Performing Portraiture: Picturing the Upper-Class English Woman in an Age of Change, 1890–1914 by Susan Elizabeth Slattery

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Performing Portraiture: Picturing the Upper-Class English Woman in an Age of Change, 1890–1914

Susan Elizabeth Slattery

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of PhD Graduate Department of Art History University of Toronto

©Copyright by Susan Elizabeth Slattery 2019 Performing Portraiture: Picturing the Upper-Class English Woman in an Age of Change, 1890–1914

Susan Elizabeth Slattery Doctor of Philosophy Department of Art History University of Toronto 2019

Abstract

This dissertation examines the use of portraiture by upper-class women of Britain in the period 1890—1914 as a means to redefine gender and class perception and to reposition aristocratic women as nostalgic emblems of a stable past and as symbols of a modern future. Through a range of portraiture practices, upper-class women promoted themselves as a new model for a continuing upper class that fulfilled a necessary social function in the altered circumstances of the new century.

The period 1890—1914 was an era of change that challenged the existing social structure in

Britain, destabilizing the hereditary entitlement of the ruling class and questioning the continuing role and relevance of the upper class. In the same period, changes in the technology of print and photography meant that, for the first time, there was the ability to disseminate portrait images through mass media on an economical basis, leading to a proliferation of illustrated journals and magazines. These circumstances provided an opportunity for upper-class women to reimagine the social and political potential of portraiture.

ii My analysis examines different forms of media through intensive case studies arguing a

progression from a traditional static image to a fluid interdisciplinary performative

portraiture practice. In the first chapter I consider the aristocratic practice of pencil portrait

drawings as a symbol of past values. In the second chapter I address the new technology of

halftone images and the consequent desire for new forms of portrait images for publication.

I argue that upper-class women seized this opportunity to transform the aesthetic of portraiture and to translate a new form of public persona into a platform for political involvement. In the third chapter I consider the advent of the snapshot photograph and the

resulting change to ideas of privacy and awareness of forms of self-presentation. Finally, in

the fourth chapter I look at the matrix of the upper-class woman, fashion, and the theatre

through the perspective of portraiture as a performative practice facilitating the

transformation of the upper-class woman into a new type of style celebrity that formed the

basis for the celebrity culture of contemporary society.

iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

As I finally conclude the long process of writing this dissertation, I am conflicted with a mix of emotions. Paramount is the relief and astonishment that this project has finally been successfully completed, a state of affairs that would never have been achieved without the continuing encouragement and assistance of my Committee. I have been exceptionally fortunate in having a Committee that has been engaged, responsive, and constructive and I offer my boundless thanks to Professors Alison Syme, Jordan Bear, and Lawrence Switzky. Although later arrivals to the thesis, my external advisers, Professors Alison Matthews David and Joseph Clarke, were instrumental in refining the final product and I appreciate the time and attention required to read and productively comment on this massive tome. However, without diminishing my appreciation to all, I have to specifically note the extraordinary assistance of Professor Alison Syme. She read endless drafts, corrected my grammar without judgment, and offered just the right amount of guidance and structure.

I also want to thank my family, especially Ray, Michael, Brydne, and Anna, for their emotional and financial assistance over the long period of my return to academics. They listened to my continuing dramas as I relearned past skills and struggled with the demands of an ever-changing and always opaque technology.

Thank you to Margaret English who harboured me in the Art Library for many years as I worked on this thesis and to Peter Foden who guided me through the archives of Belvoir Castle. All images drawn from the archives of Belvoir Castle have been included with the permission of the owners.

The other emotion that overwhelms me at this time is the nostalgia for a lovely and special opportunity to go back and redo my education. Very few people are given the opportunity for a do-over. Only after years of working to a time clock can you truly appreciate the luxury and the pleasure of being able to research, to read, to think, and to write for its own sake.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ...... iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... v

LIST OF FIGURES ...... vi

Introduction: Prefacing the Performance of Portraiture ...... 1

Chapter One: Drawing on the Past ...... 59

Chapter Two – Portraits, Philanthropy, and Politics ...... 134

Chapter Three: Youth, Beauty and Celebrity ...... 203

Chapter Four – The Act of Portrayal ...... 286

Conclusion: Fashioning the Future ...... 376

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 384

Introduction Images ...... 370

Chapter One Images ...... 381

Chapter Two Images ...... 411

Chapter Three Images ...... 446

Chapter Four Images ...... 487

Conclusion Images ...... 549

LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 0.1 The Tatler, no. 548, December 27, 1911

Fig. 0.2 The Tatler, no. 59, August 13, 1902

Fig. 0.3 “Lady Raglan in Coronation Robes,” The Sphere, August 16, 1902

Fig. 0.4 The Bystander, July 11, 1906

Fig. 0.5 The Bystander, June 19, 1907

Fig 0.6 The Tatler, no. 365, June 24, 1908

Fig. 0.7 The Bystander, August 10, 1910

Fig. 0.8 The Bystander, August 10, 1910

Fig. 0.9 Portrait of Lucy Percy, Countess of Carlisle, Anthony van Dyck, 1637, Tate (London)

Fig. 0.10 Portrait of Mary Isabella Somerset, 4th Duchess of Rutland, Sir Joshua Reynolds (copy by Robert Smirke), 1799 (copy made in 1816), location unknown

Fig. 0.11 The Tatler, No. 24, December 11, 1901

Fig. 1.1 Lady Ulrica Duncombe, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.2 Mrs. George Batten, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1893. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.3 Pamela Plowden, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1893. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.4 Lady Randolph Churchill, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1894. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.5 Mrs. George Batten, J.S. Sargent, oil on canvas, 88.9 x 43.2 cm, 1897. Metropolitan Museum of Art Fig. 1.6 The Golden Stairs, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, oil on canvas, 2.69 x 1.17 m, 1880. Tate (London)

vi Fig. 1.7 Portrait of Pamela Wyndham (later Tennant), Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1895. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum

Fig. 1.8 Nina Welby (later Cust), Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, c. 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.9 Helen, Sir Edward J. Poynter, oil on canvas, 91.7 x 71.5 cm, 1881. Art Gallery New South Wales Fig. 1.10 Violet Manners, G.F. Watts, oil on canvas, 1879 Fig. 1.11 Reverie, G.F. Watts, oil on canvas, 1881 Fig. 1.12 Charlotte Tennant (later Ribbesdale), Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, c. 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.13 Duchess of Rutland, James Jebusa Shannon, oil on canvas, 1898. Belvoir Castle Fig. 1.14 Self Portrait, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, c. 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.15 The Finding of Medusa. Sir Edward Burne-Jones, oil on canvas, 1888-1892. Staatsgalerie Stuttgart Fig. 1.16 Preliminary Drawing for The Beguiling of Merlin, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, pencil on paper, 1871 Fig. 1.17 Mrs. J Baghot, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.18 Lady Dixon Poynder, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1895. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.19 “The Lady in the Lake,” Walter Crane, coloured drawing, illustration to Henry Gilbert, King Arthur’s Knights. Bracken Books, 1911 Fig. 1.20 The Last Sleep of Arthur in Avalon, Sir Edward Burne-Jones, oil on canvas, 2.79 x 6.5m, 1881-1898. Tate (London) Fig. 1.21 Venus de Milo, Alexandros of Antioch, marble, 101 BCE. Louvre Museum Fig. 1.22 Duchess of Leinster, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1895. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.23 “Portrait compilation of Roman women,” illustration to Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius, 1869 Fig. 1.24 Lady Rodd, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1890. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.25 The Wyndham Sisters: Lady Elcho, Mrs. Adeane, and Mrs. Tennant, J.S. Sargent, oil on canvas, 292.1 x 213.7 cm, 1899. Metropolitan Museum of Art

vii Fig. 1.26 Lady Wantage, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1894. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.27 Princess Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenberg), Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1891. Russell-Cotes Art Gallery & Museum Fig. 1.28 Pamela Tennant, Lombardi & Co., photographic cabinet card, 1895. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 1.29 Cover of Duchess of Rutland, Portrait of Men and Women. Westminster: Constant and Company, 1900 Fig. 1.30 Queen Victoria, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1897. Frontispiece to Portrait of Men and Women Fig. 2.1 Theresa Susey Helen Talbot, Later Marchioness of Londonderry, Edward Clifford, 1875. Watercolour on paper, 1308 x749mm (51 ½ x 29 ½ in). In the collection of Mount Stewart, County Down, Northern Ireland. Fig. 2.2 Lady Theresa Susey Helen (nee Talbot) Marchioness of Londonderry, Ellis William Roberts, 1894. Pastel on paper, paste, canvas and wood, 2260 x 1359mm (19 x 53 ½ in.) In the collection of Mount Stewart, County Down, Northern Ireland. Fig. 2.3 Honourable Mrs. Forester, C. Goldsborough Anderson, photographic reproduction of oil painting, The Bystander, June 1, 1904 Fig. 2.4 Duchess of Westminster, Frank Dicksee R.A., photographic reproduction of oil painting, The Bystander, May 9, 1906 Fig. 2.5 Duchess of Portland, J.S. Sargent, photographic reproduction of oil painting, The Bystander, March 25, 1908 Fig. 2.6 “The Bystander Furniture Supplement,” The Bystander, March 19, 1913 Fig. 2.7 Lady Londonderry, Lafayette, photographic cabinet card, 1890. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 2.8 Lady Londonderry, W.D. Downey, photographic cabinet card, 1891. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 2.9 Lady Londonderry, W.D. Downey, photographic cabinet card, 1891. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 2.10 Lady Londonderry as Maria Theresa, Lafayette, photogravure by Walker & Boutall, July 27, 1897, published 1899. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 2.11 Lady Londonderry Glasgow Evening Post, May 11, 1893 Fig. 2.12 Lady Londonderry, Belfast Weekly News, June 6, 1907 Fig. 2.13 Duchess of Sutherland, H.S. Mendelssohn, photograph, Country Life Illustrated, March 5, 1898

viii Fig. 2.14 Duchess of Sutherland, H.S. Mendelssohn, photograph, The Bystander, May 1, 1907 Fig. 2.15 Duchess of Sutherland with sons, Ellis & Walery, photograph, The Tatler, April 16, 1902 Fig. 2.16 Duchess of Sutherland, Lallie Charles, photograph, Country Life, August 20, 1904 Fig. 2.17 Duchess of Sutherland, Langfier, The Bystander, July 17, 1907 Fig. 2.18 Duchess of Sutherland, H.S. Mendelssohn, The Tatler, June 11, 1902 Fig. 2.19 “Scottish Home Works Bazaar,” The Tatler, July 28, 1909 Fig. 2.20 The Tatler, July 3, 1901 Fig. 2.21 “Garden Fête at Stafford House,” The Tatler, July 3, 1901 Fig. 2.22 The Tatler, March 22, 1911 Fig. 2.23 “The Children of the Potteries,” The Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. XXXII, January 1904 Fig. 2.24 The Tatler, December 28, 1910 Fig. 2.25 Advertisement for Selfridges’ Department Store, March, 1909. Selfridges’s Department Store Archive Fig. 2.26 Duchess of Sutherland, Lallie Charles, photograph, Country Life, January 9, 1904 Fig. 2.27 Duchess of Sutherland, Ellis Roberts, photograph of oil painting, 1898. National Portrait Gallery (London) Fig. 2.28 Lady Londonderry, Alice Hughes, photograph, Country Life, August 3, 1907 Fig. 2.29 Lady Londonderry, J. Thompson, photograph, Country Life, August 14, 1897 Fig. 2.30 Lady Londonderry, Chancellor, photograph, Country Life, December 24, 1898 Fig. 2.31 The Bystander, March 12, 1913 Fig. 2.32 Advertisement for Harrogate, c. 1900 Fig. 2.33 Duchess of Sutherland, Lallie Charles, The Tatler, June 10, 1908 Fig. 2.34 “Picturesque Peris,” Rita Martin, photograph, The Bystander, June 29, 1910 Fig. 2.35 Lady Londonderry, Lafayette, The Tatler, July 15, 1908 Fig. 3.1 Duchess of Rutland and Diana Manners, photograph by Alice Hughes from the painting of Edward Hughes, c. 1893 Fig. 3.2 Duchess of Rutland and Diana Manners, Alice Hughes, Country Life Illustrated, September 16, 1899 Fig. 3.3 The Viscountess Helmsley and her Daughter, Alice Hughes, Country Life, June 15, 1907 Fig. 3.4 The Countess of Lytton and Child, Alice Hughes, Country Life, June 15, 1907

ix Fig. 3.5 Lady Algernon Gordon-Lennox and her daughter, Ivy, Alice Hughes, The Tatler, October 23, 1901 Fig. 3.6 Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children, Sir Joshua Reynolds, oil on canvas, 1777- 1779, National Gallery of Art (Washington) Fig. 3.7 Vigée Le Brun et sa fille, Vigée Le Brun, oil on canvas, 1789, Musée de Louvre Fig. 3.8 Tempi Madonna, Raphael, oil on canvas, 1508, Munich Alte Pinakothek Fig. 3.9 Bubbles, Sir John Millais, oil on canvas, 1886, Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight Fig. 3.10 Girl with Kittens on Stairs, Sir Arthur John Elsley, oil on canvas, nineteenth century Fig. 3.11 Diana Manners, J.J. Shannon, oil on canvas, 1895 Fig. 3.12 The Tatler, no. 41, April 9, 1902 Fig. 3.13 The Tatler, May 16, 1902 Fig. 3.14 Country Life Illustrated, December 8, 1900 Fig. 3.15 The Tatler, April 9, 1902 Fig. 3.16 Diana Manners as Joan of Arc, Duchess of Rutland, pencil on paper, 1906 Fig. 3.17 Diana Manners as Joan of Arc, George Charles Beresford, Dry-plate glass negative, 1906 Fig. 3.18 The Tatler, May 3, 1911 Fig. 3.19 The Tatler, June 1, 1910 Fig. 3.20 The Tatler, June 3, 1908 Fig. 3.21 The Bystander, January 25, 1911 Fig. 3.22 Invocation, Frederic Leighton, oil on canvas, 1889, private collection Fig. 3.23 The Tatler, April 8, 1914 Fig. 3.24 The Sketch, March 28, 1894 Fig. 3.25 The Bystander, April 22, 1908 Fig. 3.26 Lady Diana Manners, Lady Marjorie Manners, photographic reproduction of pencil drawing, The Bystander, March 11, 1908 Fig. 3.27 “The Education of a Debutante: Lesson the Second,” The Bystander, April 21, 1909 Fig. 3.28 “The Education of a Debutante: Lesson the Fourth,” The Bystander, May 12, 1909 Fig. 3.29 Miss Ivy Gordon-Lennox, Rita Martin, The Tatler, September 15, 1909 Fig. 3.30 The Tatler, March 25, 1908 Fig. 3.31 The Tatler, May 31, 1911

x Fig. 3.32 The Bystander, July 31, 1912 Fig. 3.33 The Tatler, July 6, 1910 Fig. 3.34 The Tatler, May 11, 1910 Fig. 3.35 The Tatler, May 11, 1910 Fig. 3.36 The Bystander, June 11, 1913 Fig. 3.37 Diana Manners posing in garden, photographic print, c. 1910, Archives at Belvoir Castle Fig. 3.38 Diana Manners posing on a bench, photographic print, 1910, Archives at Belvoir Castle Fig. 3.39 The Tatler, May 24, 1911 Fig. 3.40 The Tatler, November 23, 1910 Fig, 3.41 The Tatler, August 24, 1910 Fig. 4.1 The Bystander, October 27, 1909 Fig. 4.2 Mrs. Willie James, Barnett, photograph, The Bystander, October 27, 1909 Fig. 4.3 “Notable Dresses on Notable People,” World of Dress, 1900 Fig. 4.4 The Bystander, August 24, 1904 Fig. 4.5 Punch, or the London Charivari, December 18, 1912 Fig. 4.6 “A Song Unsung,” Lucile Fashion Drawing, 1913, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.7 Duchess of Portland, Philip de Laszlo, oil on canvas, 1912 Fig. 4.8 Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, J.S. Sargent, oil on canvas, 1904, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza Fig. 4.9 Mrs. Willie James, Alice Hughes, photograph, Country Life, December 3, 1904 Fig. 4.10 “Potted Personalities,” The Tatler, March 16, 1910 Fig. 4.11 Mr. and Mrs. Willie James, Edward Luytens, pencil on paper, 1902 Fig. 4.12 “Promotional photograph of Lucile Models,” Foulsham & Banfield Ltd., c.1900, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.13 “Photograph of Lucile fashion show,” photograph, c. 1910, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.14 “Lucile 1913 Fashion Show,” photograph, 1913, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.15 The Bystander, August 9, 1911 Fig. 4.16 Viscountess Helmsley, snapshot, The Tatler, June 23, 1909 Fig. 4.17 The Sketch, May 8, 1880 Fig. 4.18 Miss Dorothy Hanbury, Ellis and Walery, photograph, The Bystander, February 14, 1906

xi Fig. 4.19 The Sketch, August 10, 1904 Fig. 4.20 The Bystander, February 14, 1906 Fig. 4.21 The Bystander, February 14, 1906 Fig. 4.22 Lucile program for The Catch of the Season, p. 4, September 1904 Fig. 4.23 Lucile program for The Catch of the Season, p. 3, September 1904 Fig. 4.24 The Play, An Illustrated Monthly, no. 6, vol. 1, 1904 Fig. 4.25 The Play, An Illustrated Monthly, no. 6, vol. 1, 1904 Fig. 4.26 The Play, An Illustrated Monthly, no. 6, vol. 1, 1904 Fig. 4.27 “The Catch of the Season,” The Bystander, September 21, 1904 Fig. 4.28 “The Catch of the Season,” The Bystander, September 21, 1904 Fig. 4.29 The Tatler, July 6, 1910 Fig. 4.30 The Tatler, December 14, 1910 Fig. 4.31 The Bystander, February 23, 1910 Fig. 4.32 The Tatler, March 18, 1908 Fig. 4.33 The Tatler, September 7, 1910 Fig. 4.34 The Bystander, November 20, 1907 Fig. 4.35 Zena Dare, Rita Martin, The Bystander, January 25, 1911 Fig. 4.36 The Tatler, January 25, 1911 Fig. 4.37 Zena and Phyllis Dare, postcard, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.38 Zena and Phyllis Dare, postcard, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.39 Zena Dare, postcard, V&A Theatre Archives Fig. 4.40 The Tatler, May 20, 1914 Fig. 4.41 Countess of Clonmell, photograph from a painting by Ellis Roberts, The Bystander, October 23, 1907 Fig. 4.42 The Tatler, November 9, 1910 Fig. 4.43 “Keen Votaries of the Sport of Kings,” The Tatler, January 11, 1911 Fig. 4.44 Lady Beryl Le Poer Trench, Swaine, The Tatler, March 29, 1911 Fig. 4.45 The Tatler, January 1, 1908 Fig. 4.46 Mrs. Willie James as Archduchess Maria Elizabeth of Austria, Lafayette, photograph, July 2, 1897 Fig. 4.47 Mrs. Willie James as Archduchess Maria Elizabeth of Austria, Alice Hughes, photograph, July 2, 1897

xii Fig. 4.48 Archduchess Maria Elizabeth of Austria, unknown artist, oil on canvas, c. 1760 Fig. 4.49 Duchess of Rutland at the Devonshire Fancy Dress Ball, John Thomson, photograph, July 2, 1897 Fig. 4.50 Mary Isabella Manners, Duchess of Rutland, engraving by Anthony Molteno, after a drawing by Richard Cosway, May 1791, National Portrait Gallery Fig. 4.51 Princess of Pless at the Duchess of Devonshire Fancy Dress Ball, Lafayette, photograph, July 2, 1897, National Portrait Gallery Fig. 4.52 The Sketch, July 14, 1897 Fig. 4.53 The Tatler, June 28, 1911 Fig. 4.54 “The Versailles Fête: Some Costumes,” The Bystander, June 11, 1913 Fig. 4.55 Portrait of the Marchesa Elena Grimaldi Catteneo, Anthony van Dyck, oil on canvas, 1623, National Gallery of Art (Washington) Fig. 4.56 The Bystander, January 29, 1913 Fig. 4.57 Mrs. Willie James, Alice Hughes, photograph, The Bystander, January 6, 1904 Fig. 4.58 The Tatler, February 16, 1910 Fig. 4.59 The Bystander, March 11, 1908 Fig. 4.60 The Sketch, September 14, 1904 Fig. 4.61 Lady Constance Annesley, Bassano, photograph, The Tatler, October 12, 1910 Fig. 4.62 Lady Constance Malleson (née Annesley), Yevonde, The Tatler, June 2, 1915 Fig. 5.1 “The Spirit of Speed,” illustration to “Fashion’s Fancies,” The Bystander, December 27, 1911, vii.

xiii

Introduction: Prefacing the Performance of Portraiture

The inspiration for this thesis arose when I read Leonore Davidoff’s book The Best Circles. In

this brief sociological study, Davidoff considers the role of upper-class women as the

arbiters of Society in Victorian and Edwardian England. In this context, “Society” was a

system of social status focused on social events and formalized around a series of such

events known as the “Season,” which occurred each year between approximately the

beginning of April and the end of July. “Upper-class women” referred to a collective of

women who, by birth and status, were the traditional or hereditary leaders of the British

aristocratic class. Instead of dismissing the import of Society as a “vast structure of time-

consuming devices” intended to mask the lack of social utility of these women, Davidoff

considers the broader social, economic, and political relevance of Society during the period,

acknowledging its underlying role as “a linking factor between the family and political and

economic institutions.”1 The study emphasizes the role of Society and the agency of the upper-class women who controlled it in managing the social adaptations required to accommodate a century of dramatic change in the political, social, and economic landscape.

