victoria & Albert Museum

After the Royal Collection’s huge assortment of fans (mostly acquired by Queen Alexandra and, especially, Mary of Teck), the Victoria and Albert Museum has, perhaps, the largest collection of fans in the U.K. This unusual brisé fan is the earliest fan in the collection of the V&A.


So, what does brisé mean? The term “brisé” refers to a fan that has sticks but no fan leaf. Essentially, the widest part of the fan is comprised of the sticks which have been designed to be fatter at the top than the bottom.

This early example is comprised of seven sticks. Each stick is formed to mimic the look of a curled ostrich feather. While it would have been easier to attach real feathers to the sticks, the unknown fan-maker has sought to show his mastery of his craft by replicating the feathers in different media. Each stick is attached by a green silk ribbon, and each is covered with green silk and adorned with very small pieces of straw. The straw has been arranged to make a rough mosaic in a pattern of birds and flowers. The curators of the V&A believe that this fan comes from the Italian city of Florence—known as a center for this craft in the early Seventeenth Century.

Unusual Artifacts: Wedding Favors, 1854

Click image to enlarge.
Wedding Favors
England, c. 1854
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The tradition of handing out wedding favors, especially to those who participated in the wedding party, goes back centuries. The origin of this custom is difficult to trace as it is not unique to any one culture.

Some of the most famous wedding favors are those which were presented at the 1840 marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. “The Times” reported that white favors were given out at the lavish nuptials:

Every lady exhibited a white favour, some of which were admirable specimens of refined taste. They were of all sizes, many of white satin riband, tied up into bows and mixed with layers of rich silver lace. Others merely of riband intermixed with sprigs of orange flower blossom.

While the custom of orange blossoms at a wedding pre-dates Victoria’s wedding considerably and actually arose in Asia, the interest in the blooms was rejuvenated after that Royal wedding. After witnessing the gorgeous orange blossoms at Queen Victoria’s wedding, many brides wished to have similar favors and turned to more permanent imitation blossoms.

Take, for example, this pair of wedding favor froms an 1854 union. The orange blossoms on these favors are made of cloth and feature silvered paper leaves and trimmings of cream silk satin ribbon. These items are associated with the wedding of Elizabeth Wroughton Richards to the Reverend Andrew Nugee on August 8, 1854.

Object of the Day: A McLaughlin’s Coffee Paper Doll, c. 1890

"One of us.  One of us.  One of us.  One of us.  One of us."

Click on image to see what puts the fourth X in McLaughlin's XXXX Coffee.

This spoooooooky young lady with her glasses and her Audra Lindley curls is happily whipping up a little snack for you. Oh, and, her head comes off.

Thankfully for her, her arms are attached to her head. But, curiously, not to her frying pan.

Clearly, she’s a paper doll. She was part of a pretty clever ad campaign from the late Nineteenth Century for McLaughlin’s XXXX Coffee. I wonder what gave it the extra “x.” It must be because of the detachable head.

So…

McLaughlin’s had sixteen little, flat doll bodies with detachable heads which it offered as a premium. The idea was that you could swap their little heads around and put them in different outfits which folded over the heads. Most heads had arms, too, so that the figures could “hold” things and make flapjacks or something. The reverse of each was printed with some variation of the following--odd, random, incomplete ellipses and all:

16 DOLLS IN THIS SET 

.4 Baby Dolls.

..4 Girl Dolls.. 

...4 Boy Dolls... 

..4 Mamma Dolls.. 

THE HEADS COME OFF 

YOU CAN DRESS AN UN- 

DRESS THEM AS YOU PLEASE. 

SECURE THE WHOLE FAMILY. 

One Doll in Every Package of 

McLaughlin’s 

XXXX COFFEE 

What? No Papa Dolls? Hmph.

Since I’m told that I can dress and undress them as I please, I’d best get busy…  Just don't be surprised if you see some paper dolls in the next few days dressed like Wayland Flowers and Madame.  Or...Shirley Jones.  Or...Dick Gautier.  You know, the greats...

Because that's what I please.

Happy Friday.

Painting of the Day: Tombeau de Lipsius. Pyramide. Chefren. 1880-1890

Click on image to enlarge
"Tombeau de Lipsius"
Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven
1880-1890
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Painted in Egypt between 1880 and 1890 by the monumentally-named Pierre Henri Theodore Tetar van Elven (1828-1908), this work of watercolor over pencil is accented with white oil paint.

Titled, “Tombeau de Lipsius,” the image actually depicts a scene from Giza of the Pyramid of Khufu. Such a painting would have satisfied the growing desire for exotic images of Egypt which developed from late Nineteenth Century archaeological finds.

Unfolding Pictures: The Emily Beauclerk Fan, 18th C.

Click image to enlarge.
Hand Fan
French or British, Eighteenth Century
Watercolor on paper leaf with ivory sticks and guards.
The Victoria & Albert Museum

In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, a variety of hand fans were imported from the East into Europe. China exported a vast array of fans into England and Europe and, soon, the Chiense style became quite fashionable for hand fans. European artists strove to emulate these Chinese fans in order to keep local business going. This fan, made in the Eighteenth Century, probably comes from either Britain or France and is a clever take on the Chinese style which was growing in popularity at the time.

With expertly carved and pierced ivory sticks, the fan sports a paper leaf which has been hand-painted with a watercolor Chinoiserie landscape. However, instead of depicting the usual Chinese figures in Eastern dress, the men and women in the scene are show in fashionable European dress. Their faces, nevertheless, are meant to look Asian. One of the figures, a woman, is shown holding a paper fan with a floral pattern in pink which nearly replicates the flowers which have been painted on the reverse of the leaf. 

The fan was donated to the V&A by one Emily Beauclerk, its last owner.

Unfolding Pictures: The Georges Barbier Fan, 1912

Hand Fan
Georges Barbier and Madame Paquin
French, 1911
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Georges Barbier (1882-1932), a celebrated Parisian fashion illustrator of the early Twentieth Century, collaborated with the most avant-garde fashion designers in France at the time. Barbier worked with such famous names as Paul Poiret and Madame Paquin (1869-1936) whose elaborate oriental costumes for the Ballets Russes tremendously influenced fashion in the 1910s.

Madame Paquin and Barbier worked together to design a series of fans on that Eastern theme. This decorated fan of printed and hand-colored paper and hand-painted silk is an example of the collaboration. Looking ahead to the designs which would dominate the Art Deco ideals of the 1920s, the fan features sticks and guards of bone which have been adorned with painted grapes and butterflies. Tassels of mulit-colored silks hanf from the gold rivet. A woman is also depicted. She wears a headdress which is identical to one which was designed by Madame Paquin. When folded, this fan, made in 1911, displays a zig-zag pattern between the guards.