Unusual Artifacts: A Set Design for the City of Coral, 1903

Click image to enlarge
"The City of Coral"
Set Design
Henry Emden, 1903
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century theatre managers relied on their scene painters to create the sets for their productions in a time before “Set Designer” was a specific profession. Sometimes, leading artists of the day were invited to create scenic paintings for productions—especially for a theatre’s annual pantomime or for a special show.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was especially known for its fine sets. Under the direction of Augustus Harris, and, later, Arthur Collins, the theatre’s sets became increasingly important to the production, and, sometimes, were just as integral a part of the show as the script itself. Collins (who managed the theatre from 1899 until 1924) was, by far, the greater champion of scenic design and, some would argue, is responsible for the introduction of the role of “Set Designer” into common theatrical practice.

Arthur Collins, in 1903, as the theatre’s manager, wrote a new play with J. Hickory Wood, which was based on the traditional nursery rhyme of “Humpty Dumpty”—developing the story into a grand-scale fairytale pantomime and extravaganza. The story, told in fifteen scenes, was quite successful with critics and audiences alike praising the monumental and beautiful sets and scenery. Each set was made in the style of a picture book with brilliant colors, but the one which stood out for the most kudos was “The City of Coral.” This set had been designed by the scene painter Henry Emden (1852-1930) who also created two other sets. Seven other scene artists created the remainder of the scenery.

The “Illustrated London News” commenting on Emden’s triumphant “City of Coral” set: “With its wonderful effects of light and its brilliant harmonies of colour, is one of the greatest pictorial triumphs of the management.” 

The set was backed by drop curtains and painted gauzes which, when lit from behind, became translucent and revealed more of the beautifully painted scenery upstage.

Above, we see Emden’s model for the “City of Coral” set. A label on the model, written and signed by Emden, details the movements of the gauzes: “the whole a continuous rising movement discovering the scene'.”

Curiously, this celebrated set had no real role in the play. It was not one of the major settings and, in fact, this glorious bit of stage trickery was only used as a transition between scenes upon which, as the sets were changed behind it, a brief, but grand ballet and chorus was staged.

Designed for a raked stage (a stage which slopes upward—traditional to English theatre—and the root of the phrases “upstage” and “downstage”), the model shows us how the scenery worked and looked. Main features are the coral, seaweed, lobster, mermaids and sea creatures which adorn the centerpiece and stage wings.

Object of the Day, Museum Edition: Set Model for "The Lady's Not For Burning," 1949

Set Design
London, 1949
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The Victoria & Albert Museum—in addition to the hundreds of thousands of other wonderful items there—has a remarkable collection of theatrical artifacts from costume-pieces to set designs and much more.


Here, we see a set model by Oliver Messel for a 1949 H.M. Tennent production of The Lady's Not For Burning,” The model shows Messel’s proposal for the set of a room in the house of Hebble Tyson, Mayor of the small market town of Cool Clary.

Essentially, a wooden box which recreates the proscenium, it is hung with velvet strips on the inside to indicate where the scrims would hang. The set itself depicts a medieval building constructed from painted pieces of paper and card.

Messel shows a stone floor, Gothic windows and furniture as well as the indication of a spiral staircase and turret on stage left. To the house left, a desk and shelf are stacked with miniature books. On stage right, a birdcage hangs before an open door leading to a passageway. There is also a small wood fire in the foreground.

Great Britain’s leading theatre designer from the early 1930s to the mid 1950s, Oliver Messel (1904-1978) won international acclaim for his lavish, painterly and poetic which he painstakingly based on period examples. Messel worked steadily in ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue. Later, when his traditional style of theatre design became unfashionable from the mid 1950s onwards, he concentrated primarily on painting, interior and textile design.

This set reads like a medieval painting and his design complemented Christopher Fry’s verse play, “The Lady’s Not For Burning”--Fry's first play to be presented at a West End theatre.

Fry recalled of Messel’s design, “The set was enchanting; the inventiveness of it stays in the mind - the hanging birdcage, the shelf behind Tyson's desk, the way to the garden, the feeling of Spring. It was all a bit grand and ecclesiastical for an impecunious mayor of a small country town, perhaps. But the charm of it, and particularly the space of sky, by sunlight, rainlight and mooonlight, outweighed any such reservations.”

Unusual Artifacts: A Set Design for the City of Coral, 1903

Click image to enlarge
"The City of Coral"
Set Design
Henry Emden, 1903
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Nineteenth and Twentieth Century theatre managers relied on their scene painters to create the sets for their productions in a time before “Set Designer” was a specific profession. Sometimes, leading artists of the day were invited to create scenic paintings for productions—especially for a theatre’s annual pantomime or for a special show.

The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, was especially known for its fine sets. Under the direction of Augustus Harris, and, later, Arthur Collins, the theatre’s sets became increasingly important to the production, and, sometimes, were just as integral a part of the show as the script itself. Collins (who managed the theatre from 1899 until 1824) was, by far, the greater champion of scenic design and, some would argue, is responsible for the introduction of the role of “Set Designer” into common theatrical practice.

Arthur Collins, in 1903, as the theatre’s manager, wrote a new play with J. Hickory Wood, which was based on the traditional nursery rhyme of “Humpty Dumpty”—developing the story into a grand-scale fairytale pantomime and extravaganza. The story, told in fifteen scenes, was quite successful with critics and audiences alike praising the monumental and beautiful sets and scenery. Each set was made in the style of a picture book with brilliant colors, but the one which stood out for the most kudos was “The City of Coral.” This set had been designed by the scene painter Henry Emden (1852-1930) who also created two other sets. Seven other scene artists created the remainder of the scenery.

The “Illustrated London News” commenting on Emden’s triumphant “City of Coral” set: “With its wonderful effects of light and its brilliant harmonies of colour, is one of the greatest pictorial triumphs of the management.” 

The set was backed by drop curtains and painted gauzes which, when lit from behind, became translucent and revealed more of the beautifully painted scenery upstage.

Above, we see Emden’s model for the “City of Coral” set. A label on the model, written and signed by Emden, details the movements of the gauzes: “the whole a continuous rising movement discovering the scene'.”

Curiously, this celebrated set had no real role in the play. It was not one of the major settings and, in fact, this glorious bit of stage trickery was only used as a transition between scenes upon which, as the sets were changed behind it, a brief, but grand ballet and chorus was staged.

Designed for a raked stage (a stage which slopes upward—traditional to English theatre—and the root of the phrases “upstage” and “downstage”), the model shows us how the scenery worked and looked. Main features are the coral, seaweed, lobster, mermaids and sea creatures which adorn the centerpiece and stage wings.