Davidoff’s book is an overview that addresses a number of social mechanisms over an extended period of approximately 120 years. As such, it operates primarily as a marker of an area of historical analysis undervalued at the time she wrote and an invitation for further research and consideration. In this thesis, I have taken up that invitation. Restricting my

1 Leonore Davidoff, The Best Circles: Society, Etiquette, and the Season (London: The Cresset Library, 1973), 14.

1 2 period of investigation to the years 1890 to 1914, I consider the role of portraiture in the negotiation and restructuring of Society and its public purpose by upper-class women. The upper-class women I focus on were, by reason of a combination of birth, financial position, and social ability, leaders within Society, forming part of the mechanism by which the qualifications for inclusion and the expected standards of behaviour of Society were determined. It is my argument that these women utilized and exploited the synthesis between their social status as leaders of Society and existing and new forms of portraiture to redefine the purpose of the upper-class female and to validate the perpetuation of the upper class in the social landscape of the twentieth century.

The perpetuation of the hereditary upper class seemed, at times, uncertain in the period between 1890 and 1914, when economic, political, and cultural attacks on the existing social structure and on the continued relevance of the upper class, destabilized its traditional role and dominance. In the same period, changes in the technology of print and photography meant that, for the first time, there was the ability to disseminate portrait images through mass media. The instability of the social system combined with technological advances in photographic and print technology provided an opportunity for upper-class women to redefine gender and class perceptions through a variety of portraiture practices, promoting themselves in ways that offered new models for an upper class that continued to fulfil a necessary social function in the altered circumstances of the modern world. Using images and portraiture practices that created an identifiable public

persona, upper-class women acted as metonyms of their gender and class, and positioned

themselves as nostalgic emblems of a stable past and as symbols of a new modern future.

In addition to drawn or painted portraits, the portraiture practices I have considered include

studio photographic portraiture, press photography including the “snapshot,” and the

performance of portraiture through fashion and theatre. While the majority of images

analyzed in this dissertation are taken from the published press, I have included images of

unpublished portraits that were displayed or publicly presented in a more traditional

manner consistent with the conventions of upper-class portraiture. I have also drawn on

fashion drawings and the images of the performances of fashion shows and the fashionable

“Society play.” My analyses of the images used in this thesis have been supported and

augmented by the texts that accompanied the images, by contemporary discourse

(including plays and novels) on relevant issues, by journals of upper-class women that offer

a personal perspective, and by historical and contemporary scholarship and theory.

The selection of 1890 as the beginning of this study was based on a number of factors.

Many of the portrait practices discussed in this dissertation had their roots and their initial

occurrences before 1890; however, I suggest that it was only after 1890 that these practices

gained sufficient momentum to apply to or affect upper-class women as a broader group, rather than as the experience of an exceptional outlier. The bases for selecting 1890 included the introduction of new print technology such as the halftone reproduction of images, which affected a significant change in the landscape of Society portraiture. In

4 addition, although the expansion of Society beyond the traditional landed, moneyed aristocracy and gentry and the integration of new entrants with new money, new manners, and new values had started before 1890, it was only in this last decade of the nineteenth century that members of the hereditary upper class identified the intrusion as a novel social phenomenon that threatened the fabric of pre-existing concepts of Society. Similarly, while many of the events that destabilized the class hierarchy of England can be traced to earlier periods, the broader effects were only fully recognized politically and economically at the end of the century. I have selected 1914 as the end date for my examination due to the disruption in social conventions and values caused by the advent of the First World War.

Although many of the portraiture practices that originated during this period were continued after 1914, the start of World War I and the effect that the War had on both class and gender introduced a new set of factors that would require altered parameters for examination. Geographically, I have focused on England and on London in particular.

Although similar social practices operated in Scotland and in Ireland, and often in settler colonies abroad, the most concentrated effect of the portraiture practices was found around the centre of the social Season based in London.

In each chapter I have focused on a limited number of women, using the specific strategies and portraiture practices of these individuals as the subject for exploration and investigation. The use of the individual has permitted me to make assertions that draw on specific images or practices and to avoid broad generalities. The particularization of the sample also allows a more nuanced examination of the portraiture practice within the

5 context of the experience of the subject. I am aware of the concern with the use of the case method methodology, in particular, the concern that it does not provide a basis sufficient for extrapolation to a broader premise. However, in each case, I have attempted to select an individual who, while relevant to the ideas under consideration in that chapter, is not a unique or exceptional case, but could be replaced by an alternate selection from women with a similar pattern of portrait use.2 In addition, I have utilized aspects of “thick description,” counteracting the specificity of the immediacy of the case method with a layering of contextual support, allowing the particular of the individual practice to derive meaning through its relevance in the place and time in which it operated. This has resulted in a lengthy discussion with numerous images; however, I feel the breadth and depth of the analysis is necessary to imbed the reader in the cultural context and to support a meaning that has wider social implications.

The argument of the thesis is divided into four chapters. Every chapter takes a different perspective to consider the strategies and the use of portraiture of the upper-class woman

2 In his article summarizing the development and methodological concerns of the case study method, Dr. Rolf Johansson argues in favour of the relevance of the case study as a methodology, particularly for historical study, where he notes that, provided the case study is integrated within its historical context, the gap between historical study and the individual case study can be abrogated and the study can provide a valid basis for the formation of broader conclusions. He argues that generalizations from specific cases are not dependent on statistical analysis but are less quantitative and more qualitative, based on a combination of various forms of reasoning that allow us to extrapolate from the specific to the general. Rolf Johansson, “Case Study Methodology,” from the keynote speech at the International Conference “Methodologies in Housing Research” held in Stockholm, 22-24 September, 2003. http://www.psyking.net/htmlobj-3839/case_study_methodology- _rolf_johansson_ver_2.pdf

as a social tool for the redefinition of the upper-class woman and of the upper class as a whole.

In Chapter One, “Drawing on the Past,” I focus on the pencil portraits drawn by the Duchess of Rutland and, specifically, her portraits of fellow female members of the upper class. The focus of the chapter examines a very conventional form of portraiture that relates back to similar practices of the Comte D’Orsay in the early nineteenth century. I argue that the allusions raised by these portrait images draw upon a palimpsest of past references to periods of class stability in which the upper class claimed a fundamental role in the structure of society. I suggest that the Duchess of Rutland consciously encouraged the static nature of the images, rejecting current trends toward more natural and spontaneous portrait painting, in order to imbue the images with the authority and associations of the past and translate past physical and moral authority into the present.

The second chapter, “Portraits, Philanthropy, Politics,” considers the use of the photographic studio portrait and the way in which it connected to and extended the meaning and flexibility of the painted status portrait. Through the dynamic of portraiture and a comparison of the lives, the images, and the portraiture practices of Lady

Londonderry and the Duchess of Sutherland, this chapter examines how upper-class women adapted past practices of political influence to the modern environment, translating private behind-the scenes activities into public displays of philanthropy and public involvement.

In the third chapter, “Youth, Beauty, and Celebrity,” I focus on the snapshot, the adaptation of the photo subject to eroding boundaries of public and private life, and the necessary adjustment to new forms of self-presentation. I orient the chapter against the scholarship of celebrity, arguing that this period formed an important and distinct stage in the development of the modern celebrity culture. In particular, I consider the life of Diana

Manners (later Lady Duff-Cooper) from birth until 1914, examining how changing portraiture practices altered societal perceptions of the child and the debutante, turning the young upper-class girl into a celebrated public figure.

Chapter Four, “The Act of Portrayal,” is based on a consideration of the performance of portraiture and, in particular, the integration of theatre and self-creation into the daily reality of the upper-class woman. In this chapter, the portrait images remain as traces of the experience, the tangible index or archive of an ephemeral event. In its focus on the upper-class woman, Mrs. Willie James, the actress, Zena Dare, and the fashion designer,

Lucile, this chapter explores the matrix of fashion, theatre, and society and its influence on the shifting perception and cultural value of the upper-class woman and of the upper class as an entirety.

Although each of the chapters addresses the entire period from 1890 to 1914, the temporal spotlight of each chapter progresses chronologically such that the focal point of a subsequent chapter covers a sequentially later time period. Each chapter emphasizes a different practice of portraiture and the forms of the portraiture in succeeding chapters

progress in their use of motility, reflecting a growing and pervasive interest in the idea of

motion, of time, and in the moving body that characterized the turn of the twentieth

century in Britain.

In this era, the theme of movement and change permeated all aspects of society.

Technological advancements resulted in the introduction of automobiles, trams,

telephones, telegraphs, and perhaps most relevant for the world of fashion, the installation

of the electric light. Upper-class patterns of behaviour and codes of etiquette for events

were disrupted by the increased rate of travel and communication.3 Underlying these practical changes to the experience of daily life were theories that challenged ideas of time and stability. The philosopher Henri Bergson, for example, began publishing his theories on duration and consciousness in the late 1880s and by the 1900s these theories had percolated to a broader readership. Public lectures were held and newspapers summarized the theories for easier digestion by the general public. Upper-class society in particular was intrigued with Bergson’s ideas which seemed to privilege spiritual awareness and creativity.4 Bergson posited that the idea of time as linear and stable was a scientific construct designed for empirical purposes, and that the experience of time is one of flux, of mobility, and of change. Emphasizing intuition rather than rationality he focused on the individual experience of time, the process of the passing of time, and the free will of the

3 For instance, the country house visit was altered in organization and duration due to the advent of the automobile and the resulting accessibility of the country estate. “Country- House Parties – Past and Present,” The Tatler, no. 380, October 7, 1908, 12. 4 “Mr. Arthur J. Balfour on Henri Bergson,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, Monday October 2, 1911, 3.

individual.5 The idea of motion also permeated the interest in media. In her book examining changes in the perception of images at the turn of the twentieth century, Lynda Nead identifies the interest in technology that could create the illusion of movement throughout the nineteenth century, culminating in the introduction of film.6 While film existed during

the period I consider, I suggest that its scope in England as a medium to communicate

portrait images was still limited and that the influence of print media and conventional

forms of portraiture like drawing or painting continued to dominate until the advent of the

War in 1914, imbricated in this societal fascination with the ideas of bodies in motion.7

The images and media I explore in this dissertation must be considered in terms of this

context of change. Each chapter also draws on theory that is specific to the issues

considered in it, but there are common underlying themes and contextual theories that

permeate the premise of all four of the chapters: Degeneration and Eugenics, Instability of

the Upper Class, The Middle-Class Woman, The Portrait, and Self-Fashioning. A broader-

based explication of these themes and theories in this introduction will permit more specific

and targeted reference in the following individual chapters, hopefully reducing duplication.

5 Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, transl. by F.L. Pogson (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1910), 9. 6 Lynda Nead, The Haunted Gallery: Painting, Photography, Film c. 1900 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 86. Nead argues against a rigid distinction between art as the medium of stillness and film as the medium of movement, suggesting that all forms of image culture were subjected to changes arising from the interest in increased motion. 7 For instance, Richard Dyer places the advent of the cinema star in the period 1915 – 1920, tying it to the development of the film industry in the United States but explicitly acknowledges the existence of a prior star system as a feature of popular theatre. Richard Dyer, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 2011), 10.

DEGENERATION AND EUGENICS

A cartoon in The Tatler on December 27, 1911 (fig. 0.1) depicts an aristocratic male in his

fashionable suit as an undersized, child-like figure perched on the sofa, his legs not quite

touching the ground. This cartoon image, joking that the upper-class male is on the return

journey of evolution, draws on the prevalent discourse of the moral and physical

degeneration of the British population and the ideas of eugenics that permeated social and

political discussion. The diminutive figure was a metaphor for the pervasive perception of

decline of the British male aristocracy and more broadly, of the British male in general and

of the British nation as an economic and political power.

Max Nordau, a German philosopher, published his book Degeneration in German in 1892.

The English translation of the work was released in 1895 and became an immediate success.

It was widely read and its ideas disseminated through lectures and press. In this book,

Nordau identifies the last decade of the century as a time of socially apocalyptic change, “a

Dusk of the Nations, in which all suns and all stars are gradually waning, and mankind with

all its institutions and creations is perishing in the midst of a dying world.”8 While Nordau was mainly interested in tracing this degeneracy to contemporary artistic production, his work identified a prevailing atmosphere that permeated beyond the boundaries of the artistic world: “The disposition of the times is curiously confused, a compound of feverish restlessness and blunted discouragement, of fearful presage and hang-dog renunciation.

8 Max Nordau, Degeneration (London: William Heinemann, 1898), chapter 1.

The prevalent feeling is that of imminent perdition and extinction.”9 A letter written to the

Duchess of Sutherland in 1900 by one of the charity boys who graduated from the Technical

School she established expressed much the same view, characterizing the age as one of

“decline and demoralization” and suggesting a permeation of anxiety that transcended class.10 This concern for the degeneration of morals and national character continued

throughout the period. In 1913, a review in The Bystander asserted that the decadence

identified in the 1890s had only increased and grown more socially acceptable in

subsequent decades: “We, the splendid ‘teens, are decadent,” the author affirmed, “and

Public Opinion is with us, not spitting in our faces, but urging us forward to new and

unheard of feats of folly and perversity.”11

The idea of moral degeneracy was mirrored by a belief in a corresponding physical

deterioration in England. Statistics published asserted that there had been a dramatic

increase in the proportion of the population found to be mentally unfit in the latter portion

of the century. Similarly, information on admittance to the Army identified that “out of

9 Ibid. 10 The letter, located in the Staffordshire Record Office, identifies materialism as the root of the problem: “Let us put aside the vanity that this is an age of progress: it is an age not of progress but of increase of material rather than moral advance. What we call progress is more truly change, alteration, fluctuation, for instance, the people multiply: is that progress in any other sense than increase, or with any other significant than change? Perhaps even it is more than this, an age of decline and demoralization throughout the West, with England, our empire, which rests on the belief of others in our spiritual ascendency, is visibly shaken at its root.” 11 “The Alleged Decay of Decadence: The Eighteen-Nineties as a Mere Nothing,” The Bystander (London), October 29, 1913, 259. All future citations of The Bystander refer to the publication in London and will omit the location of publication.

76,750 recruits in 1901, 22,536 were either rejected or discharged within three months of

their enlistment.” The minimum height for recruits for the British Army was lowered from

five feet three inches in 1883 to five feet in 1900.12 The extrapolation to a more general

physical degeneration of the population was supported by observation of the “undersized,

weak and feeble” persons seen in any city or district.13 Advertisements played on this general anxiety, dramatically confirming that the average English man was smaller and weaker than he once was, tracing the decline from the Norse type that had “laid the foundations for the physical supremacy of the English race.”14

Ancillary to this idea and equally concerning was a perception of a rapidly falling birth rate, further jeopardizing the future of the Nation. In hyperbolic terms this decline was referred to as “race-suicide” depriving England of her “national stability, her ancient stamina.”15 In particular, there was concern over the lower birth rate of the middle and upper classes, with blame primarily attributed to the selfishness of women who preferred to live for pleasure or self-gratification rather than for the duties of motherhood.16 Much of rhetoric of the selfishness of women was focused on the upper-class woman, and in particular on the extravagant and frivolous example of the ‘fashionable woman’ who asserted that

12 Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914 (New York: Ballantine Books, 1994), 357. 13 “Bystander’s Notes,” The Bystander, March 16, 1904, 83. 14 “Types of Englishmen,” Hearth & Home, July 28, 1898, 473. This article was an advertisement for Mother Siegal’s Syrup, a cure for gout, rheumatism, dyspepsia, and liver complaint. 15 Hull Daily Mail, Friday June 21, 1912, 4. 16 Leamington Spa Courier, Friday, November 3, 1909, 7.

13 motherhood beyond two or maybe three children was nothing but slavery and who refused to martyr herself for either the perpetuation of ancient names or the future benefit of the state.17 The decline in vigour of the aristocratic specimen and the shortage of aristocratic heirs in particular were topics of public interest and the subject of novels and social commentary.18 This anxiety over the biological future of the English race prompted a renewed interest in the theories of eugenics propagated by Francis Galton in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

Francis Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin and was influenced by Darwin’s theories on evolution and the rapid translation of these theories to more immediate social structures by

Herbert Spencer and other social and anthropological theorists. He adopted ideas of the statistical mean developed by the social statistician Adolphe Quetelet in the mid-nineteenth century and developed a theory that used the external features of the head and face as data to support a thesis of ‘human type’ that was biologically determined through racial and family inheritance. The concept of the ‘mean’ or average accommodated deviations as a statistical feature, allowing for anomalies of appearance and character. Galton propagated his theories through numerous lectures and writings from the 1870s and they developed a following in both the scientific and political communities, percolating to the level of popular awareness. He first introduced the term of ‘eugenics’ in 1883 as part of his argument to extend the premise of hereditary transfer of characteristics to social policy.

17 Leeds Mercury, Monday June 17, 1912, 9. 18 “Heirs and Graces,” The Bystander, June 10, 1908, 563.

For Galton, eugenics was a means of understanding the social structure of Britain as a

natural phenomenon that could be manipulated by social programs designed to encourage

reproduction among desired groups or types and to restrict growth within those classes

with undesired characteristics. Social policies based on ideas of eugenics were seriously

considered in England from 1900 to 1914 as a result of the anxiety caused by the eroding

dominance of Britain in the international sphere on both an economic and a political basis

and, in particular, the alarming inadequacies of the British specimen as discovered in Army

acceptance rates during the Boer War at the end of the century.19 In the consideration and formulation of these policies, characteristics were classified as desirable or undesirable according to a socially constructed value system that was subject to negotiation and debate.

Valuation was based on a determination of public good that implicitly recognized Galton’s idea of the statistical mean as representing the ‘average man’ of society. In order for a characteristic to be valuable it should be for the purpose of raising the statistical average, for the improvement of English population on both a social and anthropological basis. In an address to a meeting of the Eugenics Education Society in London on October 14, 1908,

Galton advocated the classification of groups based on the idea of “worth.” “By this I mean the civic worthiness, or the value to the State, of a person, as it would probably be assessed by experts or, say, by such of his fellow-workers as have earned the respect of the community in the midst of which they live.”20 Galton’s classification of worthy character

19 Green, “Veins of Resemblance,” 9. 20 Sir Francis Galton, Essays on Eugenics (London: The Eugenics Society, 1909), 104.

traits was a constructed hierarchy designed to enhance the social position and influence of

the professional middle class, meaning those people who provide value to the State as

determined on the basis of a meritocratic valuation system. He acknowledged that the

taxonomy of personal qualities as desirable or non-desirable was a social and political

rather than a biologically determined or essential value system, inviting local communities

to gather worthy persons of the area together for informational sessions, so that the

determination of “worthy” was initially a local and communal decision.21

To an even greater extent, the eugenic ideas of Galton were adopted and disseminated

through the work of mathematicians and scientists such as Karl Pearson and Dr. Caleb

Saleeby. Karl Pearson was a noted mathematician who incorporated many of Galton’s

theories into his methodology of biometrics to predict biological inheritance. On this basis,

he argued that the rise or fall of nations was predicated on adherence to a process of

selection of appropriate progenitors determined on a biological basis.22 Saleeby drew on his scientific credentials to present the theory of eugenics on a medical and scientific platform.

He similarly advocated social policy to encourage the reproduction of “worthy parenthood”

and the discouragement of reproduction of the “unworthy.”23 Both were prolific writers and

frequent lecturers, establishing themselves as experts and disseminating their theories into

the general public through lectures and articles published in journals and newspapers. The

quasi-scientific concepts of eugenics were given institutional legitimization in 1901, when

21 Ibid, 105. 22 Aberdeen Press and Journal, Thursday February 25, 1909, 8. 23 Bedfordshire Times and Independent, Friday, February 21, 1913, 9.

Galton was appointed the Huxley Lecturer to the Anthropological Institute, and again in

1905, when the Eugenics Laboratory was established and a Research Fellowship founded in

Eugenics at the London University, of which Karl Pearson was the first Chair.24 Eugenics also

entered into popular culture with publications speculating on a future of “eugenic

marriages” and “eugenic babies.”25 The level of public and political acceptance of these ideas facilitated concrete discussions of establishing a national register that would identify the desirability or undesirability of procreation of persons listed. In addition, in 1912,

England hosted the first international Eugenics Conference in which papers were presented on a variety of topics pertaining to eugenics, including the necessity of a certificate of desirability for procreation prior to marriage.26

The fascination and preoccupation with the genetic future of Britain was part of a greater narrative of anxiety over the position of Britain in the international forum, both politically and economically, in a shifting international landscape that threatened the historical dominance enjoyed by Britain during the nineteenth century. The industrial revolution experienced by Britain during the latter part of the eighteenth and the nineteenth century had provided it with a technological advantage that Britain was able to translate into economic and political authority on an international level, using its trading advantages to

24 Birmingham Mail, Thursday January 19, 1911, 3. 25 Yorkshire Evening Post, Wednesday October 15, 1913, 3. On July 31, 1912, the journal Punch published a humorous sketch of a young aristocratic suitor arrested by the order of the Eugenics Society for contracting an engagement with a female counterpart without having previously acquired the permission of the Eugenics Officer for the District. Punch, or The London Charivari, July 31, 1912, 114. 26 Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligence, Tuesday July 16, 1912, 8.

expand its direct and indirect control and influence over much of the globe. At its peak, the

British ruled approximately one quarter of the world’s total inhabitable land and governed

over 400 million people.27 However, during the latter part of the nineteenth century, the technology and the production systems created by England to facilitate its economic model of industrialization were adopted and adapted by countries such as the United States and

Germany. These countries also imposed protectionist tariffs that encouraged the development of their own industries and discouraged trade with Britain. New technology such as steamships and refrigeration meant that local advantages Britain may have enjoyed in the supply of products to internal and proximate customers was eroded. In particular, the production of agriculture and livestock, the mainstay of the income of rural Britain that formed the foundation of the wealth of much of the upper class, was challenged by the importation of grain and meat from the United States and even Australia. The century of poor living conditions of the lower class in the newly expanded urban environments, the factories, the mines, or other similar forms of employment had resulted in the deterioration of their health and physical dimensions. It was the population of this class that formed the statistical basis for arguments of racial degeneration. However, as the economic dominance of the upper class was eroded it also became subject to questions about its role and even its necessity in the changed circumstances of the modern world. The upper class and the lower class, in different ways, therefore became a subject of discourse at the end of the century, tying into questions of Britain’s position and status in the international forum.

27 Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis, The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 48.

The Boer War of 1899–1902 had shaken the conviction that Britain was the destined ruler of

the world. Instead of looking forward to greater expansion, Britain began question its ability

and even its desire to retain the position of head of an empire. German aggression and the

very real possibility of war with Germany was accepted by 1905, and American economic

and rising political power was rapidly eroding British dominance. In 1905 an anonymous

booklet entitled The Decline and Fall of the British Empire, published in Oxford but

purporting to be written in 2005 in Tokyo, outlined the imagined dissolution of the Empire,

blaming British decadence.28 This underlying uncertainty was expressed directly and

indirectly in newspapers and journals as Britain jostled for position with emerging powers of

Germany and the United States. The “decadence of the Englishman, or at least his falling

behind in the race for trade and knowledge” was a common reference to a widely-discussed

issue with numerous causes and solutions proffered, many of which called into question the

hereditary ruling structure of the class system.29

INSTABILITY OF THE UPPER CLASS

As suggested above, during the period of 1890 to 1914 the future of the upper class in

England was questioned and its traditional power and dominance eroded. The end of the

28 Judith M. Brown and Wm. Roger Louis, The Oxford History of the British Empire: The Twentieth Century, 55. 29 “The Bran Pie,” The Tatler (London) No. 61, August 27, 1902, 348. All future citations of The Tatler refer to the publication in London and will omit the location of publication.

nineteenth century was a time of transition on political, technological, economic, and social

levels. The decline of the economic and political power of the upper class has been analyzed

in numerous texts and essays.30 Oscar Wilde captured the pervasive economic experience in

The Importance of Being Earnest from 1895, in which Lady Bracknell declares, “Land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one a position, and prevents one from keeping it up.”31 By 1880, the benefit of protective measures for agriculture had eroded and the increased efficiency and lowered cost of transportation allowed products from other locations to be distributed in Britain on a more economical basis. In 1894, the price for wheat in England had fallen to its lowest level and agricultural rents had declined by half.32

With their fortunes tied so closely to the land, the upper class ceased to be the wealth elite

of England, replaced by new forms and holders of wealth.33 The erosion of economic

dominance was accompanied by a simultaneous weakening of political power.

From 1880 to 1914, political power in Britain shifted from the customs and viewpoint of an

elite gentleman’s club to the class battle of mass politics. In 1880, the electorate of the

House of Commons was restricted, tied to the ownership of land, and deeply influenced by

the upper class. In addition, the House of Lords retained the constitutional right to veto

30 For instance, in James Lawrence, Aristocrats: Power, Grace & Decadence (London: Abacus, 2009), 305, or David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 26. 31 Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest,” Oscar Wilde: The Complete Works (London: CRW Publishing Limited, 2011), 502. 32 Arthur J. Taylor, “The Economy,” Edwardian England 1901-1914 ed. Simon Nowell-Smith (London: Oxford University Press, 1964), 111. 33 David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, 88.

almost all legislation passed in the Commons. By 1914, the political landscape had

irrevocably altered. The Third Reform Act passed in two bills in 1884 and 1885 removed

qualifications for land ownership and thereby doubled the electorate. Simultaneously, the

redistribution of electoral constituencies removed many of the anachronistic territories

controlled by the aristocracy and shifted those seats to areas of wider population. The

effect of this new enfranchisement was clearly demonstrated in the 1906 general election,

in which the combined Liberal and Labour party soundly defeated the Conservative Party,

resulting in 377 new members of Parliament.34 Many of these new members came from

non-aristocratic backgrounds and were unfamiliar with or unwilling to participate in the

unstated rules and courtesies that had previously informed the gentlemanly game of

politics. The upper class retained dominance in the House of Lords, and the period from

1906 to 1911 became an increasingly embittered contest between the House of Commons

and the House of Lords as the latter exercised their veto power to restrain or block a variety

of measures passed by the former. Finally, in 1911 the Parliament Bill passed, restricting the

power of veto of the House of Lords and confirming the political dominance of the broadly

elected House of Commons. As summarized by David Cannadine, the result of this measure

on the peers was drastic and irremediable. The House of Lords was essentially emasculated

and the consequent power and prestige of the peers was irrevocably attenuated.35

34 Roy Jenkins, Mr. Balfour’s Poodle: An Account of the Struggle between the House of Lords and the Government of Mr. Asquith (London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1954), 7. 35 David Cannadine, The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, 54.

In this changing power structure, the upper-class male was no longer the hereditary and

unquestioned ruler of the Nation either economically or politically. The remaining sphere of

control and dominance was exercised by upper-class women through the mechanism of

Society. In the altered social landscape, the expansion of the tight quasi-kinship nature of

the upper class in order to include new participants within the echelons of an augmented

Society worked to maintain interest in its continued survival and the maintenance of the

class system it represented. For the newly wealthy or the newly powerful, the ability to

realize social ambitions and potentially achieve inclusion was for the most part sufficient

incentive to support the continued system of class distinction. For the women of the

traditional upper class, the ability to filter and prioritize the types of entrants to be included

into the social events that formed the Season gave them social capital and leverage in the

formation of new definitions of the upper class. Their position as the leaders of Society

acted as a regulator to moderate and direct the adjustment to society caused by the shift in

economic and political dominance and to create new roles within that society for an upper

class that had lost many of its traditional purposes within the system.

The rise in prominence of the fashionable upper-class woman unleashed a wave of criticism.

In the first decade of the twentieth century, three figures achieved notoriety and popular

influence through their ongoing attack on the fashionable element of Society. Father

Bernard Vaughan was an English Roman Catholic priest located in London. In 1906 he gave a

celebrated series of sermons focused on the “sins of Society,” which he preached to an

upper-class audience at a church in Berkeley Square. He lambasted them for failing to

attend church, for extravagance, for gambling, for failure to adhere to marriage vows, and

for the decline in the birthrate, accusing them of sin against both God and country.

Regarded as a riveting orator, he would start with a biblical story, subsequently connecting

the actions of the evil with the activities of the fashionable.36 Marie Corelli was best known as a prolific author of fiction during the period 1890 to 1914; however, she was also a widely read social critic, focusing much of her vitriol on the behaviour and morals of the fashionable upper class. In her 1905 article “The Decay of Home Life in England,” she attributed the decline of the Nation to the retrograde of social morality caused by “the carelessness, vanity, extravagance, lack of high principle, and entire lapse of dignity in the women who constitute and lead what is called the Smart Set.”37 Finally, Eliza Humphreys, writing under the pen name ‘Rita’, was another popular author of fiction, specializing in

stories of aristocratic characters. In 1904 she also achieved public renown for a series of

articles focused on the shallowness and lack of morals of this Smart Set. Taking the

perspective of a “Beauty Doctor” to the fashionable, she used her character to express her

criticism in colourful and hyperbolic terms: “Riotous extravagance and unholy excitement

were the modern pseudonym for pleasure. For anything true, deep, earnest, real, the world

cared nothing! Such things were dull and boring, and not to be thought of. They belonged to

the role of parsons and Christian Scientists, and the Salvation Army. They had no import or

36 Lancashire Evening Post, Monday June 25, 1906, p.2. Father Bernard also codified and expanded his lecture remarks in two books, The Sins of Society (1906) and Society, Sin, and the Saviour (1907). 37 Marie Corelli, “The Decay of Home Life in England,” Free Opinions Freely Expressed on Certain Phases of Modern Social Life and Conduct (London: Archibald Constable & Co. Ltd., 1905), 211.

significance for Society.”38 The three critics were widely quoted and referred to in

newspapers and journals, frequently in pieces written in a form of constructed dialogue.

The criticism of Society anchored by the stream of articles fostered a broader discourse

resulting in further plays, books, and commentary on the same subject matter.39

The reaction of the upper class to this onslaught of criticism was complicated. They flocked

to hear Father Vaughan and he became a ‘lion’ entertained at aristocratic houses. In a

number of instances aristocratic members seemed to agree with the strictures, perhaps

seeing an expression of their own concerns over the changes in Society values. In a preface

to a Smart Set novel, the Duke of Newcastle sadly remarked that, “A lamentable decay has

taken place in the moral sense of Society.”40 Lady Dorothy Nevill went further in her memoirs, questioning whether “Society, as the word used to be understood, now exists at all”:

In the old days Society was an assemblage of people who, either by birth, intellect,

or aptitude, were ladies and gentlemen in the true sense of the word…Now all is

38 “The Confidences of a Beauty Doctor,” London Opinion, September 24, 1904, 481. 39 For instance, A Mirror of Folly, written in 1907 by Mr. Harold Wintle, imagines a Gilbertian Guild for the purpose of providing Society with work so that they can avoid the stigma of the “idle rich.” A review classifies it as a “Smart-Set novel” which, by 1907 had become a “well-recognized and separate sort of fiction.” (The Bystander, July 10, 1907, 97.) Plays also took up the issue. The Sins of Society, for example, opened at the Drury Lane theatre in September of 1907, turning the sins of the upper class spotlighted by Father Vaughan into a social commentary. The genre also spawned further volumes of social criticism like Society in the New Reign published by a ‘Foreign Resident’ in 1904. 40 The Bystander, June 20, 1906, 582.

changed; in fact Society (a word obsolete in its old sense) is, to use a vulgar

expression, ‘on the make.’41

Others simply listened with an attitude of amusement and carried on. The Bystander noted that, notwithstanding the popularity of Father Vaughan, social activity continued unabated in a whirl of frivolous entertainment.42 Still others mocked the moral outrage, suggesting

that if descriptions of the “Smart Set” were meant to outrage, to warn and to spark reform,

the activities of the group seemed somewhat banal and bourgeois. They pointed out that

vices of extravagance and frivolity were certainly not confined to the upper class but could

be found equally rampant in middle class suburbs.43

However, the most prevalent response of members of the upper class was to differentiate themselves from the amorphous term “Smart Set.” In the context of the tirade of published abuse, the adjective “smart” was no longer synonymous with “distinguished” but had attained an aura of vulgarity.44 Writers were careful to keep the term undefined, permitting

flexibility in its interpretation based on context. For example, in her article on “The Decay of

Home Life in England,” Marie Corelli distinguished between the Smart Set and the ‘true’

aristocracy, identifying the former as mainly the “mushroom creations of yesterday” in

41 Lady Dorothy Nevill, The Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy Nevill (London: Edward Arnold, 1906), 100. 42 The Bystander, June 20, 1906, 577. 43 The Bystander, March 16, 1904, 100 and 101. Similarly, an article in The Bystander in 1913 argues that the middle-class women of the suburbs are “the most frivolous women in Europe.” “The Truth About the Suburbs where Decadence, Frivolity and Extravagance Reign Supreme,” The Bystander, December 24, 1913, 23. 44 The Woman at Home, Vol. VII April 1899 to September 1899, 698.

contrast to “great” ladies of birth and breeding who continue to live in “retired simplicity

and intellectual charm.”45 The article “In Defence of the Smart Set,” by Mrs. Fitzroy Stewart

challenged the validity of the criticism to the majority of ‘smart’ women, redefining the

term to include the modern upper-class women who possess brains, money, and looks and

who do much to justify their order and their existence. The wanton extravagance of the few

should not tarnish the reputation of the many. The “true” aristocrat need not adhere to the

prunes and prisms of the prior generation in order to avoid the condemnation of being

considered “smart” or fashionable.46

The upper class had, in many ways, become a situs for the more pervasive concern over the

changes to values, lifestyle, traditions, and ideas as Britain moved from the Victorian era

toward modernity. At the same time as the upper class was castigated for its lack of moral

leadership, the individuals, the institutions and the traditions of the upper class were the

focus of attention and the subject of nostalgia. Between 1890 and 1914 the City of London

witnessed a Jubilee, the funeral of Queen Victoria, the Coronation of King Edward VII, the

funeral of King Edward VII and the Coronation of King George V. Each of these spectacles

was celebrated with great pomp and circumstance, providing opportunities to reinforce the

structures of class hierarchy. Journals and newspapers highlighted the historic legacy of

those aristocrats participating in the ceremonies and explained the meaning behind the

45 Corelli, “The Decay of Home Life in England,” 211. Father Vaughan similarly provided an opening for differentiation, excepting from his condemnation the “real aristocracy…whose aim was to live their highest, love their purest, and do their best.” Lancashire Evening Post, Monday June 25, 1906, 2. 46 The Tatler, No. 378, September 23, 1908, 332.

costumes and performances of each event.47 Photographs were published showing the aristocracy in full Coronation regalia (fig. 0.2) and it became a popular charity event for peeresses to sit at bazaars in their Coronation robes to allow the public a closer examination (fig. 0.3).

As David Cannadine has argued, the decline in power of the monarchy and the aristocracy that occurred at the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century was countered by an increasingly theatrical and vivid performance of that power. Event upon event served as unifying symbols of permanence and national community.48 These events were described in full detail in the press, which elaborated on the visual spectacle of the costume and procession, and fortified the relationship between the ceremony and historical tradition.

The Annual Opening of Parliament assumed a theatrical aspect that had been entirely suppressed during the years of Queen Victoria. Under King Edward VII, each parliament was opened with the “fullest State, omitting no single detail of a stately and picturesque ceremony which has descended to us from the reign of King Henry VIII.”49 Trumpets heralded the procession that preceded the King and Queen and announced the arrival of

47 The Bystander for instance, offered a full page of illustrated explanation on the identification and differentiation of coronets and ranks of nobility, albeit in a tone that lightly mocked both the costume of the regalia and the minutae of differentiation. “Cartoonists, please note! Coronets as they are worn by various degrees of nobility,” The Bystander, November 30, 1910, 430. 48 David Cannadine, “The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the ‘Invention of Tradition,’ c. 1820–1977,” The Invention of Tradition, ed. Eric Hobshawm and Terence Ranger (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 122. 49 The Bystander, January 29, 1908, 215.

their Majesties. Peeresses were required to wear full evening dress with feathers and

jewels, providing additional splendour to impress the viewing audience.

In addition to these state-directed events, the first decade of 1900 witnessed what was

referred to as “Pageantitis,” with over forty historical pageants undertaken between 1905

and 1914. These pageants ostensibly celebrated the history of a town or area and were

massive events requiring the participation of most of the local populace. This history

unfolded scene by scene, moving through time and arguably responding to the feeling of dislocation that was part of the modern experience, recognizing the resulting desire to

reconnect with a nostalgic past rooted in place and tradition. The historian Jed Esty has described the pageant genre of the period as the enactment of “a series of chronological episodes in order to project the absence of change. The pageant-play dissolves history into the seductive continuity of rural folkways and national traditions.”50 In contemporary reports, the plethora of pageants was likened to the introduction of ancestor worship.51

While the issue of pageants is more complex than this interpretation would suggest, the illusion of stability through reinforcement of a constructed past was a relevant goal of these events, where all classes celebrated and performed the class hierarchy of the past, experienced as the certain and traditional form of English social structure.

50 Jed Esty, A Shrinking Island: Modernism and National Culture in England (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 49. 51 The Bystander, May 8, 1907, 282.

The ambivalence and the instability of the purpose and the future of the upper class, which was simultaneously vilified and revered, provided the opportunity for a redefinition of perception, of the duties and expectations, and of the constitution of the class itself. This uncertainty was compounded for the upper-class woman who also faced challenges from an ongoing re-examination of the role of the female in British society, led mainly by the middle-class.

THE MIDDLE-CLASS WOMAN

The experience of the upper-class woman in the period can therefore be understood only through its contextualization against the changing circumstances of her middle-class counterpart. At the end of the nineteenth century gender expectations no longer responded to the experience of many of these middle-class women who were under pressure to both emulate their upper-class counterparts and to continue to fulfill the

Victorian ideal but who were unable to find appropriate men willing to financially support these expected roles.

In the middle of the nineteenth century the social expectation for the middle class was based on strongly gendered domestic roles. The male was expected to provide for the family, ideally supporting a lifestyle in which the female could be relieved of all manual chores, thus allowing her to fulfill the dictates of gentility that defined the social status of the class. The role of the female was one of spiritual and moral exemplar, Coventry

Patmore’s “angel in the house,” as discussed in many academic studies.52 The financial

burden of maintaining this lifestyle aggravated a reluctance to marry or the deferral of

marriage of many middle-class men, which in turn resulted in an increase in the number of

middle-class women who would never receive acceptable offers of marriage. The problem

of these superfluous women, destined through the restrictions on acceptable female

pursuits to remain obligations of fathers and brothers, became the subject of concern

through the latter part of the century. One alternative promoted by middle-class women

unwilling to accept the dependent life on offer was to identify a new model for acceptable

female behaviour. If the term “New Woman” incorporated a number of diverse ideas which

were not necessarily compatible, the common thread was to enable single women of the

middle class to enter the public sphere and to join the workforce on a broader basis than

had been previously socially permitted. This model of the “New Woman” was often

promoted in contradistinction to the upper-class woman, identifying the New Woman as

useful, productive, and sensible in contrast to her frivolous, useless, and extravagant

counterpart.

However, the relationship between the upper-class and the middle-class woman was not

always so straightforward. Many middle-class women located in suburbs of London avidly

52 A few of the many academic considerations of the Victorian middle-class woman include: Leonore Davidoff and Catherine Hall, Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (London: Hutchinson, 1987); Elizabeth Langland, Nobody’s Angels: Middle-Class Women and Domestic Ideology in Victorian Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995); and Martha Vicinus (ed.), Suffer and Be Still; Women in the Victorian Age (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1972).

followed, mimicked, and attempted to participate in the activities, the fashion, and the

attitudes of their Society counterparts. Reports of Society weddings and parties frequently

noted the crowds of spectators that flocked to observe the spectacle of the upper class

arriving or departing from the event. Society journals bemoaned “the well-dressed crowds

of second-rate women, who, having, I suppose, nothing better to do, flock in their

thousands to the big weddings and other Society functions of the season, and make

nuisances of themselves to brides, guests, and police alike.”53 Images such as the 1906

photograph of Hyde Park during the Season show the upper class on their daily ride while

crowds line the path, judging both the horseflesh and the fashion (fig. 0.4). Illustrated

journals contributed to this fascination, permitting the voyeur to follow the doings of the

upper class without being present. Images of Ascot each year carefully exposed the elite in

the Royal Enclosure, with text and snapshots identifying the notable personages and

fashion (figs. 0.5 and 0.6). In 1902, spotting the upper class had become so popular a pastime that Mr. Douglas Sladen, the originator of Who’s Who, issued Sladen’s London and its Leaders, containing portraits of society favourites, which hinted that if readers carried

“this book to the opera” they “may be able to recognise the various duchesses and countesses as they sit in their boxes.”54

53 The Bystander, June 20, 1906, 576. Similarly, at the wedding of Winston Churchill and Clementine Hozier, “the crowds at Westminster were tremendous, and it was as much as the policemen could do to keep order…The bride arrived to the tune of the heartiest cheers and the click of countless cameras.” The Bystander, September 16, 1906, 576. 54 The Tatler, No. 58, August 6, 1902, 247.

The suburbs, the identified locale of the affluent middle class, drew on the fashion, the activities, and the manners of upper-class women, translating them into a middle-class environment. Illustrations by Laurie Tayler in The Bystander in 1913 show the upper-class artistic and musical soiree reinvented for an avant-garde middle-class audience (fig. 0.7).

The tendency for the women of the suburbs to imitate the lifestyle of the upper class was well-recognized, with the suburban beau and the suburban belle reading the books read by

Society, imitating their sayings and copying their fashionable activities.55 Articles describing the suburbs asserted that, rather than the bastion of solid English values, middle-class housewives “are the most frivolous women in Europe, spending too much money on their clothes, too much time in jealousy of their neighbours to have any time to spare to look after their houses.”56 In this somewhat scurrilous description written in the context of an ongoing discourse that identified the smart upper-class woman as frivolous, we can see the translation of the perceived life of the “smart set,” reformulated for a middle-class environment even while such women retained the right to criticize the upper class as frivolous and unworthy.

There was a continuing and increasing pressure to relax the portals of entry into Society and to admit the socially ambitious into this perceived elite. In 1907, for instance, applications for vouchers to the Royal Enclosure of Ascot exceeded the number available by eight thousand. The article in The Bystander notes that “bribery, strategy, even threats, are

55 The Tatler, no, 77, December 17, 1902, 443. 56 “The Truth about the Suburbs,” The Bystander, December 24, 1913, 698.

resorted to in order to obtain the coveted vouchers.”57 In an article in Woman at Home,

Lady Charles Beresford acknowledged the dilution of Society by those who are anxious to

obtain admittance to what appeared to them to be a social paradise, notwithstanding its

exploitation, mockery, and castigation. Drawing clear boundaries, she remarked that “the

craze for aspiring into circles other than one’s own is in alarming vogue there and elsewhere

and everywhere.”58 Society expanded at a rapid pace, admitting those who had sufficient funds, connections, or style. Articles identified the social gaffes of the upwardly mobile who found that money did not replace an ability to navigate unspoken rules of etiquette, and

cartoons such as “The Parvenu’s Progress” mocked the contrived acquisition of social graces

as parvenus strove to assimilate (fig. 0.8).59 In this satiric look at the socially ambitious, the

nouveau riche upstarts, surrounded by all of the material indicators of class, lose the veneer

of civilized behaviour when the “youngest happens to mention ‘the shop’ in the presence of

the vicar’s wife.” The upper-class presentation is only a fragile construction over a baser

material.

If some of the wealthy or talented middle class were admitted to Society, there were also

numerous middle-class women who could not hope to be admitted into its echelons but

57 The Bystander, June 19, 1907, 594. In 1908, Viscount Churchill as the representative of the King, refused about nine-tenths of the passes to the Royal Enclosure after being “cajoled, threatened, bullied, flattered, implored.” In 1909, he was compelled to ask the Press to require applicants to send requests to the Palace rather than his home address, noting that he received hundreds of applications from people who had not the slightest chance of obtaining a voucher. The Bystander, June 17, 1908, 592 and The Bystander, June 2, 1909, 428. 58 “Lady Charles Beresford,” The Woman at Home, Vol. 1, 1894, 89. 59 The Tatler, No. 469, June 22, 1910, 287.

who treasured the occasional contact with the upper class, which offered a form of social

currency in their middle-class circles. Rita also mocked these middle-class women who often paid dearly to attend the first day of charity bazaars in order to mingle with the upper class. Her description conveys the prestige that continued to be exercised by the women of

Society and the snobbery of the middle class who aspired to emulate them:

The admission charge will be two guineas the first day. We make it high because

everyone wants to say they were there at the opening and saw and talked to the

Royalties and Duchesses. All the rich Jewesses and the retired tradespeople come,

and think they’re quite ‘in’ with the smart folk, and tell Bloomsbury and Bayswater

that the ‘dear’ Duchess and the ‘sweet’ Princess were so gracious.60

Class was not the only target of such snide remarks, but the focus of the comment was the rampant desire to emulate that sparked a flurry of Etiquette Books designed to transform the middle-class woman into a “true high-grade society woman.” Articles mocked these volumes, questioning their applicability to a middle-class suburban life.61 But perhaps women used these books to assist in the “event crashing” that occurred as Society grew less cohesive, where uninvited women would simply appear at some of the larger weddings or

receptions, hoping to pass unnoticed in the crowd.62

60 “Confidences of a Beauty Doctor,” London Opinion, August 6, 1904, 201. 61 “What is a Lady?,” London Opinion, December 10, 1904, 416. A similar opinion was expressed in The Bystander, July 27, 1904, 477. 62 The Bystander, June 16, 1909, 539. Also see the reference in The Bystander, May 24, 1911, 378 which suggested that a plethora of uninvited guests had led to the practice of requiring tickets of admission to larger gatherings.

THE PORTRAIT IN THE AGE OF THE MASS IMAGE

The middle-class woman had an ambivalent relationship with her upper-class counterpart,

striving to emulate her style and manner even while she derided her for frivolity and

extravagance. It was this ambivalence that provided the space for the strategy of

renegotiation of the public perception of the upper-class woman, and it is this liminal space

of negotiation that I focus on in my discussion of upper-class women and their portraiture

practices. As I discuss below, the codification of these portraiture practices and the

mechanism for a broad public dissemination was enabled by the advance in technological

synergy between text and image that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century and

beginning of the twentieth. This technology interacted with social changes to alter the way

in which portraits presented the female upper-class subject and the public exposure of

these images.

Gary Beegan traces the development of the mass image in the nineteenth century and

identifies three stages of development. Prior to the 1840s, illustrations and text were

printed separately and interspersed in the binding process. Images were produced using a

variety of engraving and etching techniques, ranging in both quality of image and in

durability. From the 1840s on, the ability to print both engraving and text on the same page

offered new opportunities for the interrelation of text and image. However, the technology continued to require a multi-step process in which both artist and engraver collaborated in the production of a printed image. Due to the cost and time involved, images were regularly

used in only a few newspapers or journals, although common to the more-costly illustrated book. Portrait images included in publications tended to be restricted to major public figures such as Queen Victoria or key politicians.63 However, the development of the photomechanical process in the 1890s revolutionized the ease and affordability of incorporating images into mass publications.

The half-tone process permitted a photograph to be integrated with text and printed simultaneously in the same assembly-line procedure. The process was available from the

1870s but was not commercially feasible until the mid-1890s in England.64 Even at that

time, newspapers were reluctant to incorporate photographs, feeling that they lowered the

tone of the paper, focusing attention on personalities rather than on political issues of

substance. As the journalist and editor Hamilton Fyfe noted, “News of other kinds was not

only not sought after, it was treated with some disdain. Nothing was said about the

personalities of men and women in the public eye – until they were dead, and even then

the obituary notices were formal and dry.”65 The resistance to the lowering of standards,

combined with the additional capital expenditure of acquiring the machinery necessary for

photomechanical reproduction of an acceptable quality and the difficulty of integrating this

equipment with the rotary machines used for the daily press meant that the major daily

63 For example, the Illustrated London News was established in 1839 as a weekly newspaper. The images focused on major events and portraiture was mainly limited to significant political or military figures. The paper used woodcuts originally, moving to lithographic images of drawings, and only starting to rely upon photography in the 1890s. 64 Gary Beegan, The Mass Image: A Social History of Photomechanical Reproduction in Victorian London (Hampshire: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), 81. 65 Hamilton Fyfe, Sixty Years of Fleet Street (London: W.H. Allen, 1949), 22.

newspapers only started incorporating photographic images into their text on a regular and

abundant basis after 1914. The use of society photographs in mass publications was mainly

confined to the weekly illustrated journals designed primarily for female readers, which

originated and quickly proliferated in the late 1890s and the early twentieth century.

The personalization of items of society gossip through portrait images permitted the

activities of upper-class women to attract a much broader level of interest within the general public. Although the pastime of following Society was not confined to females, the interest of female readers in the images and events of Society and the women who controlled Society was the basis for the plethora of weekly journals aimed at a primarily female demographic. By 1914 there were approximately fifty magazines in Britain specifically targeting women.66 Most were published weekly and distributed nationally.

Although there was substantial overlap, the large number of available publications were differentiated through price, quality, and subject matter, designed to target specific female demographics and their interests. The “Society journal,” was a form of publication ostensibly aimed at the upper-class female but also providing a voyeuristic form of access to the lives and personalities of the aristocracy for a broader audience. Numerous Society journals were launched during this period, and although many survived only for a brief

66 Brian Braithwaite, Women’s Magazines: The First 300 Years (London: Peter Owen, 1995), 25.

period, some remain in publication today, and all published a continuing stream of images

of the upper-class woman.67

What kind of portrait images were included in these journals? One of the themes that runs through my chapters is to consider how the form of image utilized and the consequent impression desired to be made were influenced through reference to a particular portrait genre. For each form of image, I consider how it fits within three classifications: the status portrait, the pictorial image, and the historical document (the idea of the photograph as a historical record). In my analysis however, the image is not confined within the parameters of strict classification. I consider how the image appropriates and reflects ideas from multiple sources, using the inherent meaning associated with each genre to create a richer and more complicated layered meaning.

The formal conventions of the status portrait originated in England in the seventeenth century with the reign of King Charles I. It was during this period that the knowledge and appreciation of Renaissance art became a marker of the aristocratic gentleman.68 The

migration to England of artists like Van Dyck facilitated the translation of the maniera of a

Renaissance artist like Titian in his portraits of European rulers. In Van Dyck’s portraits of

upper-class women, the subject is generally posed in an ambiguous setting that suggests

67 For Instance, The Tatler started in 1901. It absorbed The Bystander in 1940 and continues in publication. Country Life is another example, starting publication in 1897 as Country Life Illustrated and continuing in publication to the present. 68 Henry Peacham, Compleat Gentleman (1634), intro. by G.S. Gordon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906), 124.

classical grandeur (fig. 0.9). The subject is framed on one side by a rich curtain and on the other by a landscape that seems artificial rather than naturalistic. The emphasis of the painting is on the elite status of the woman, as indicated by the rich textiles of her clothing,

the sheen and lustre of her jewelry and the proud and erect posing of the body. This type of

English portrait connoted awareness of European culture, signifying the possessor as an

aristocratic connoisseur and creating social status. In addition, as Van Dyck and his imitators

continued to create similar portraits for the elite of England, each repetition of the format

created a familiarity and an establishment of new standards of taste, culturally uniting the

viewers through their collective appreciation.

The English status portrait continued to maintain social currency through the end of the

nineteenth century. In each era, the form and technique of the image varied, but I suggest

that the fundamental elements of status, along with their visual conventions and codes,

remained recognizable and stable through centuries of repetition and reinforcement. The

stability of the formal code of visual signs acted metaphorically to confirm the political and

social stability of the class hierarchy. For example, in the portrait of Lady Mary Isabella

Somerset, Duchess of Rutland, painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds in 1799, similar to the Van

Dyck portrait style, the female figure is presented at full length and elegantly attired (fig.

0.10). Although the architectural elements and curtains are less prominent in this portrait,

they continue to operate in a similar manner compositionally and in conveying meaning,

providing a solid background for the subject. Most important, the Fourth Duchess of

Rutland, like Lucy Percy, stands confidently and in control of her surroundings. To one side

of each depiction, the viewer catches a glimpse of an unspecific landscape; the domain

ruled by each subject is metaphoric rather than spatially specific, an ambiguous vista that

suggests territorial demesne. The ambiguity of this landscape is both a reference to the

similar approach of the portrait compositions of Van Dyck and a reflection of contemporary

statement of Reynolds in his Discourses on Art, where he advised that true beauty and

grandeur required being able to transcend all singular forms, particularities and details. The

figure of the Fourth Duchess is still and bathed in light while the background is heavily

shadowed; the rougher brushstrokes of the foliage suggesting movement and wind. The

contrast of light and dark, stability and movement provides contrasting allusions to

longevity and movement. The Duchess is a being of a higher order, inherently comfortable

in her designated position of privilege and immune to the changing landscape of time and

circumstance.

While all status portraits assert elevated social rank, a subtype of this genre was particularly

relevant to the period of this study. “Swagger portraits” combine an emphasis on social

superiority with showiness and ostentation. As Andrew Wilton, curator of an exhibition on

The Swagger Portrait in England in 1992, writes, “ ‘Swagger’ implies a degree of self-

consciousness on the part of the artist, if not of the sitter (though often the two will

coincide), which causes the portrait to transcend the private statement (in which the sitter

communes with a single viewer), and addresses itself to the public at large.”69 The sitter is

69 Wilton also notes that “the wind often blows in swagger portraits; it rarely does in others.” Andrew Wilton, The Swagger Portrait: Grand Manner Portraiture in Britain from Van Dyck to Augustus John 1630-1930 (London: Tate Gallery Publications, 1992), 17 and 23.

usually presented as “confronting the world with direct self-assurance” in a “generally bold”

image that manifests “heraldic significance.”70 The end of the nineteenth century experienced a resurgence of interest within the upper class in the swagger portrait style of the aristocratic eighteenth century, as it visually distanced itself from the more democratic modes of the modern age.

Kenneth McConkey identifies a rising interest of the upper class in art of the eighteenth century as a tangible marker of aristocratic taste that differentiated the traditional upper class from the wealthy industrialist.71 Reflecting this interest, in 1901 a monumental

biography of Van Dyck was published and art periodicals such as The Connoisseur and the

Burlington Magazine fostered a new interest in the portraits of artists like Gainsborough

and Lawrence, reinforcing the visual code of status inherent in these images.72 I suggest that

the swagger portraits of the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century

drew upon the embodied references of the genre, while adjusting the symbols incorporated

in the image to adapt to the contemporary context. Notably, in this period, the genre

expanded into the society photographic portrait, which both adopted and adjusted many of

the conventions of the swagger portrait to accommodate new desires and demands.

70 Ibid, 23. 71 Kenneth McConkey, Memory and Desire: Painting in Britain and Ireland at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002), 48. 72 Gabriel Badea-Paun, The Society Portrait from David to Warhol (New York: The Vendome Press, 2007), 148.

This integration of ideas informing the portrait made by the hand of the artist with the

photographic portrait can also be discerned in the co-existence of the Aesthetic Movement

in art and the Pictorial Movement in photography, both of which were relevant in the

period from 1890 to 1914. The Aesthetic Movement in England started in the second half of

the nineteenth century and argued the validity of “art for art’s sake,” meaning art that was

sufficient in its desire to produce a work of visual beauty, without the necessity of satisfying

any mimetic, moral, or narrative function. The art historian Elizabeth Prettejohn examines

the interpretation of Aestheticism in paintings of this period and notes how paintings of

specific identifiable people, which would otherwise be considered as portraits, shift in

meaning in the Aesthetic image. The primary purpose becomes to convey an image of

beauty, often accompanied by a subtext of eroticism or symbolism that extends the

meaning of the work beyond the materiality of the subject matter to the ideas that underlie

the artist’s conception.73 Although Aestheticism as a recognized artistic and literary movement arguably died out in the 1890s, I suggest that the ideas and the concerns of

Aestheticism continued to permeate the practice of certain types of portraiture throughout the period prior to 1914.

This interest in the portrait as an object of beauty rather than an accurate representation of the subject also resonated with the photographic movement of Pictorialism, which gained momentum in the period 1890 to 1914. The tension between photography as an objective,

73 Elizabeth Prettejohn, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 7.

mechanical means to convey an accurate representation of the world and photography as

an artistic medium had generated discussion from the inception of photography in the

1840s. However, it was in the 1890s that Pictorialism, promoting the latter idea of

photography as art, became a recognized global movement, with the creation of numerous

journals and photography clubs devoted to the aim of using photography to create an

image of aesthetic beauty. In this formalization of the concept of photography as art,

Pictorialism drew on many of the techniques and the ideas of Aestheticism in painting and

drawing, emphasizing the capture of a moment of beauty rather than a descriptive or

narrative document. In photography, this involved the manipulation of the mechanics of

taking and producing a photograph or the manipulation of the scene to be imaged, or often

both. In his preface to his book on The Elements of a Pictorial Photograph, published in

England in 1896, Henry Peach Robinson addressed this conflict between the photograph as

document or art, arguing in his treatise that “the camera is only a tool in the sense that the

brush is a tool, and one capable in the hands of an artist of conveying thought, feeling,

expressing individuality, and also of the usual attributes of art in their degree.”74 When

applied to the image of a person, the concept of Pictorialism again shifts the meaning of the

image away from a mimetic or even a symbolic representation of the specific individual and

toward the subject as an object in the aesthetic composition.

74 Henry Peach Robinson, The Elements of a Pictorial Photograph (Bradford and London: Percy Lund & Co., 1896), found in Truth Beauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art, 1845–1945 (Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre Ltd., 2008), 117.

In contrast, the idea of the portrait as a historical document is based on the implicit expectation that a portrait will provide a likeness of the subject, both in external appearance and in a representation of inner character or personality. Although the portrait mediated through an artist is always contingent in nature, subject to the context of production and to the circumstances in which it is displayed and consumed, the portrait also carries with it the idea of the document, the image as a tangible record of the subject.75

It is this implicit connection between the idea of ‘likeness’ and portraiture that provides the persuasive force of documentary truth to the status portrait and, arguably, even to the pictorial image composed to reflect a depiction of beauty, suggesting the actual existence of the beauty represented.

This idea of mimetic representation or documentary function was key to the reception of the portrait paintings or drawings published in the illustrated journals and newspapers of the period. These photographic representations of paintings or drawings were offered as images of the subject, as an equivalent to the photographic portrait. Instead of relying upon one of the numerous photographic portraits of the Society figure Mrs. W.H. Grenfell (later

Lady Desborough), The Tatler substituted a photographic reproduction of a painting of her by Ellis Roberts (fig. 0.11). It is less clear whether the viewer accepted a painted portrait as the equal to the photographic portrait in providing a mimetic likeness of the subject. The knowledge of the artistic manipulation of the image to satisfy the artist’s need to create a certain aesthetic and the desire and instruction of the subject to present her in a certain

75 Shearer West, Portraiture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), introduction.

manner co-existed uneasily with a continuing understanding of the portrait as a

representation of the ‘real’ subject.

Although this manipulation of the portrait existed for both the painted and the

photographic image, the idea of the portrait as a documentary record of the exterior likeness of the subject was augmented in the photographic portrait by the legacy of the

“truth factor” of the photograph. Based on the idea of the mechanical objectivity of the

camera, there was a strong and continuing belief in the nineteenth century that

photographs were mimetic representations, to be judged on the basis of their accuracy of

representation.76 This truth factor of photography has been explored by theorists such as

Roland Barthes and André Bazin, who also relied on the idea of the photographic process as

“automatic” to claim the photograph as a statement of authenticity, a transfer of reality

from the thing to its reproduction.77 In contrast, other theorists have focused on the opportunities for mediation of the photographer in producing the image, likening her or his role to that of the artist of a drawn or painted image and advocating that the same criteria

76 A. Brothers F.R.A.S., Photography: Its History, Processes, Apparatus, and Materials (2nd ed.) (London: Charles Griffin and Company, Limited, 1899), 16. In his book Brothers focuses on the use of photography as a scientific or documentary tool, assessing progress in the process of photography by the ability of the photographic image to more completely represent and replicate the natural. 77 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 5-6; Andre Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” What is Cinema (vol. 1), trans. by Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 12. This perception of the photographic process as objective or mechanical, and its effect of the meaning of the photograph, has been followed by other theorists such as Rudolf Arnheim, “On the Nature of Photography,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Sep. 1974), pp. 149-161. These are only a few of the significant treatises on photographic indexicality within an extensive body of literature.

for consideration and evaluation be applied to both forms of media.78 As I have suggested in

my discussion of Pictorialism, the idea of manipulation of the photographic process was also

an accepted idea. Instead of advocating for one position over the other, I suggest that

photographs occupied a dualistic territory where the awareness of the photographer’s

ability to manipulate the image co-existed with a continuing predisposition to see the

photographic image as a form of documentary truth. The balance between the two

contradictory positions was often determined by the context in which the image was

displayed and received.79 In the photographic portraits considered in this dissertation, I will suggest a spectrum for the intended perception of the image and its authority as a transference of the reality of the subject.

SELF-FASHIONING

The technological and commercial potential for the distribution of images created an opportunity for the emergence of new forms of self-fashioning. With the advent of a more accessible and intrusive public forum, upper-class women became more aware of the possibilities and the potential dangers of a public image and developed strategies and defences to adjust to changing circumstances. The investigation of these strategies through each of the chapters focuses on the inherent concept of public identity, and this portion of

78 Joel Snyder and Neil Walsh Allen, “Photography, Vision and Representation,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Autumn 1975): 144. 79 I draw upon the recent book of Jordan Bear, who demonstrates that the objectivity of photography was a deeply contested feature throughout the nineteenth century. Jordan Bear, Disillusioned: Victorian Photography and the Discerning Subject (University Park, Penn: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2015), 5.

the introduction outlines the relevant theory behind self-fashioning as a conscious

construction of a public persona, and extends it into the theory of identity as a form of

dramaturgical performance. I also place these forms of identity creation within the context

of a similar practice in other forms of media during the period considered, in particular, the

rise of a new form of biography and memoir.

Much of the relevant theory that I rely upon was only fully developed in the middle of the

twentieth century and thereafter. In his book The Image, written in 1961, the historian

Daniel Boorstin focuses on this period following what he refers to as the “Graphic

Revolution” and suggests a convergence of authentic experience and simulated experience

through the mass public exposure of the visual image.80 He argues that the image is a

synthetic personality profile and a value-caricature that, through exposure, loses its likeness

to the original subject and assumes an independent status that creates a public expectation

requiring the individual to conform to the image.81 Boorstin essentially posits the creation

of a public identity that is constructed with intention or awareness, implying an

acknowledged separation between the representation and the reality. This idea was

expanded upon in 1981 by Jean Baudrillard in his work Simulacra and Simulation. Reflecting

changes in cultural and technological context in the second half of the century, Baudrillard

offers a theory of progression of the image from the accurate representation of profound

80 Boorstin refers to the growth of the technological ability to “make, preserve, transit, and disseminate precise images” that began at the end of the nineteenth century as the “Graphic Revolution.” Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Psuedo-Events in America (New York: Vintage Books, 1992), 13. 81 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Psuedo-Events in America, 186.

reality to the simulacrum, an image that is a sign without referent, meaning an image that

creates its own reality.82 While Baudrillard’s work is further removed from the social and

cultural experience of the period 1890 to 1914, the idea of this range of relationships

between image and representation or appearance and being is one of the themes that runs

through this work. Each chapter considers the negotiation of position along this spectrum as

the Graphic Revolution spawned new possibilities for the effective creation of an image not

constrained by truthful representation and, in doing so, provided these images with an

agency that motivated change within the lived reality of the portrait referent.

A parallel theme can be traced using forms of self-fashioning that fall outside of the strict

ambit of the image. In his treatise The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman

disputes the idea of the self as an immutable fixed concept of personality and instead

argues that ‘self’ is a result or product of the performance of self and the extent to which

such performance is either credited or discredited by the audience. Goffman extends the

dramaturgical metaphor beyond the physical space of the theatre, interpreting the

everyday existence of experience through the terminology of performance theory.83 Based on Goffman’s theory, performance of self is an idea that incorporates both anthropology and theatre, stimulating other theories that were also interested in pursuing this link between the operation of the individual in society and the idea of performance. In his book

82 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1994), 6. 83 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 15.

on Performance Theory, Richard Schechner explains Goffman as suggesting that “people

were always involved in role-playing, in constructing and staging their personal and social

realities on a day-to-day basis,” utilizing societal conventions, rituals, and interactions to

signify their place within that society.84

Numerous studies have since followed, examining the role of specific societal performances and the manner in which individuals perform identity on a personal or public level. I continue to develop this this line of enquiry and suggest in my thesis that the strict delineation between private and public life of the upper-class woman is blurred during this period, so that every event of performance by an individual upper-class woman bears the possibility of public exposure and is influenced by a need to be placed within a constantly increasing archive of public performances intended to define and classify the upper class. In addition, I am influenced by Judith Butler’s theory of the active and ongoing construction and negotiation of gender through speech and action.85 Rebecca Schneider is perhaps even more pertinent in her analysis of the female body as a situs for performance and representation.86 Schneider’s assertion that “the explicit body in representation is foremost

a site of social markings, physical parts and gestural signatures of gender, race, class, age,

sexuality…delineating social hierarchies of privilege and disprivilege” provides the

84 Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), x. 85 Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (New York: Routledge, 2006), 45. 86 Both Judith Butler and Rebecca Schneider are focused on the postmodern period of gender construction and feminist social action. I have therefore limited my reliance on these authors to broader concepts that relate to the agency of the female in self-fashioning and the embodied nature of female self-representation.

theoretical assumptions upon which much of this thesis depends.87 Finally, I focus on the

specific interaction of the formal theatre and the idea of performance that extends beyond

the limits of the stage and incorporates the audience and the performances of society

outside of the theatre in the meaning and effect of the play. Schechner in particular defines

the performance at the theatre as the “whole event, including audience and performers,”

highlighting the overlapping but distinct realities of the play and the greater context in

which it operates.88 In my discussion I suggest a relevance for performed society plays that extends beyond the immediate audience of the theatre and into the operation of the social life of the upper class.

In taking this broad approach to the ideas of performance and theatre, I recognize that I am participating in the appropriation of the terms and ideas of theatre studies, applying them to situations outside of the ambit of the theatre. Davis and Postlewait, in the introduction of

Theatricality, raise some cogent warnings about the broad application of these concepts on a multi-disciplinary basis, arguing that terms like theatrical, performance, and performativity have a specific significance and historical trajectory that is eroded or lost by the lack of precision in their use. They suggest that the over-extension of ideas of theatre and performance to the behaviours of everyday life ultimately dilutes the meaning of those ideas and they are concerned that the appropriation and adaption of ideas of performance for other purposes often leads to the establishment of problematic dichotomies that

87 Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance (London and New York: Routledge, 1997), 2. 88 Richard Schechner, Performance Theory, 88.

contrast ideas of theatricality against those of performance or performativity.89 While acknowledging the validity of the concerns raised, I have taken the position that the extension of performance theory into the area of my thesis is warranted on a number of bases. First, Davis and Postlewait are scholars of theatre studies and the extension or alteration of meaning of concepts or terms has a significant impact in the historical context of their focus area. In contrast, this thesis is not focused particularly on theatre studies and therefore the fine distinctions between the use of terms such as performance and performativity and theatrical are arguably less relevant. I am more interested in the interchange between theatre and life than in the self-reflexive nature of the theatrical performance. Implied in my ideas is the post-structuralist concept of the instability of identity and I am focused on the “how” of this process of negotiation. I have tried to define the interrelation of the terms of performativity, performance and theatricality within my scope of enquiry but have accepted that it is not possible to always differentiate them with precision. I recognize the claim that I may be using the theories of theatre somewhat

89 Tracy C. Davis and Thomas Postlewait (eds.), Theatricality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), introduction. The issue of the establishment of dichotomies was raised by Shannon Jackson, who considered the use of performance concepts in the development of gender theory. Jackson examines how terms like theatrical, performance, and performativity have been used by three gender and sexuality theorists and finds that, in the primary focus on issues of gender, there is a temptation to confine ideas of performance and theatricality to concepts of the material (the actual live body) and to ideas of conscious action. Performativity becomes the flexible “other” term and performance a reduction of performativity in a bounded act. Shannon Jackson, “Theatricality’s proper objects: genealogies of performance and gender theory,” in Theatricality, 204-208. Jackson, however, does acknowledge that the issue of precise definition has greater currency for theatre scholars and that non-theatre scholars with an interest in performativity may find the distinctions as “something that does not seem to require complex treatment in order to secure intellectual legitimacy.” Jackson, “Theatricality’s proper objects,” 209.

51 loosely in using the ideas of the above, but in the specific context of this study that particularly considers the negotiation of ideas of class and gender through the production and reception of portrait images and portrayals, the structures of the models proposed and the theories of scholars such as Goffman, Turner, Butler, and Schechner offer a very useful way to approach the material.

These visual forms of still or active performance also need to be considered within a growing genre of personal exposé or autobiography that started to emerge at the end of the nineteenth century and accelerated throughout the early twentieth century. By 1908, writing personal memoirs or recollections was considered a fashion and was no longer confined to lives of important political figures.90 Upper–class women now formed part of the group of figures whose anecdotes of personal experiences and acquaintances were eagerly desired by the public and a growing number of upper-class women were willing to breach the implicit code of class discretion to reveal the peccadillos of their peers.

The most controversial of these memoirs was written by Lady Randolph Churchill and published in 1908. Still a significant force in contemporary upper-class life, her memoirs disclosed a narrative that related to many living members of the class, including anecdotes of her close relationship with King Edward VII. Although these anecdotes were almost certainly censored to minimize public censure, the exposure of interactions within the inner cliques of the upper class was evidence of a significant shift in traditional boundaries

90 “A Fashion of To-day,” The Tatler, No. 348, February 26, 1908, 158.

between public and private and gave rise to anxiety over this new form of transparency. For

example, the preparation of a similar form of memoir by the Countess of Warwick in the

same period prompted acceleration of the passing of the Official Secrets Act to prevent the

publication of any indiscretions that could reflect on prominent Court or political figures.91

What prompted these women of the inner circle of Society to risk the disapproval of their

peers and the public judgment of their way of life? Almost certainly money played some

part in the decision. Both women were publicly identified as having cash shortfalls. In this

context, the publication of memoirs suggests an awareness of a public interest and

willingness to pay for details of the lives of the upper class. However, I suggest that the

publication (or writing) of these memoirs was rooted in other more complex motivations

tied to the cultural context of the period. In his book comparing biography and portraiture

of the Stuart and Georgian period, the historian Richard Wendorf observes that each

medium purports to offer a picture of the subject. While the portrait ostensibly captures a

single moment, lacking the ability of the written biography to incorporate a temporal

element, both are predicated on a selection or construction of elements that reflect a form

of presence of the subject based on an implicit set of values.92 In the recollections or autobiography of the upper-class woman of the turn of the twentieth century, the writing and possible public distribution of memoirs allowed the author to curate her life story and to present herself in a persona that was consciously constructed to create a certain

91 The Tatler, No. 361, May 27, 1908, 217. 92 Richard Wendorf, The Elements of Life: Biography and Portrait Painting in Stuart and Georgian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), introduction.

impression. This idea of the curation and construction of a public persona through memoirs or through the editing of source materials for a prospective biographer was prevalent among upper-class women.93 The selection of images and documentation that fit within a desired persona acted both assertively, to create a public self that moved along

Baudrillard’s spectrum toward the simulacrum, and defensively, to protect the individual’s public image from appropriation and misrepresentation in the memoirs or thinly disguised character studies of other writers.94

There is a complicated paradox in the purpose of the personal memoir of the era. One

aspect is the desire to protect the legacy of the individual. This concept of a public legacy in

itself inherently subsumes two important ideas. The first is the creation of a public persona

as a conscious entity that is not entirely commensurate with the private individual. The

second is the recognition that the life of the individual upper-class woman had become a

93 The Duchess of Rutland, for instance, left notes and the rough outline of material for a future biographer. I am grateful to the archivist of Belvoir Castle for granting me access to the Duchess’s notes. Another socially mobile woman, Mrs. Greville (the wife of the Hon. Ronnie Greville), hired a press-cutting agency on her rise to the upper class through marriage. She left instructions that all material other than the bound volumes of press cuttings from court and social columns should be destroyed on her death. These public references then became the commemorative record of her life. Clive Aslet, The Edwardian Country House: A Social and Architectural History (London: Frances Lincoln Limited, Publishers, 1982), 73. 94 In addition to concerns of disclosure of personal episodes in biographical memoirs of friends and acquaintances, a frequent complaint during the period was the use of recognizable upper-class figures as characters in fictional works. The Bystander, January 20, 1904, 508. For instance, the character of the frivolous debutante in E.F Benson’s book Dodo was widely held to be Margot Tennant (later Lady Asquith). Similarly, in The Visits of Elizabeth by Elinor Glyn, the scattered heroine was understood to be based on Lady Angela Forbes. The Tatler, No. 5, July 31, 1901, 240.

54 matter of public interest, a movement that equated them with other public figures such as

Royalty or prominent politicians. This latter approach envisions a memoir as a location for the expression of self, forming part of a self-absorbed perspective tagged by one writer as

“The Cult of Ourselves.” Articles referred to the era as a “selfish, introspective age,” pointing to the rise of palmists and other persons who could ‘reveal’ a sketch of the character of the inner subject.95 I suggest that the focus on the expression and exultation of the ‘individual’ operated concurrently and somewhat uneasily with the direct or indirect knowledge of the public construction of the individual, where the image edged toward

Baudrillard’s idea of the simulacra, where, instead of the image as a reflection of the individual, the individual adapted her behaviour to conform to the image she desired to project.

In addition to their function as a means of individual self-fashioning, these memoirs, full of recollections of famous people and social interactions, provide a picture of Society that extends beyond the individual life of the writer. For writers like Lady Randolph Churchill and the Countess of Warwick, the lives and the people they wrote about were either still active in Society or in the very recent past, creating a hybrid form that was part biography and part autobiography. However, a number of Society memoirs focused on the Victorian era, either revealing the scandalous doings under the respectable exterior, or holding Society of the past up as a lapsed golden age in comparison to the tarnished present state of the upper class. We can compare the gossipy recollections of Lady Cardigan published in 1909 with the

95 The Bystander, July 10, 1907, xii.

memoirs of Lady Nevill published in volumes over the first decade of the 1900s to see this

duality of purpose. The former abandons discretion to reveal some of the more scandalous

exploits of the Victorian upper class in contrast to the more staid and edited anecdotes

provided by Lady Nevill. However, the purpose of both books was to provide the public with

a glimpse of the life of the private life of the upper class, the life beyond the public

performance of status presented to the people through ceremonial appearances or images.

Both books also dwell on the changes from the Victorian to the ‘modern.’ In her memoirs

Lady Nevill suggested the passing of an exclusive form of Society:

There are no doubt sets – the smart set, the racing set, and I do not know how many

more coteries of individuals, specialists in frivolity. But Society as it used to be – a

somewhat exclusive body of people, all of them distinguished either for their rank,

their intellect, or their wit, is no more.96

Lady Cardigan expressed a similar sentiment suggesting that exclusivity of Court has been replaced with pomp and ceremony, reminding us of arguments made by David Cannadine that the spectacle of form replaced the substance of power in this period.97 In these

volumes, the public was provided with a glimpse behind the curtain of class solidarity to a

picture of a lifestyle that was carefully curated by the writers to project a vision of the upper

class. As the book reviews identified, “books can now be made out of material hitherto

wholly hopeless.” These women were able to tap into a desire to look back, “for genial

laments over passing of the good old days.”98 While the pasts envisioned by Lady Cardigan

96 Lady Dorothy Nevill, The Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy Nevill, 99. 97 The Bystander, September 29, 1909, 636. 98 “The Cult of the Literary Grandmamma,” The Bystander, October 5, 1910, 24.

and Lady Nevill were not always consistent, they each operated to engender a sense of

nostalgia, a looking back to a more perfect past of stability and worth that was intricately

tied to the class hierarchy of Society.

This duality of the memoir was linked to the changes in the idea and purpose of the

biography that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century. Conventionally, the

biography was unidimensional, meaning that it was a narrative of the life of the subject

structured to provide a consistent image, generally tied to cultural ideals. Biography was a

tool to reinforce the world-view of the culture and the moral perspective of the biographer

by emphasizing or minimizing particular character traits and details.99 However, as the

nineteenth century progressed, the biography shifted to a more multidimensional

approach. The interest was not so much to use the life of the subject as moral exemplar,

turning the subject into an abstract model, but to deconstruct the life of the subject,

exposing the flaws of character and behaviour that were then reconstructed by the

biographer into a portrait that purported to depict the real person “truly as he was.”100 The claim of truth or authenticity of the multidimensional approach was reinforced by the public access and exposure to personal details, particularly those that showed the subject as

99 Richard A. Hutch, “Strategic Irony and Lytton Strachey’s Contribution to Biography,” Biography, vol. 11, 1 (Winter, 1988): 4. Hutch raises the example of the biographer Thomas Carlyle, who used biography to inspire moral emulation, according his subjects a form of hero-worship. 100 Hutch, “Strategic Irony,” 5. For example, the biography of Thomas Carlyle, written and published by James Anthony Froude between 1882–1884. Froude included details of marital unrest as caused by the unreasonable and even abusive behavior of Carlyle, debunking any attempt to glorify Carlyle in a unidimensional panegyric.

flawed or human. However, the deconstructed biography was equally a construction of the

biographer, a portrait of the image desired to be presented, allowing the writer to

determine the degree to which the subject was fashioned (or even fictionalized) for artistic,

personal, or political purposes.101

I suggest that many of the complex motivations and cultural factors that inspired the onset of memoirs of upper-class women also activated the production of images of this group, forming an interrelated matrix of personal projections that spoke to both the individual persona and the upper class as a group, with a particular set of lifestyle values, behaviours, and activities.

Using these common threads, each chapter of this study reflects similar themes in a refracted vision, seen through the lens of the specific focus of the chapter material. I trace the appropriation by upper-class women of new technological and social developments in portraiture during this period and their adaptation of these opportunities to reposition themselves as individuals and as representatives of a gender, a class, and a nation, finding a new role and purpose for the upper-class woman in the changing structure of twentieth- century Britain. I start with the pencil portrait drawings of the Duchess of Rutland, looking to the associations of the past to legitimate the present and continue through

101 This point was highlighted in John Halperin’s essay on the approach taken by Lytton Strachey in his biography Eminent Victorians, but remains relevant for any biography or autobiography. John Halperin, “‘Eminent Victorians’ and History,” The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 56, 3 (Summer, 1980): 435.

58 developments in photographic portraiture, ending with a discussion of the increased importance of the everyday performance of portraiture that fuelled the enhanced public identity of these women at the start of the new century.

Chapter One: Drawing on the Past

This chapter focuses on the portrait drawings of upper-class women made by Violet Granby,

the Duchess of Rutland, during the 1890s.102 It considers the practice of portrait drawing as

a means of creating and of exhibiting the foundation of intimate interrelationship that

established the basis for the formation of a cohesive upper class. More specifically, this

chapter argues that the drawings’ inscription of these interrelationships worked to implicitly challenge and resist the erosion of the boundaries and of the value standards for the upper class at the end of the nineteenth century. In addition, it uses the aggregate imaging of the numerous portraits as a visual rejoinder to contemporary public discourse criticizing or otherwise seeking to define the upper-class woman as anachronistic by positing an active and continuing role for her in the modern age. Finally, it considers the collectivity of the portrait drawings as a tangible response to the opening of traditional class and gender barriers, one which presented an alternate archetype to define the criteria for inclusion and the basis for exclusion of socially mobile applicants.

Violet Lindsay was an English aristocrat who was born on March 7, 1856 and lived until

December 22, 1937. She was blessed with the three main attributes of an upper-class

102 The Duchess of Rutland was born as Violet Lindsay in 1856. In 1882 she married Henry Manners, the grandson of the 6th Duke of Rutland. She became the Marchioness of Granby in 1888 when her husband’s father became the 7th Duke of Rutland and then the Duchess of Rutland in 1906 when her husband became the 8th Duke of Rutland. During the 1890s, the period of much of the focus of this chapter, she was styled the Marchioness of Granby (also referred to as Lady Granby) but, in order to avoid a shift in nomenclature I have generally referred to her as the Duchess of Rutland.

59 60 woman of her time: birth, money, and beauty, and the parameters of her life and experience were securely framed within the confines of her class and gender. Her father,

Col. Honble. C.H. Lindsay, was the third son of the 24th Earl of Crawford and her mother was the beautiful daughter of the Dean of Lismore. She grew up on her grandfather’s estate at

Haigh Hall, in the comfort and traditions of the upper class, and was raised within the conventional parameters for an upper-class girl, although with a particular emphasis on artistic accomplishments. Her friend, Mrs. Beerbohm Tree, described Violet’s early childhood within

a large family of sons and wives and children, all vying with one another in exercising

gracious and remarkable talents. In the great drawing-room her aunts would sit,

drawing and painting, and the child would be encouraged with a block and a pencil to

copy something she saw. No smudges, no dirty indiarubber, no thumb-marks on the

paper would be even thought of; no blotch of paint, no brush held upside down;

everything must be fair and exact and full of grace, as was the work of the white-

handed ladies with whom Violet dwelt.103

This family practice of rendering the “fair” and “full of grace” would influence Violet’s future work. Notwithstanding her artistic talent, however, Violet followed the pattern of expectation for her class and gender. After a successful debutante Season, she married

Henry Manners in 1882. He inherited the title Marquess of Granby in 1888 and became

Duke of Rutland in 1906.

103 Mrs. Arnoldi, Exhibition Brochure prepared in connection with the exhibition of ‘Rare Pencil Portraiture of Violet, Duchess of Rutland, (Bath: 1936), 13.

PORTRAITS DRAWN BY THE DUCHESS OF RUTLAND

Violet, the Duchess of Rutland, lived until 1937 and, during her lifetime, produced hundreds

of portrait drawings. She was particularly productive during the 1890s, and the drawings during the period and thereafter through the remaining years to WWI were mainly fine line drawings of the heads of her family, friends and acquaintances.104 Her male subjects for portraits were determined on a broader basis, including masculine portraits outside of the

family circle, and eventually male subjects outside of the elite circle in which she moved,

selected on the basis of their public renown. The female portraiture that is the focus of this

chapter must therefore be contextualized in terms of the parallel and overlapping practice

of male portraiture exercised by the Duchess during the same period; however, I suggest

that in numerous individual instances and as a collective practice, the Duchess’s collection

of female portraits performed a slightly different purpose that spoke not only to issues of

class but also to discussions of gender during the period. The Duchess of Rutland’s female

portraiture, individually and as a collective, was intended to speak beyond the individual to

104 This statement is based on a review of the portrait images drawn by Lady Granby located at the Russell-Cotes Museum in Eastbourne, the National Portrait Gallery, at Belvoir Castle, and in published sources. In addition, Lady Granby compiled a record of her portrait images for the purposes of an unwritten autobiography. This list suggests that Lady Granby drew approximately 500 portraits during her lifetime, about 250 of which were drawn prior to 1900. In 1902, she exhibited over 200 portraits at the New Gallery. Over two thirds of the portraits drawn prior to 1900 appear to be of upper-class women. The subject of the upper- class woman continued until 1914. After the War, however, many of the portraits were of Americans and of theatre actors drawn during her tour of the United States in the 1920s.

the perception and characterization of the female members of the upper class, as a class, and their negotiation for position within the substructure of a changing society.

If we consider the drawings of the female subjects as a collective, it is the similarities rather than the differences that are apparent. The many female images depicted in the delicate portraits drawn by the Duchess of Rutland prior to 1914 are all bust images. While the position of the subject may vary, the pose falls into one of three categories: a full-frontal position, a three-quarter pose, and a profile image. The three types of female portraits share strong similarities, suggesting the imposition of a form of artistic signature or formula.

For instance, in the portrait of Lady Ulrica Duncombe, made in 1890, the subject is placed in full profile facing right (fig. 1.1). Only a delicate line delineates the profile of her face from the background. The line traces the curve at the base of the forehead with just the hint of the left eyebrow visible. The nose slopes at an elegant angle with the suggestion of a slight point. The mark of the pencil then angles back to depict a short upper lip above a chiselled mouth. The lips are full but tightly closed and turned downward, suggesting classical perfection rather than sensuality. The chin gently rounds and shades upward to create a firm jaw. The visible eye is pale in colour and only partially opened. The subject appears unaware of being drawn, gazing soulfully into the distance, perhaps lost in introspection.

The portrait image of Mrs. George Batten, dated 1893, at first glance, could almost be another image of the same subject (fig. 1.2). Again, the sitter is depicted in full profile facing to the right. The portrait emphasizes the same pensive, pale gaze, elegant nose, and firm but full lips. It is only on closer examination that the differences between the individual

63 sitters become apparent. The profile of Mrs. Batten shows a greater regularity of feature.

Lady Ulrica’s slightly pointed nose is now softly rounded, the slightly distorted shortness of the upper lip has been lengthened. Instead of the sulky downturn captured in Lady Ulrica’s profiled lips, Mrs. Batten’s mouth is gently animated, giving the impression she is more alert and engaged with the moment; the tone of the image shifts from Greek tragedy to contemporary beauty while remaining within a constant aesthetic.

A similar pattern of repetition and distinction can be identified in the Duchess’s portraits of sitters in other positions. The portrait of Pamela Plowden, later the Countess of Lytton (fig.

1.3) made in 1893, and the portrait of Jennie Churchill, Lady Randolph Churchill (fig. 1.4) made in 1894, each presents its subject in full face.105 Again, the first impression is one of sameness. The viewer is struck by the perfect ovals of each face, the wideset pale eyes full of pensive sadness, the straight slim nose, the short upper lip framing chiselled full lips and the femininely rounded chin. Only on closer examination do the dissimilarities of feature become evident. Further, this description of the features of the two women highlights the reiteration of physiognomy between these two subjects and the subjects placed in profile.

Surely the profiled images could, on a cursory impression, be identified as different poses of the same subjects.

105 The dating for each of these images is based on the notes in the journal of portraits constructed by the Duchess of Rutland.

The images discussed were part of a broader stylistic pattern of the portrait drawings made

by the Duchess of Rutland of her female friends, relatives and acquaintances. Each image is

immediately identifiable as an image drawn by the Duchess, based not only on the similarity

of format and material, but also extending to the first general impression of the appearance

of the sitter. It is only on a closer examination that differences in features, in hairstyle, and

accessories declare the images as representations of different subjects. The experience of

seeing a large group of these female portraits is similar to seeing a large family photograph

or album where the viewer is struck simultaneously by a recognition of both similarity and

individuality, struggling to accommodate these two contrary ideas. What are we to understand by this oscillation between similarity and difference? This replication, over at

least 150 portrait images of female upper-class subjects prior to 1900, suggests an intention

and purpose, a desire to present the portraits as more than an image of the individual sitter.

The composition, form, replication, and dissemination of these portrait images had specific

purposes intended to convey multiple associations to the contemporary viewer. These

associations drew on historical and conventional tropes of portraiture as well as on

contemporary references to class and national identity. The terms of production and

dissemination were a means to forge an identity based on these associations that

incorporated the individual sitter into a broader collectivity that defined the ‘upper class

woman’ in a manner peculiar to the particular historical context of the 1890s.

PORTRAITS AS SOCIAL IDENTIFIER

The Duchess of Rutland was raised in an upper-class world that seemed both stable and

inviolable. The aristocracy of the time has been described as a form of tribe connected by

lineage, characteristics of behaviour and wealth based on land ownership: “The English

upper class consisted, in 1889, of around ten thousand people, drawn almost entirely from

a core of 1500 families. They all knew each other or knew ‘of each other.’”106 This is not to

assert that there was either equality or commonality within the included participants of the

group, nor that the criteria for acceptance were either fixed or impermeable. Within the

upper class, members were divided and separated by status, wealth, and family connections

as well as by more personal subjective qualities of beauty, temperament, personality, and

interests. These factors divided the upper class into cliques or groupings that conveyed a

certain set of characteristics to other members of the upper class, permitting further

classification and social judgment. Within any clique, or grouping, however, each member

might both conform to and rebel against the group dynamic. Characteristics and

membership in groups were fluid and any individual participant could equally participate in

other categories or classifications of connection based on other shared commonalities.

The Duchess was automatically included in certain groupings due to the connections of her

own family (the Lindsays), and the connections of her husband, John Manners, later Lord

106 Angela Lambert, Unquiet Souls: The Indian Summer of the British Aristocracy, 1880–1918 (London: Macmillan London Limited, 1984), 7.

Granby and then the 8th Duke of Rutland upon his father’s death in 1906. Her status assured her of automatic inclusion in all significant aristocratic social events. Her beauty and her temperament aligned her with a social subset of the upper class, tagged as ‘the Souls’ in the late 1880s.107 As described by Angela Lambert in her 1984 book on the subject, the Souls were the second most prominent group of the upper class after the Marlborough House Set led by the Prince of Wales. The group consisted of a core of approximately 40−50 people of both sexes, mostly related, but also expanding or contracting regularly to accommodate

‘occasional Souls’ who were briefly incorporated into the intimate group. Lambert notes that the Souls “prided themselves above all on their intellect, their aesthetic sensibility, their unique interpretation of the taste and manners of their time.” That such qualities

“secured entry to the charmed circle,” suggests the importance given by the group to identification on a basis beyond simple wealth or status.108 Beyond her family and the Souls,

the Duchess also identified strongly with her artistic interests and talents. Perhaps more

than any other member of her social circle, she became intimate with people outside of the

upper class on the basis of a shared focus on the arts.

The work of the sociologist Norbert Elias could illuminate the social interaction of the

Duchess of Rutland on a theoretical level. Elias considered the group structure of the upper

class and the negotiation of social change in his work on court society and upper-class

107 Nancy Ellenberger, “The Souls and London ‘Society’ at the end of the Nineteenth Century,” Victorian Studies, 25 (2), 133. The naming of the group is attributed to Lord Charles Beresford in 1888. He was alleged to have commented after an evening with the group that, “You all sit and talk about each other’s souls, I shall call you the ‘Souls’.” 108 Lambert, Unquiet Souls, 8.

67 societal formations, proposing a dynamic and fluid concept of ‘figuration’ in the stead of more static structuralist formulations of social classes and sub-groups within a class. This concept emphasizes the idea of interdependence in analyzing the terms of relationship for social groups. In their analysis of Elias’s work, Dunning and Hughes summarize the idea of figuration as based on the biological and socially developed need to form part of a ‘group’, where the terms of the ‘group’ are constituted as a mesh of fluctuating interdependencies.

The participation and self-identification of the individual in the group balances ideas of personal agency against the historical context of social constraints that require sublimation of individualization within the socially constructed terms of interaction. There is an inherent and unresolvable tension between the self as a product of the group markers and the self as an individual in opposition to these parameters.109 On the basis of Elias’s theory, the upper class of which the Duchess of Rutland was a member can perhaps be perceived as less defined by a fixed set of criteria with clear group parameters and as more of a series of relationships that collectively formed the membership of the upper class, where each relationship (either individual or as a member of a subset of the upper class) was influenced to a different extent by the need to conform to the applicable group dynamics that socially identified the broader upper class. This suggests that we could expect to see qualitative differences in the manner in which the Duchess interacted with the women that she encountered in different group contexts. For example, her relationship with a member of the Souls would be qualitatively different than that with a member of her immediate family,

109 Eric Dunning and Jason Hughes, Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 52.

or a member of the larger set of the upper class, or a friend outside of the class with whom

she shared a common interest. Each would connect with one facet of the Duchess’s prism of

social contacts and be coloured by the conventions of the group within which the relationship subsisted.

This theory, however, is not visually manifested in the numerous female portrait images produced by the Duchess of Rutland. While Pamela Plowden, later Countess of Lytton, was a friend and protégée, Lady Randolph Churchill was firmly ensconced in the Marlborough

House Set, and a close personal friend of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII). Lady Ulrica

Duncombe, later Mrs. Baring, was a member of the aristocracy born in 1875. Instead of following the expected path of a debutante she focused on study and philanthropy, spending two years at Girton College, Cambridge and then becoming a qualified nurse.110

Finally, Mrs George Batten was born in 1857 as Mabel Veronica Hatch, an Irish-Indian memsahib who met and had an alleged affair with the Prince of Wales on his visit to India.

She was a scandalous figure in the 1890s, known for her singing ability and her unconventional personal life. However, she hovered on the edges of the upper class, valued for the singing talent that made her an entertainment attraction in private musical evenings.111 The theatrical portrait of Mabel Batten made by J.S. Sargent in 1897 bears only

a fleeting resemblance to the refined and elegant visage of Violet’s vision drawn only four

110 http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1904/09/11/page/60/article/the-romance-of-lady- ulrica-duncombe-whose-beauty-was-home-made 111 https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/jul/02/sargent-portraits-of-artists- friends-review-new-york-met

years earlier (fig. 1.5). Sargent’s portrait is centred on the singer’s heaving chest, caught in

mid-song, and angled to mimic the perspective of a spectator seated immediately below the

subject at a close intimate distance, perhaps at a private upper-class event.

Where Sargent has focused on the difference between Mrs. Batten and the conventional

upper-class woman by depicting her in this theatrical and eroticized manner, the Duchess of

Rutland has inscribed her into the pantheon of female portraits in the same manner as she

has minimized the differentiation between those subjects who are members of different

cliques or categories of the upper class. She does not seem interested in depicting a visual

representation of the different forms of personal interaction or qualities of the various

group dynamics that she may have shared with her subjects, in creating a taxonomy of the

upper class, nor even of emphasizing the personal unique features that create subject

identification. The Duchess’s intention appears to be to create a formulaic visual typography

for the women that she includes in her portfolio of female portraits. Her amateur status and

the restriction of portrait images to those women with whom she forged a personal contact

resulted in the creation of a type of image for a constructed subset of the upper-class

woman and promoted the idea of a physical type as a unifying and identifying feature of this proposed subset.

In the years between 1890 and 1914, the tight, insular relationships that created the web of association defining and binding the upper class were eroded by the large influx of the aspiring plutocracy. In his book tracing the impact of the English plutocracy on the

aristocracy at the turn of the twentieth century, the historian Mordaunt Crook discusses the acceleration of infiltration of the nouveau riche into the upper class.112 Crook suggests that the process of integrating the newly ennobled entrants was not a simple one of assimilation whereby the plutocrats adopted the behaviour, dress, and style of the existing upper class.

He argues that, particularly in the expanding capital city of London, the process was more reciprocal, with the upper class also adapting to the more ostentatious style of the newcomers.113 An increased focus on extravagant display affected all aspects of upper-class

existence, with fashion and visibility triumphing over privacy and genteel understatement.

The image of the upper class shifted as lines of class distinction were being redefined and

reified visually.

I suggest that the female portrait images drawn by the Duchess of Rutland constituted a

personal response to the unstable visual image of the upper-class woman. In the terms

contemplated by Elias, the figuration of the group that the Duchess formed through her

portrait images acted as a counterweight to the challenges of social reconstitution by

suggesting an alternate portrayal of an upper-class identity. Taken as a group, the portraits

assert a cohesive and identifiable alternative to the identification of the upper-class woman

112 He notes that, “Between 1885 and 1914 the number of baronets doubled, and the number of knights bachelor trebled. Between 1892 and 1896, 35 percent of new peers came from non-landed backgrounds; between 1897 and 1911, it was 43 per cent. And the number of City men involved was strikingly high; a dozen peerages and a score of baronetcies were awarded to merchant bankers. Inevitably it was suspected that money played an increasing part in this process.” J. Mordaunt Crook, The Rise of the Nouveaux Riches: Style and Status in Victorian and Edwardian Architecture. (London: John Murray, 1999), 162. 113 Crook, The Rise of the Nouveaux Riches, 155.

as a closed and fixed classification for one that was based on the artist’s personal criteria for

inclusion. The space opened through the displacement of existing criteria of visual identification created not only a discourse surrounding the challenge and resistance to the status quo but also an opportunity to offer additional bases for class determination. Each female subject depicted by the Duchess was connected to her in the web of relationships that constituted her social and personal parameters. The visual congruity of the portraits binds the subjects together in a common socius and attests to the individual bond between each sitter and the artist. In the aggregate of the images, the Duchess of Rutland actively constructed her own definition of the female upper class, claiming legitimacy for her vision through her personal relationships with her subjects and her participation in the figuration of the groups and relationships that formed the basis of these relationships. The drawings constitute both a record of the women that the Duchess was exposed to in the course of her experience and an attempt to redefine what it meant to be an upper-class female in the societal discourses of the era, offering her perspective on Aestheticism, eugenics, and commemoration through the embedded meanings of her portraits.

AESTHETICISM

The Duchess of Rutland fashioned both her appearance and her life in the style of an

Aesthetic work of art. Prior to her marriage, she sat on numerous occasions as a model for

Watts, Poynter, and Burne-Jones, each recognized for his creation of the visual image of the

Aesthetic female. An interview with the Duchess at her home in the 1890s described her as

a three-dimensional representation of the imagined Aesthetic ideal: “She reminds you of an

embodied poem of Tennyson’s; of a mystic being who has stepped out of some wondrous

picture by Watts or Burne-Jones; of a sea king’s daughter from over the sea; of a princess in

a fairy tale; of your idea of Ophelia or Dante’s Beatrice.”114 The imaginary female counterparts to the Duchess of Rutland are all women from an elite class, and they are positioned in their respective myths as romantic heroines. These connections were not random; they were the result of a conscious image projected by the Duchess through her appearance and presence. A description of the Duchess based on the memories of her daughter Diana depicts a woman with a fixed vision based on the Aesthetic model:

Violet had very determined ideas about beauty, which were firmly rooted in a

romanticized past. Everything bright, new and modern, including the bustles and

buttoned boots of the day, was dismissed with a shudder as ugly and common. She

also despised the fashion of heavy chignons, dressing her own hair a la grèque with

the family tiara worn back to front for grand occasions. This prompted King Edward

to remark that she never seemed to brush her hair. Her clothes – dyed in tea to

relieve them of their glaring whiteness – fell in soft folds from a cinched waist, and

she could never resist historical touches like tricorne hats, Florentine sleeves or

Byronic ruffles.115

These memories of her daughter reinforce the observations of the reporter and reveal a

woman who took great care to ensure a consistency of presentation that was intended to

114 “The Marchioness of Granby,” The Woman at Home (London, England), 1895, vol. IV, 16. 115 Artemis Cooper, The Diana Scrapbook (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1987), p.40.

evoke a sense of an historical or imagined past, promoting herself publicly and privately as

an epic figure through materialism and performance. The duration and level of constancy

suggest a fervent commitment to the ideas and visual markers of Aestheticism that

permeated her view of existence.

The portrait images of women drawn by the Duchess of Rutland suggest that she extended

this fascination with the Aesthetic female to her subjects, moulding them into a desired

type. This is an idea that was familiar to the Duchess through her long relationship with

Edward Burne-Jones and G.F. Watts. The diary entries maintained by the Duchess record that in 1878 she sat for Burne-Jones numerous times to provide him with head drawings for his painting The Golden Stairs (fig. 1.6). This painting, which depicts eighteen young women descending a floating staircase, exemplifies the idea of similarity and difference noted in the portraits drawn by the Duchess. Each figure is individual and yet they blend into a greater type, forming an overall vision of symbolic beauty. If we compare the Duchess’s image of

Pamela Wyndham in 1895, the year of Pamela Wyndham’s marriage to Edward Tennant

(later Lord Glenconner) (fig. 1.7) to the young women in The Golden Stairs, the similarities are patent. The young women of the Burne-Jones’s painting and the Duchess’s portrait of

Pamela Wyndham share the same oval face, narrowing to a slightly pointed chin. Each portrait limns the same arched eyebrows over wide-set arresting eyes. Each portrays a straight nose and a perfectly modeled mouth. However, most important, each subject gazes soulfully and solemnly. These are not women who are preoccupied with blindly adhering to the changing trends of fashion or the social competition of Society. These women are

placed in a temporally ambiguous space, emphasizing a spiritual beauty through line of

feature and expression. A similar comparison can be made between the Duchess’s drawing

of her cousin, Nina Welby (later Mrs. Cust) and the painting by Sir Edward J. Poynter of the

classical figure of Helen dated 1881 (figs. 1.8 and 1.9). The diary of the Duchess similarly records her sitting to Poynter as a model on numerous occasions in the late 1870s. Again, in the female figure of each work we can note the oval face, the identical arch to the eyebrows, the large soulful eyes, the straight nose and the full, and somewhat sad mouth.

In this case, the similarity is particularly striking as a result of the similar pouf of curls atop

each forehead.

These artistic references raise the question of intention. Why has the Duchess of Rutland chosen to infuse her female subjects with the aura of the Aesthetic beauty? In contrast to the paintings of Burne-Jones and Poynter, the Duchess’s drawings are presented as portraits of specific known figures, a shift in expectation from the concept of the sitter as anonymous model for a subject painting. At the end of the nineteenth century, portraiture was the dominant form of art in England, presided over by a number of internationally renowned portrait artists such as J.S. Sargent or Philip de Lazslo. As Gabriel Badea-Paun identified in his book on Society Portraiture, portraiture in this period drew heavily on the idea of the swagger portrait, with images designed to be added to the pantheon of dynastic portraits lining the portrait galleries of large country estates. In these commissions, the final product of the portrait was constrained by the parameters of the purposes of the commission, the need to provide a recognizable likeness in an ambiance of power and

status.116 In contrast, I suggest that the portrait drawings of the Duchess of Rutland allowed a much greater scope for the depiction of the vision of the artist, in which the expression of the ideas of the Duchess competed with the individual identity of the sitter through the aesthetics of the image. In considering a similar approach to portraiture used by Degas,

Elizabeth Bronfen draws attention to Degas’s portrait images as an uneasy alliance between the artist’s signature and the alterity of the model.117 As suggested by Kate Flint in her

discussion of the portraits of Millais, a portrait is a form of dialogue between the artist and

subject, and as such, the portrait image can be viewed simultaneously as a self-portrait of

the artist, a portrait of the sitter, and a subject painting connecting to the cultural context of

the period of production.118 The portrait comes to represent a multitude of competing

visions and purposes: the sitter as individual, as a representative of her gender and class, as

the symbol of the aesthetic values attributed to her, and as a cipher of the artist’s vision.

The predominate focus of the portrait is the result of the negotiation between artist and

subject between these potential objectives. For Elias, this form of negotiation can be

understood as a power dynamic that stands as a structural characteristic of a

relationship.119 In other words, the female portraits can also be seen as the visual

116 Gabriel Badea-Paun, The Society Portrait from David to Warhol (New York: The Vendome Press, 2007), 135. 117 Elisabeth Bronfen, “Facing Defacement: Degas’s Portraits of Women,” Degas Portraits, ed. Felix Baumann and Marianne Karabelnik (London: Merrell Holberton, 1994), 247. 118 Kate Flint, “Portraits of Women: On Display,” Millais Portraits, intro. By Peter Funnell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 188. 119 Dunning and Hughes summarize Elias’s position on power as asserting that power is “many-sided and inherent in all relationships” and “that the key to understanding power lies in the interdependency of people.” Dunning and Hughes, Norbert Elias, 67.

representation of the personal power dynamic in the relationship between artist and

subject.

Having regard to this theoretical structure, the simplest answer to the question of why the

Duchess infused her portraits with ideas of Aestheticism is to interpret the female portraits

by the Duchess of Rutland as an expression of her own personal vision of life and beauty

that she then impressed upon her subjects. Her biography suggests a personal investment

in the ideals of Aestheticism, underpinned by the value system attributed to that movement

and style in late Victorian England. Henry James commented that Burne-Jones “cultivated an art of culture, of reflection, of intellectual luxury, of aesthetic refinement, of people who look at the world and at life not directly, as it were, and in all its accidental reality, but in the reflection and ornamental portrait of it.”120 The Duchess of Rutland attempted to embody this statement in the manner in which she lived her life, or at least in the manner in which she visually presented her life. The assertion that every portrait is a form of self-portrait is generally meant on a metaphorical level, that the artist exposes his or her own subjectivity in the form and composition of the portrait. This sentiment was clearly expressed in Oscar

Wilde’s only novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, published in 1890, when the artist of the infamous portrait, Basil Hallward, explains why he refuses to exhibit the painting: “Every painting that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the

120 Fabian Frohlick, “The Mirror of Venus,” Edward Burne-Jones: The Earthly Paradise, ed. C. Conrad and A. Zettel (Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, 2010), 99.

77 painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself.”121 The reference to the image of the

Aesthetic female produced in the works of Watts, Poynter, and Burne-Jones, each of whom had used the Duchess as a model, can be understood in this sense, as a personal vision of the artist. The selection of the Duchess as model was not intended as a revelation of her personal subjectivity; it was an indication of her adaptation to this Aesthetic vision in her personal presentation. The portraits produced by the Duchess are another form of continuation of this romantic form of female image, a personal method of forcing the exterior world to conform to the values and desired appearance of her inner vision.

However, the idea of self-portrait can also be applied here in a more literal sense.

In many of her female portraits the Duchess has more directly cast her sitters in her own mould. One of the first portraits of Violet is the painting made by G.F. Watts in 1879 (fig.

1.10), prior to her marriage. Watts was a family friend. He knew her great-uncle Coutts

Lindsay and in 1879 did a portrait of her father, Hon. Charles Lindsay, that Violet commissioned through an impassioned letter to the painter. He painted Violet in almost full profile looking to the viewer’s left. She is depicted with the features of a classical statue: finely arched brows over large deep eyes, a straight nose with a hint of sharpness at the tip; a short upper lip over a full but solemn mouth. Finally, the rounded chin in the portrait translates into a soft but firm jaw and a delicate, shell-like ear. However, the striking feature of the portrait is the expression of introspection. Violet’s eyes are downcast but her gaze is turned inward. She is unaware of the painter and of the viewer, lost in her own deep

121 Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 8.

thoughts. This aura of soulful introspection was part of Violet’s distinctive personal style

even at this early age, which she emphasized by wearing diaphanous gowns in faded colours

and trailing veils and scarves and ribbons. Watts responded to her style in this first painting

of her in 1879. In the negotiation between artist and subject as to the form of the image,

Violet’s self-identification as Aesthetic female and Watt’s artistic vision for the female

image harmonized into a unified approach where the female image acted as an allegory for

an ethereal spirituality. When Watts exhibited the portrait in 1881 at the Grosvenor it bore

the title “Reverie.” He painted a second version in 1881 in different colours, with a higher

degree of finish and facing the subject in the opposite direction (fig. 1.11). This second image was exhibited regularly in England in the 1880s, and in 1893 in Munich; in 1894 it formed part of an exhibition with the avant-garde Belgian symbolists. As Barbara Bryant describes it in her catalogue of Watts’s portrait images, “The almost withdrawn quality of the sitter has a psychological dimension that reveals how Violet served as a Symbolist muse in this portrait.”122 The portrait drawing that Violet, the Duchess of Rutland later made of

Charlotte Tennant (later Lady Ribblesdale) in the 1890s can be described in virtually

identical terms (fig. 1.12). Although the Duchess has drawn in pencil where Watts has used

paint, the images are remarkably similar. The hairline of each figure hovers close to the

facial features, and the fine line of the brow arches in the same curve above a deep-set eye

half-open and deeply shaded. The replication of shading is quite striking, particularly if one

notes the similarity of shadow delineating the line of jaw and separating the visage of the

122 Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts Portraits: Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2004), 161.

subject from the background. Lady Ribblesdale is another soulful goddess, an echo of the

constructed self-image of Violet Lindsay captured and created by Watts.

We can see a greater involvement in self-fashioning in the portraits painted of the Duchess

by James Jebusa Shannon. Trained by Sir Edward Poynter, Shannon was only twenty-five in

1887 when the Duchess of Rutland (then the Marchioness of Granby) offered him a

commission to paint a full-length portrait of her. Perhaps introduced by Poynter, this was

the first of a number of portraits painted by Shannon of the Duchess and her family.123 The

correspondence between the two indicates that she was an important patron to his

bourgeoning career, introducing him to potential subjects. The tone of the correspondence,

when compared to that of the Duchess with Watts or with Burne-Jones, indicates a much

more unequal relationship, with Shannon clearly the obsequious supplicant rather than

artistic mentor.124 While there was likely a similar correlation in the desired vision of the

Aesthetic female, the Duchess took a more active agency in determining the composition of the image. She was no longer the anonymous subject of a noted artist; this was an image intended for public display and future commemoration of personal identity (fig. 1.13).125

The turn of her face, her expression, and the soulful gaze of her eyes echoes the form of

123 Barbara Dayer Gallati suggests that Shannon first came to the attention of the Duchess in 1888 when he exhibited a painting at the Grosvenor Gallery. However, the Duchess’s diary entries indicate sittings with Shannon in 1887. Barbara Dayer Gallati, “Paintings by James Jebusa Shannon,” American Art Review XXVI, No. 3 (2014), 105. 124 Letters found in the Archives of Belvoir Castle, England. 125 Photographs taken of the Duchess by her brother show her experimenting with various poses and expressions in anticipation of the portrait, ensuring that the image presented and preserved expressed the desired Aesthetic persona. Archives at Belvoir Castle.

image the Duchess cultivated in her relationship as subject to Watts, Poynter and Burne-

Jones and the presentation of the Aesthetic female she perpetuated in her own portrait

works, rendering each image a form of self-portrait.126

Even more directly, the Duchess’s self-portrait (fig. 1.14) is both a transformation of her image into a Burne-Jones prototype and a model for the re-contextualization of her own female subjects.127 In her self-portrait, she is turned to a three-quarter pose, angled to view

herself in the mirror. She has presented herself in a very particular aspect. Her hair is loose

and wildly cascading about her shoulders. She gazes soulfully out into the distance,

appearing other-worldly with her sharp and yet delicate features. The resemblance to the

Burne-Jones model is patent. Her wide, deep-set eyes, long oval face, strong nose, and

delicate mouth echo the features of the Medusa in the Burne-Jones painting The Finding of

Medusa, part of his Perseus and Andromeda series (fig. 1.15), a resemblance that is

emphasized by the similarly wild, untamed hair. Burne-Jones’s Medusa is still an Aesthetic

beauty. She bears the oval face, the straight nose and full mouth of the type. However, in

126 A similar agency in the composition of the portrait is evidenced in the relationship between photographs taken by the Duchess of her children in a large silver bowl and the portrait of the children painted by Shannon in 1890. The Duchess’s conscious interest in promoting a specific image is also seen in the photographs of her children that she took from birth. She had them pose with specified expressions and then noted whether the expressions were “good” or “bad”. Photographs found in the Archives of Belvoir Castle. 127 In her Record of Portraits, the Duchess notes the self-portrait as a Burne-Jones image. Archives of Belvoir Castle. This influence was also recognized by a number of the journals of the day. For example, reviews of her book of portraits, Portraits of Men and Women, generally identified the influence of both G.F Watts and E. Burne-Jones in her portraits, but specifically noted the self-portrait as an “imitation” of the work of Burne-Jones. Daily Telegraph & Courier (London), Tuesday, December 26, 1899, 9.

this instance the eyes are not as much soulful as eerie. There is an unsettling dissonance in

her expression. Burne-Jones’s Medusa is not a depiction of pure evil. There is a sadness in

her expression, perhaps a regret for the death and danger she represents. Like the Medusa,

the self-image of the Duchess, with its transfixing gaze, integrates the qualities of beauty, deep sadness, and eerie otherness that make the Medusa an ambivalent figure. The resemblance to the Burne-Jones figure is even more evident if we consider a preliminary drawing by Burne-Jones for his painting The Beguiling of Merlin (fig. 1.16). In this image, the similar medium and facial pose draw attention to the echo between the works. Through her self-representation that emphasizes an androgynous wildness focused on her shaded eyes and energized hair, the Duchess has transformed herself from an aristocratic matron into a mythological figure of romance. She emerges as the emanation of Nimue, The Lady of Lake from Arthurian legend.

We can make a similar comparison between the Duchess’s portrait of Mrs. J. Baghot made in 1890; her 1895 portrait of Lady Dixon Poynder (Later Lady Islington); and the Burne-Jones painting of The Finding of Medusa (figs. 1.17, 1.18, and 1.15). The large, wide, staring eyes

fixed on a point over the shoulder of the viewer in the Burne-Jones figure of Medusa are

replicated in each of the two drawings made by the Duchess of Rutland, tinging the beauty

of each subject with a similar sense of the untamed and the eerie. A comparison between these drawings and the self-portrait of the Duchess suggests a similar connection to the

Burne-Jones image (fig. 1.14). In this comparison, we can perceive Lady Dixon Poynder and then Mrs. Baghot as increasingly diluted versions of the Duchess herself. In the Duchess’s

self-portrait, the image is carefully delineated and shaded. The viewer is immediately drawn

to the eyes of the subject. The shading is precise. We can see the crease of the eye, the dark

lashes surrounding the ringed iris and the bruising shadows that both indicate the deep-set quality of the eyes and metaphorically hint at the tragedy of the figure. In the portrait of

Lady Dixon Poynder, there is a similar fine crafting of feature. Again, the eye of the subject predominates and the details of the drawing trace the fold of the crease, the light iris, and the shadows that surround the eye. However, the effect is less arresting, perhaps because the gaze of the subject is directed to the left of the viewer. There are also technical differences in the depiction of the features that lessen the dramatic contrast that is so striking in the self-portrait. The fold of the eye is less intense, the contrast between ring and iris less hypnotic, and the shadows less violent. In the portrait of Mrs. Baghot the dilution continues. Although the eyes are the most carefully drawn aspect of the image they are not the most riveting detail. The odd and somewhat repellent mouth has turned Mrs. Baghot into a more active and less ambiguous form of legendary temptress. The combination of sadness and the uncanny that emanates from the eyes of the portrayed subject and that makes the figure in the self-portrait and in the portrait of Lady Dixon Poynder so intriguing is less evident here. The crease of the eyes is nominal, the shading of the iris less subtle and the shading of the eyes is minimal. While the self-portrait of the Duchess of Rutland acknowledged her full commitment to living the Aesthetic life, the demand that the portrait image be a form of representation of the sitter tempered her ability to transform her peers into Aesthetic replicas with the same vigour. However, the consistent imprint of her

Aesthetic model on these disparate women in negotiation of the expectations of portraiture

equally spoke to the importance of this quality in the meaning she attributed to her work.

The correlation between the portraits of the Duchess of Rutland as subject, the portraits of

upper-class women drawn by the Duchess, and the paintings of Aesthetic women that were

prevalent in this time frame support the argument that the Duchess of Rutland was

recreating her social world within her own fabrication of an imagined female identity based

on her sympathies with the ideas and images surrounding the Aesthetic female of which she

was an exemplar and model. Yet we must also consider these images as more than a

personal conceit. The Duchess of Rutland was a product of her time and her context. As

Catherine Soussloff points out in her discussion of late 19th-century portraits, portraiture rests in an uneasy juncture. It is both an image invested with ideas of the “subject” and a material object that can be considered on historical terms. The production of the portrait and the perspective of the viewer are both influenced by the historical context and the discursive realm in which the portrait is encountered.128 If we consider the collective portraits drawn by the Duchess as social documents, what were the contextual values that

Violet was attempting to visually perpetuate?

In her book tracing the cultural relevance of King Arthur in 19th-century Britain, Debra

Mancoff identifies the legend as an ideological vehicle for the transmission of ideas of both

128 Catherine M. Soussloff, The Subject in Art: Portraiture and the Birth of the Modern (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2006) 24.

personal morality and national identity. The re-emergence of Arthurian tales corresponded

with and contributed to the early 19th-century Gothic revival in which the upper class

reacted to cultural, economic, and political attacks on class by reasserting themselves in the

guise of the chivalric ideal, imbuing the Gothic model with Victorian values. The upper class

was presented as composed of natural leaders, reaffirming the model of patriarchal

hierarchy, and asserting this aristocratic model as the symbol of British national identity,

which was visualized through the narrative depictions of artists such as William Dyce and

architectural monuments like the new Westminster Palace of 1837 and ideologically framed

through the literary works of authors such as Sir Walter Scott and Thomas Carlyle.

Mancoff notes that Gothic fashion and the Arthurian legends lost focus as the century

progressed, as they were adopted and adapted for a variety of purposes. With the death of

Prince Albert in the mid-19th century, and the rise of discourse on the changing values of

British society and its Imperial mandate in the later nineteenth century, the idea of reimagining an Arthurian past in a Victorian present became increasingly unrealistic.129

However, she argues, this imagined past remained a powerful trope for artists like Burne-

Jones, who continued to provide an escapist vision of a world of chivalry and beauty,

129 Prince Albert had been a vocal advocate for the return of Arthurian values of chivalry, duty, and moral leadership, and the publication of the Idylls of the King by Tennyson in 1859 was arguably intended to invoke the concept of Victorian Britain as a new Camelot. In the period after the death of Prince Albert in 1861, there was increasing discussion and controversy over the moral mandate of Britain to extend its Empire and over its internal social and moral development. The altered social context arguably shifted the perceived meaning of Tennyson’s work, imbuing it with greater nostalgia. See Jeff Rosen, Julia Margaret Cameron’s ‘fancy subjects’: Photographic Allegories of Victorian Identity and Empire (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), 250—255.

removed from modern experience.130 The Camelot imagined by later nineteenth-century artists was a place of elevated thought and intensity of experience centred primarily on an elite aristocratic society and, in part, visually invested in the peculiar Aesthetic beauty of the female. The children’s book King Arthur’s Knights written by Henry Gilbert and published in

1911, is one example of this continuation of the Arthurian legend. The first chapter describes how “King Arthur Won His Kingdom.” Initially rejected by the nobility of the realm as being lower born, Arthur, the young boy who has drawn Excalibur from the stone, proves his worth in battle and is unveiled as the son of Uther Pendragon, the most powerful nobleman of his time. Even in 1911 the ability to be the leader among men is predicated on and legitimized by the idea of noble birth.131 The accompanying illustrations by Walter

Crane continue to draw upon the same tropes of ethereal beauty to establish the spiritual and moral authority of the female.132 For instance, in the image of the Lady of the Lake (fig.

1.19) the profiled female figure shares many of the features of the Duchess’s female

130 Debra N. Mancoff, The Arthurian Revival in Victorian Art (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1990), chapter 5. 131 Henry Gilbert, King Arthur’s Knights (London: Bracken Books, 1911), 31, 132 In these images, Crane follows the tradition of Julia Margaret Cameron in her photographic illustrations to Tennyson’s Idylls of the King, first published in 1874. In her analysis of these illustrations, Amelia Scholtz identifies the sense of nostalgia evoked. Scholtz argues that by placing these figures out of a specific time and place, and by limiting the individuality of facial feature and emotion of the subjects, the images suggest the attempt to recuperate an imagined past. Camelot exists as an idea that oscillates between presence and absence. Amelia Scholtz, “Photographs Before Photography: Marking Time in Tennyson’s and Cameron’s Idylls of the King,” Literature Interpretation Theory 24 (2013), 115, 120, 134. In considering the same images, Jeff Rosen points to Cameron’s presentation of the female figure in symbolic poses of “solitary introspection,” translating the figure into an emblem of character, faith, and inner moral strength that is focused on the creation of national identity. Rosen, Julia Margaret Cameron’s ‘fancy subjects’, 239–242.

86 subjects, including the straight nose, the luminous nose and the long oval face of the aristocrat.

Norbert Elias noted that, in times of declining aristocratic power, it was not uncommon for the upper class to retreat to a fictional world where prior glory was reinstated. In his consideration of the court society of the ancient regime in France, he identified the romantic knight as a recurring theme, a reflection of the pre-industrial and pre-modern era of the aristocratic warrior. Art in particular, he wrote, served as a “social enclave to which the politically defeated or disempowered can retreat. Here, in daydreams that have been given shape, ideals can be pursued even when harsh reality has denied them victory.”133

This is perhaps exemplified in the Camelot images of Burne-Jones. In The Sleep of King

Arthur in Avalon, the mystical and mythical ambiance of the image evokes ideas of the daydream (fig. 1.20). King Arthur, the symbol of the golden age of Britain, lies on his funeral bower, surrounded by a circle of grieving and beautiful women, all of them rendered in the

Aesthetic image of beauty. Fiona MacCarthy describes the painting as “a weird and

133 Norbert Elias, The Court Society, trans. by Edmund Jephcott (Dublin: University College Dublin Press, 1969), 265. At the turn of the twentieth century, the idea of Camelot merged loosely with ideas of medievalism generally, spawning operatic performances of Tristan and Iseult, theatrical performances that linked modern aristocrats with their medieval ancestors, subject paintings of King Arthur specifically and of a romanticized past generally, and entered into the daily lexicon through advertisements, cartoons, and historical Pageants. The prevalent interest in England’s medieval past prompted Punch to quip about the “rage for the Middle Ages” in 1912. Punch, or the London Charivari, July 24, 1912, 82.

87 dreamlike distillation of grief,” Burne-Jones mourning an England that he saw disintegrating around him.134

In contrast to Mancoff’s reading, Elizabeth Prettejohn, along with other scholars including

Caroline Arscott and David Peters Corbett, expressly denies the identification of Burne-

Jones’s art as escapist or elitist. She argues that Burne-Jones avoids the traditional narrative and compositional techniques used to provide clear affirmations of political hierarchy. His figures are personifications rather than real people acting in a narrative role. The ethical and social significance of his work is intrinsic in the beauty and the intricate craftsmanship of the work itself and does not need to take the form of delivering a direct moral or political message.135 The positions of Mancoff and Prettejohn are not necessarily irreconcilable. It is not necessary for the image to portray a specific narrative in which the aristocracy is presented as society’s natural leaders in order to trigger a chain of association in the viewer that leads through the nineteenth century, whereby the image of the Aesthetic beauty evokes a sense of a pre-industrial past of heroes and glory.

134 Fiona MacCarthy, Tate website, https://www.tate.org.uk/context- comment/articles/visionary-oddity. 135 Elizabeth Prettejohn, Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), chapter 8. A similar perspective could be attributed to a number of the artists associated with the Duchess of Rutland. I have previously noted the relabelling of Watts’s portrait of the Duchess as the symbolic icon of the mood of ‘Reverie’, translating her from particular portrait subject to a personification of a mental state.

In Walter Pater’s essays in Studies in the History of the Renaissance, written in 1873, he acknowledged that the purported intention of artists in adopting the Aesthetic ideal of art, to create a work that was solely self-reflective, focused only on the immediate beauty and sensuality of its materiality, fails to acknowledge the ever-present influence of past forms and their continuing associative relevance in the experience of the artwork.136 I have argued that the portraiture of the Duchess of Rutland was intended to have meaning beyond a representation of the subject, drawing on the Aesthetic ideal of beauty. However, as suggested by Pater, these drawings also did not exist solely within the idea of art for art’s sake, raising the question of the extent to which the portraits participated in the cultural or political discourse of their time through the use of continuing associative values attributed to the portrait image. In this context, the use by the Duchess of Rutland of this Aesthetic female model of beauty was, as in the case of Burne-Jones, not intended to didactically or directly assert a political or social message on the position of the upper class. However, through allusive reference to the imagined world of Camelot, she continued to suggestively direct the viewer toward the conflation of the image and the idea of an idyllic time removed from the crass emblems of modernity, a fairytale time when an elite society ruled over a kingdom of romance and ideals. Although many of the pictorial references I have suggested for comparison with the Duchess’s portraits do not specifically refer to the King Arthur story, they share with that tale a sensibility of a legendary epoch, a time of heroism and ideals.

136 Walter Pater, Studies in the History of The Renaissance, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), conclusion.

Furthermore, I suggest a commonality in the mood of impending or inevitable end, a wistfulness in the self-awareness of tragedy that permeates the female figures of the Burne-

Jones painting and that is recreated in the portraits produced by the Duchess of Rutland. As the Duchess simultaneously offered a vision for the upper class in the modern world she arguably did so, either consciously or subconsciously, with an undertone of fatalism and futility, rendering her definition of the upper-class woman a valiant assertion of values and ideals that were being eliminated in the social reconstitution of class perceptions. More important, the images used by the Duchess to make these value associations were not anonymous models or even recognizable figures divested of their named identities. These subjects were the real and living figures of the Duchess’s world – the family, friends, and acquaintances that she translated into a socius where the imagined past co-existed with the modern present.

PHYSIOLOGY AND EUGENICS

In addition to drawing on the ideas of Aestheticism and the fantasy of a connection to a mythical past of hierarchical rule, I suggest that the Duchess’s portraits also utilized conventional physiological associations attributed to the portrait genre and discourses on eugenics that populated the contemporary popular press that linked physical attributes to moral worth. The effect of this conflation was the creation of an aristocratic ideal linking aesthetic, physical, and moral superiority. Through such associations, the Duchess

positioned her socius of female images as a symbolic collective of the upper–class female

and public model for cultural and spiritual leadership in the modern world.

The idea that the character and personality could be discerned visually through

identification of external facial features or skull shape was popularly recognized throughout

the nineteenth century. The theory of physiology, the ability to identify the character of the

subject based on facial features, derived from the eighteenth-century writings of Johann

Caspar Lavater. Phrenology, a theory developed by Franz Josef Gall in 1796, attributed

mental qualities to various portions of the skull. As Allan Sekula points out, both used the

language of empiricism to “construct a materialist science of the self.”137 Both methods

focus on the head as the site of privilege, emphasizing the importance of intelligence over

manual labour in an increasingly industrial world and providing a method for identification

of the character and the personality in an alienated urban context where personal

knowledge of contacts was limited compounding the opportunity for disguise and deceit.138

Although this discourse enjoyed greatest currency in the earlier and mid-nineteenth century, in the later 1800s, ideas of a correlative relationship between internal and external characteristics formed the implicit basis for the scientific use of photographic portraiture as a social tool as developed by Francis Galton in his theories on eugenics.139

137 Allan Sekula, “The Body and the Archive,” October Vol. 39 (Winter, 1986), 11. 138 Ibid. 139 Galton’s theories participated in a culture of surveillance and classification during the nineteenth century that drew on the ability of the camera to record likenesses as a form of visual evidence. Peter Hamilton suggests that this use of the portrait as a form of scientific classification can be translated to the domestic and social portraiture of the period, evidencing a similar desire to stratify and classify “in a period obsessed with taxonomy and

In 1879, Galton extended his abstract ideas to the visual arena, creating the first scientific

use of the ‘composite portrait.’ The composite portrait was formulated by taking

photographic head images of various subjects of a determined group on the same

photographic plate. In this manner, the portraits were layered one atop the next resulting in

an image where all common features were emphasized and differing features appeared as

indistinct blurring around the resultant portrait visage. He presented his composite portrait

at a meeting of the Royal Institution of Great Britain on April 25, 1879, contrasting the

composite image with the facial recognition process of the human mind. In the composite,

he argued, there are “so many traits in common, to combine and to reinforce on another, that they prevail to the exclusion of the rest. All that is common remains, all that is individual tends to disappear.”140 For Galton, the composite was a scientific process of

pictorial statistics that generated a visual image of the ‘type’. In contrast, he suggested that

normal mental images of faces emphasize the different or extraordinary, allowing the

similarities of type to pass unremarked. For Galton, “The human mind is therefore a most

imperfect apparatus for the elaboration of general ideas.”141 The only exception he accommodated was for the eye of the portrait artist. If artists are possessed of the

social order.” See Peter Hamilton, “Policing the Face,” The Beautiful and the Damned: The Creation of Identity in Nineteenth Century Photography (London: Lund Humphries, 2001), 57. Galton’s ideas of the visual transmission of hereditary qualities were echoed in France with the work of the physical anthropologist, Alphonse Bertillon, who compiled a series of frontal and profile portraits that he organized into a card classification system. 140 Francis Galton, Generic Images with Autotype Illustrations (London: Reprinted from the ‘Proceedings of the Royal Institution,’ 1879), 3. 141 Ibid, 9.

visualising power in a high degree … they are at the same time pre-eminently distinguished

by their gifts of generalization,” with the result that they are “the most capable of

producing forms that … represent the characteristic features of classes.”142 I suggest that this concept should be applied to the collection of portraits drawn by the Duchess of

Rutland, and that her portraits of upper-class women should be understood in the context of this prevailing discourse.

Francis Galton first introduced the term of ‘eugenics’ in 1883 as part of his argument to extend the premise of hereditary transfer of characteristics to social policy. The portrait images incorporated by him in his composites had no individual meaning apart from their context of use. As David Green identified in his article on photography and eugenics, the intelligibility of photographic portraits can only be judged “with regard to the functions they intended to facilitate and the objectives which they serve in social activity.”143 In the case of

Galton’s composites, the focus on the similarity of feature was intended to facilitate a

procedure for classification of moral worth based on external appearance.144

142 Ibid, 2. 143 David Green, “Veins of Resemblance: Photography and Eugenics,” Oxford Art Journal Vol.7, No. 2, Photography (1984), 4. 144 Allan Sekula reconfigured this idea in his concept of the archive as forming the structural basis for the taxonomic ordering of photographic images. Sekula argued that “the Galtonian composite can be seen as the collapsed version of the archive. In this blurred configuration, the archive attempts to exist as a potent single image, and the single image attempts to achieve the authority of the archive, of the general, abstract proposition. Sekula, “The Body and the Archive.” 54.

The Duchess’s portrait drawings operated in this environment in which the use of eugenics as a tool of social planning was being seriously considered, and in which, as mentioned in the introduction, the determination of hierarchy of encouraged qualities remained a subject of debate and consideration. Although not layered into one composite image, the Duchess’s female portraits, with their repeated emphasis on certain characteristics, served to reinforce the impression of those collective attributes on the perception of the viewer, particularly when viewed in proximity to one another. The traits the Duchess envisioned as constituting the ideal image of the upper-class woman were then available for analysis in a milieu where the idea that external characteristics could reveal internal qualities continued to guide public perception. Legitimized by the writings of Galton that exalted the eye of the artist as capable of performing the same generalizing function of the composite, the

Duchess of Rutland’s portrait images offered a definition of the upper-class female as representing worthy qualities deserving of preservation and encouragement in a biologically designed future.

COMMEMORATION

The Duchess’s portrait images, as we have seen, mobilize an ideal type of Aesthetic beauty that, in the age of Galton, suggest moral as well as physical distinction. The implicit argument for preservation the portraits articulate – whether through allusion to the heroic aristocracy of an Arthurian or Gothic past or suggestions of evolutionary fitness – is also, I contend, made through their reference to commemorative portraiture. In linking her

contemporary subjects to traditional artforms: the portrait bust, the profile portrait, and

the Aesthetic subject painting, the Duchess’s portrait series also suggests the legitimacy of

the political and cultural authority of the upper class.

Traditionally and institutionally, the idea of identifying and acclaiming important historical

or cultural figures formed a primary basis for the formation of a portrait collection that had

public and political implications. Certainly, as Paul Barlow points out, the public identity of

the subject took precedence over the pictorial value of the portrait of the debate

surrounding the criteria for the National Portrait Gallery.145 In a letter to the Duchess written in 1891, Watts encouraged her to continue with her series of portrait images, reminding her that art has a mission to construct a “valuable biographical chapter of the time,” implying that her selection of portrait subjects as a collective was a statement of their value as persons of historical importance.146 The Duchess drew on the convention of the portrait series or collection to establish her portrait subjects as a group of individuals who, as subjects, were worthy of commemoration or recognition.

145 Paul Barlow, “Facing the past and present: the National Portrait Gallery and the search for ‘authentic’ portraiture,” Portraiture: Facing the Subject, ed. and intro. by Joanna Woodall (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997), 231. G.F. Watts also supplemented his allegorical and Aesthetic works with a series of portraits envisioned as “Great Men” that he intended to donate to the National Portrait Gallery. Barbara Bryant, G.F. Watts Portraits: Fame & Beauty in Victorian Society (London: National Portrait Gallery, 2014), 18. However, Lara Perry notes that the visual accuracy promoted by Watts in his “Great Men” or “hall of fame” portraits was extended to only one woman, as Watts otherwise preferred to idealize his female subjects. Lara Perry, History’s Beauties: Women and the National Portrait Gallery, 1856—1900 (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2006), 108. 146 Letter found in the records of the Duchess of Rutland located at Belvoir Castle, England.

The communication of the commemorative aspect of the portrait collection as an identifier

of notable personages worthy of emulation and respect was facilitated by the formal

qualities of the portrait drawings. Almost all of the female subjects portrayed by the

Duchess of Rutland are depicted at bust length, with few accessories and a limited portrayal

of costume. The format of the bust portrait, with its ancient Roman roots, was the

archetypal portrait form in the West, and although increasingly superseded by alternative

forms of portraiture, such as the full-length portrait or the group portrait, it remained

recognizable as the traditional form for a series of public portrait images.147 In her

consideration of James Granger’s A Biographical History of England, Marcia Pointon

identifies two fundamental associations between the portrait bust and the concept of

authority or worthiness. First, she notes the theoretical hierarchy that privileged the head

over the body and permitted it to stand synedochically for the subject as a whole.148

Second, as the head stands for the whole of the individual it also acts metaphorically as a

147 In an article on nineteenth-century social portrait photography, Roger Hargreaves acknowledges that the sculpted bust portraits of Classical Greece or Rome identified the subject as “individuals singled out for public veneration,” forming a historical basis for the perception of social portrait photography. Roger Hargreaves, “Putting Faces to the Names: Social and Celebrity Portrait Photography,” in The Beautiful and the Damned, 21. 148 Marcia Pointon, Hanging the Head: Portraiture and Social Formation in Eighteenth- Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), 56. Roger Hargreaves further identifies how the publication of the Reverend James Granger’s A Biographical History of England containing a collection of portraits of ‘significant historical figures,’ connected the idea of portraiture with biography and provided a hierarchical system of classification. Hargreaves, “Putting Faces to the Names,” 21, 22.

symbol of authority. In its association with social, political and religious hierarchical

structures, the ‘head’ represents the apex of power.149

The form of the Duchess’s portrait images also refers to the aesthetic of the sculpted classical female subject. Although more prolific in her penciled portrait drawings, the

Duchess of Rutland was also an accomplished sculptress who spent years carving a marble effigy on the death of her eldest son. She was therefore familiar with the translation of portrait images of the living into commemorative marble representation. If we compare an image of the Venus de Milo with the portrait of the Duchess of Leinster drawn by Violet,

Duchess of Rutland, in 1895, the neck and head of the statue show numerous points of correlation with those of the Duchess (figs. 1.21 and 1.22). The classical rendition of facial features in many of the Duchess’s portrait drawings has been previously noted and is dramatically evident in this comparison. The Duchess of Leinster shares with the statue the deep-set eyes, the strong straight nose, short upper lip, and finely modelled lips. However, even more striking is the manner in which the smooth expanse of the neck, cheek, and chin of the Duchess of Leinster assumes the qualities of the marble rendition of the Goddess.

The line of the chin is identical, emphasized by the upswept hairstyle curving away from the nape of the neck of each figure. The neck is a solid column, securely supporting the head

149 In presenting the female figure in the form of a head, the Duchess is inherently resisting the accepted ideology that associated the female identity with the body, as a source of biological sexuality and reproduction and as a site for commodification. See Kathy Alexis Psomiades, Beauty’s Body: Femininity and Representation in British Aestheticism, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997), introduction. However, she is using the female head as a symbol of spiritual and cultural authority rather than as representative of the intellectual apex of power.

above and suggesting the strength of the unseen figure below. In her article on Pre-

Raphaelite women, Julie Codell emphasizes the importance of physiognomy in the late

nineteenth century in forming a basis for common legibility of images through the features

and expressions of the sitters. In the contemporary parlance of physiognomy, the lack of

expression of the Duchess of Leinster, replicated in each of the female portrait images

drawn by Violet, indicates an aspiration to the spiritual. As Charles Bell had argued earlier in

the century in his Essays on The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression, published in

England in 1806 and reissued in 1824, ancient sculptors avoided the “convulsions and

distortions which are strictly natural” since, Codell summarizes, “antique sculpture

represented sublimity, calmness, and repose in order to portray the human as idealized and

divine.”150

The connection between the marble qualities of the sculpture and the Duchess’s drawings tied these portrait images to the cultural meanings attributed to the portrait bust. The primary association of the bust hearkens to the classical tradition of memorialization through bust sculpture. Starting in the seventeenth and proliferating in the eighteenth century, the male aristocracy collected ancient Roman busts and revitalized the practice through the commission of similar portrait busts of contemporary figures. The commission of a bust performed several functions relating to the personal and social status of the

150 Charles Bell, Essays on The Anatomy and Philosophy of Expression, as quoted in Julie F. Codell, “Expression over beauty: Facial Expression, Body Language, and Circumstantiality in the Paintings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,” Victorian Studies, 29:2 (Winter, 1986): 255-290, 269.

subject. It both established the subject as a model for emulation by drawing on the

associative meaning of the classical bust and placing the subject within the social strata of

aristocratic antiquarians, incorporating him within the perceived prestige of the intellectual

and cultured elite. Female commemorative busts from the classical period were mainly

confined to the elite classes and represented the status of the individual in statues and in

carved relief on tombstones and sarcophagi. The female images for the most part relied on

variations of common types, widespread throughout the Roman world, establishing a

common understanding of the message of female aristocratic values conveyed through

pose and dress. In contrast to male portrait statuary, public portraits of women were rare

reflecting the limited role of women in public service; female images remained confined

mainly to the home or as part of funerary commemoration.151 In connecting her images to the portrait bust and exhibiting these images in the public forum, the Duchess of Rutland has both drawn on the aristocratic parameters of the female classical bust and, by claiming a public audience for the images, has arguably transcended the gender traditions of the classical age to suggest an associative meaning for the image of the upper-class female that

corresponds with the form of associative meaning intended by the commission of a bust

image by the aristocratic male antiquarian. I suggest that the female portrait images drawn

by the Duchess drew on this palimpsest of connotations to create a similarly complex

mixture of status and cultural prestige for the female upper-class subjects she portrayed. In

this manner, she visually asserted the claims made by the female members of the Souls for

intellectual and cultural equality with men, and a public representation of elite and

151 Steven L. Tuck, A History of Roman Art (Malden Mass: Wiley Blackwell, 2015), 9 and 164.

99 privileged cultural superiority that emanated from her defined image of the female upper class.152

If they draw on the model of the Classical sculpted bust, the portraits of the Duchess of

Rutland are nevertheless conspicuously two-dimensional images. Comparison of one of her drawings to a photograph of Classical sculpture highlights the flattened nature of the

Duchess’s portrait busts. Although shading and modelling give her images some definition, they notably lack the rounded plasticity of three-dimensionality. In this respect, they convey a sense of absence, or a lack of direct human referent. In bust format, in their frozen stillness and lack of volume, or any expressive animation, the portraits appear to be images of a representation rather than of a living being. The translation process from living persons associated with a Classical sculptural ideal to two-dimensional pencil drawings has flattened out the subjects in psychological as well as physical dimensions. As the connection to actual, individual presence is reduced in the portraits, the associated resonance with the abstract ideas underlying such commemorations increases. The idea of the memorializing bust comes to the fore, opening the potential for association with male Roman precedent.

In the reference to the classical motif as a referent for worthiness, the Duchess of Rutland again intersected with the scientific theories of Francis Galton. Galton’s work was not

152 In this period, a number of upper-class women either commissioned or were the subject of bust sculpture. The Duchess of Rutland was the subject of a portrait bust by Sir George Frampton, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1902 as his Diploma Work for admission to the Academy.

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strictly limited to the rejuvenation of the British population. His work also extended into a

racially based hierarchy of desirable characteristics of other nations, ranking other cultures

on the basis of intelligence and civilization. In his 1869 work on Hereditary Genius, Galton’s

final chapter addressed “The Comparative Worth of Different Races,” ascribing the apex of

racial superiority to the ancient Greeks and the nadir to the Africans.153 The images attached to his printed lecture on Composite Portraits included a compilation of the likenesses of six different Roman ladies surrounding a composite of the images in the centre

(fig. 1.23). In his lecture on “Generic Images,” Galton described these profile images as depicting “A singularly beautiful combination of the faces of six different Roman ladies, forming a charming ideal profile,”154 visually reinforcing the idea of the classic female profile

as portraying the ideal of genetic breeding.

If we compare the female portrait images drawn by the Duchess of Rutland to the Roman

profiles used by Galton in his demonstration, the correlation between the latter images and

the features noted in the Duchess of Rutland’s portraits is striking. Without repeating the

analysis, it is perhaps sufficient to draw attention to the bust format and to the features of

the subjects: the strong straight noses, the strong neck and curving chin emphasized by the

upswept hair, the firm mouths, and the clear unseeing eyes. The female images as

conceived by the Duchess of Rutland thus draw on both the honorific status of the

153 Francis Galton, Hereditary Genius: An Inquiry into its Laws and Consequences (London: Macmillan and Co., 1869), 340. 154 Galton, Generic Images, 5.

101 commemorative portrait and the scientific data that supports a eugenic claim to hierarchy and worthiness in the modern world.

This panoply of references to the classical female reflected associations that were familiar in the discourse of the period. The stately seriousness of the classical female portrait image rendered her diametrically opposed to the image of the frivolous society butterfly. I suggest that although not identical to the image of the Aesthetic female, the figure of the aristocratic classical bust image and the Aesthetic muse shared, in the understanding of the era, a focus on issues of serious note and the assertion of an intellectual and spiritual merit that translated the upper-class female into a symbol worthy of respect and emulation. The conflation of the visual characteristics of these two models in the portraits drawn by the

Duchess of Rutland positioned her female subjects as a pantheon of upper-class women exemplifying these characteristics, thereby offering a visual representation that individually and collectively offered an alternative definition of her class and gender.

In addition, I suggest that the Duchess of Rutland deliberately avoided the traditional emphasis on clothing, accessories, and props in society female portraiture in order to further emphasize her visual rebuttal to the contemporary discourse that otherwise classified the upper-class woman as frivolous, incapable, and extravagant. In a review of the

Duchess’s portrait drawings of female figures, the lack of attention to these external details is notable. The majority of the images demonstrate a careful and precise handling of the features and the hair of the subject. The portrait of Lady Rodd is a typical example (fig.

1.24). In this portrait image, the shading of the eyes, the line of the lips and the curving

102 intricacy of the ear are the result of studied observation and well-crafted execution. In contrast, the clothing remains only a suggestion, a rough pencil sketch dissonantly juxtaposed below the delicate precision of the face. This contrast has an aesthetic purpose; the unfinished nature of the visible torso highlights in relief the highly finished features of the head, drawing the eye of the viewer to the face of the subject. The lack of costume, accessories, or props denies the viewer a visual escape from this focal point. It forces the viewer to consider the face and its associative characteristics without the classification tools of external accoutrements. This form of aesthetic editing was a way for the Duchess to assert her position in the ongoing debate over the purpose of the portrait. Her emphatic avoidance of externals rebuffed an easy classification of her works as status portraits, though I argue that this is in effect what they are; her drawings are, on the face of it, intended to be read as statements about the essence of the subjects.

RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF THE UPPER-CLASS FEMALE

The simple composition of the Duchess’s portraits, as I have suggested above, had a social purpose. The conspicuous absence of status symbols was a response to the contemporary discourse in which the upper-class woman was increasingly defined as the negative ‘other’ in contradistinction to the middle-class woman. With a shortage of available husbands and a changing social and economic milieu, the idealized paradigm of the separate spheres was imploding. Middle-class women responded by seeking greater access to education, work opportunities, direct political participation and to a new image of the ideal woman as capable, active, and engaged in meaningful pursuits. The propagation of this revised image

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was, in part, facilitated by positioning the qualities of the New Woman against the persona

of the upper-class woman: uneducated, concerned only with gaiety and fashion, and

destined for an early and ‘appropriate’ marriage.

This attitude was disseminated directly through articles such as “Are Modern Women as

Contented as Their Grandmothers?” published in the London paper Hearth and Home on

March 22, 1894. This article specifically addressed the middle-class woman, identifying the greater opportunities and challenges that face the modern woman and the need for this new form of woman to strive to face these new possibilities in a modest, sensible, and

mature manner. To emphasize the desired qualities of the modern middle-class woman, the

article exhorted readers to guard against the failings of the upper class: “the unruly

daughter, the horsey woman, the unfaithful wife, the frivolous, extravagant society

butterfly, the cruel mother.”155 This vision of the upper-class woman was reinforced by

reformers among the female members of the upper class in articles such as the “Illustrated

Interview with Lady Cook” published in The Woman at Home in the early 1890s. In her

interview, Lady Cook both decried and excused the condition of her peers:

Owing to their exclusion from the higher grades of employment, women of the

better classes are given over to useless and frivolous pursuits. Dress and fashion,

amusements and flirtations, mainly make up the giddy round of their occupations,

and bar all solid intellectual work. What is such a life but a protracted debauch? Yet

155 “Are Modern Women as Contented as their Grandmothers,” Hearth and Home (London), March 22, 1894, 427.

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who can blame these gilded butterflies of society for being what their fathers and

husbands have made them?156

The soulful, unadorned subjects of the Duchess’s pencil appear to eschew the frivolous and act as a riposte to such accusation.

The subjects of the Duchess’s portraits are focused on higher thoughts, the choice of apparel is irrelevant to their essence. These portraits offered a perception of the upper- class woman that stood in direct contrast to the vision suggested by these articles and in contrast to the painted status portraits commissioned from prominent portrait artists like

Sargent. In the 1890s Sargent was solidifying his reputation as one of the premier society portrait artists in London. His female portraits were particularly noted for their fine attention to dress and to setting. In viewing the 1899 Sargent portrait of the Wyndham sisters, for instance, the immediate impression of the three sisters is one of beauty, of lightness, and of extravagance (fig. 1.25). The three sisters are a cloud of frothy cream against the heavy elegance of their surroundings. The subjects are subsumed and defined by the setting and the costume in which they appear. If Sargent’s paintings were an affirmation of social status, linking the upper-class woman with ideas of effervescent splendour, the Duchess’s portraits were a dramatically oppositional reaction. The image of

Pamela Tennant, the middle sister in the Sargent portrait, operates in startling contrast to the Duchess’s drawing of Pamela Tennant made only a few years earlier (fig. 1.7). This is not

156 “Illustrated Interview with Lady Cook,” The Woman at Home, Vol. I, 1894, (London: Hodden and Stoughton, 1894), 203.

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a debutante gracefully reclining in the latest fashion. The Duchess of Rutland portrays

Pamela as a version of her branded type, classically beautiful, intense, and introspective.

The only references to dress are the rough pencil markings that indicate a form of ruffled

neckline. Any suggestion of fashionable clothing is minimized by the cursory treatment of

the fabric. The subject wears no jewels or headdress and is presented against a neutral

background, a setting that has no connotations of frivolity or extravagance.

In the few female images in which the Duchess includes a greater detail of fashion or status,

her sketchy inclusion of these details is jarringly opposed to the fine tracing of the facial

features and in direct contrast to the smooth integration of subject and object in the

Sargent image. The portrait of Lady Wantage drawn by the Duchess in 1894, for example,

includes a weighty pearl necklace with pendant and a rather large pearl drop earring

dangling from the visible lobe of the subject (fig. 1.26). The clothes are more crudely

outlined but Lady Wantage appears to be wearing a flowered garment with a shawl collar of

a lighter gauze material. In contrast to the careful handling of the features and soulful

expression of the subject, the jewels appear to be more amateurish. The necklace consists

of a circle of round shapes without depth that sit unnaturally around the neck of Lady

Wantage without regard to the contours of throat and collar bone. The reference to

clothing is clearly intended as no more than a reference, a rough sketch that emphasizes the

focus on the precise artistry of the face. Similarly, the 1891 portrait of Princess Beatrice

(Princess Henry of Battenberg) depicts the Princess with a frothy hat perched on top of her upswept curls, a delicate earring in the visible lobe, and what appears to be a fur stole or

collar around her neck (fig. 1.27). The background remains plain and unadorned. The hat,

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jewels, and clothing are roughly drawn, particularly in contrast to the fine pencil lines of the

face of the figure. These accoutrements appear almost as an afterthought or a later

addition, layered onto a completed image. For instance, if we consider the hat of Princess

Beatrice, it has a slapdash feel of a cartoon. It is the suggestion of a hat rather than a fashion drawing (albeit a suggestion of a fashionable hat). The Princess is not defined or subsumed by her hat in the manner in which the clothes and accessories overwhelm the

figures of the Wyndham Sisters in the Sargent portrait. The hats, jewels, and clothing are

visually isolated and distinct, a form of social costume that is separate from the essence of

the figure.

In discussing the high fashion of society portraits, Kate Flint notes that Georg Simmel

“remarked how fashion is ‘a product of class division’ and performs ‘the double function of

holding a given social circle together and at the same time closing it off from others.”157 The presentation of the female subject in this guise and in a portrait that is imbued with the distinctive style of the Duchess of Rutland marked the sitter as a member of a community that prided itself on its rejection of the fashion-driven frivolity ascribed to the upper class, alternatively presenting itself in an Aesthetic and spiritual perspective. In this era where class and gender roles were being challenged and redefined, opportunities existed to both rebut attacks on the upper class and to advance new definitions that used contemporary and traditional associations to propose an altered, more dynamic role of the upper-class woman as exemplar. In her collection of female portraits, the Duchess of Rutland offered a

157 Kate Flint, “Portraits of Women: On Display,” Millais Portraits, intro. by Peter Funnell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 194.

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vision of elite femininity that was a public model for both classical and contemporary

scientific values of worth and for Aesthetic values of spirituality in a materialistic modern

world. The portraits drew on a panoply of cultural associations to create meaning that

positioned the collective pantheon of female subjects, as individuals and as metonymic

representatives of their class, as separate and distinct from the contemporary attacks on

upper-class female identity.

The viewer was encouraged to search for these allusive references in the image through the

formal qualities of the drawn portrait, and to appreciate how the Duchess’s drawings

conveyed a timeless symbolic quality when juxtaposed against the ubiquitous photographic

portrait. We have already considered the relationship of the portraits to Galton’s

composites. In addition, the lack of surface detail in the portraits produced by the Duchess

of Rutland reinforces their two-dimensionality in a way that can be seen as in dialogue with

the portrait photograph. In a manner similar to a photographic portrait, the Duchess’s

female subjects are posed in the forefront of the image against a neutral background. The

minimal facial expression and the stillness of pose mimic the static nature of portrait

photographs of the time. The contrast between the finely detailed facial features and the

roughly sketched perimeters of the figure can be correlated to the photographic technique of the vignette, emulating the single point focus of the camera lens. If the drawing by the

Duchess is compared with a photographic portrait of Pamela Tennant taken by Lombardi &

Co., for example, the similarity of pose, lack of expression and background is remarkable

(figs. 1.7 and 1.28). Each image is focused on the face, fading and blurring at the extremities

of the image. The lack of colour in the drawing echoes the tonality of the black and white

108 photograph and the similar presentation of the figure without any competing background in each image focuses the viewer on Pamela Tennant as subject. In this manner, the Duchess utilizes the familiarity of the representational form of the photograph to highlight the distinctiveness of her vision.

In a broad sense, both drawing and photograph portray a similar image of a beautiful and pensive young woman. In the photograph, the impact of the image is arguably in its indexical trace of the exterior representation of the referent, the sense that Pamela

Tennant was there, sitting in front of the camera in the exterior form as portrayed in the image. Although the photograph does not focus on external props or backdrops, the subject is clearly wearing a fashionable and costly dress, embellished at the neckline and incorporating large puffed sleeves and a narrow waist. And while the backdrop is plain, the crease on the upper left side of the image and over the shoulder of the subject on the right side remind the viewer that the subject sits before a specific backdrop at a photographic studio. The authenticity of presence conveyed by the photographic image suggests that this is the ‘real’ Pamela Tennant captured in a particular moment in time and space. In contrast, the Duchess of Rutland has created an image that cannot be tied as firmly to a material referent. In the drawing, the lack of specificity of costume and the flat background creates an aesthetic space that is not tied to a specific temporal or physical location. The smooth pallor of Pamela Tennant’s skin, her complete stillness, and her classically perfect features suggest an idealized sculpted image, an exterior manifestation of beauty. However, the intense gaze that looks through the viewer asserts the animate nature of her presence by drawing the viewer’s attention to the existence of inner qualities of controlled passion and

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contemplative thought within the still exterior. This stillness no longer appears consequent

on the privilege granted to the exteriority of the subject, but rather as the conscious

restriction of the external by an inner presence. The drawn portrait has transformed the

image from a representation of a visible referent into an expression of an invisible inner

vision. Pamela Tennant has, to some extent, been disassociated from the specific individual

who posed for the photograph and has become a creation of the imagination and

perception of the artist.

COMPETING PURPOSES OF THE PORTRAIT

I have suggested that in presenting a collective portfolio of portrait images of selected

upper-class women in the guise of Aesthetic sculpture, the Duchess of Rutland drew on the associative references of the Aesthetic Movement and the power of the commemorative classical portrait bust to offer a representation of her class and gender that expressly refuted the contemporary discourse categorizing the upper-class woman as ignorant, frivolous, and extravagant, and that alternatively proposed a model of power and cultural

elevation worthy of emulation. As such, the Duchess participated in the late nineteenth-

century discourse over the changing roles of women in society, a discourse that was

strongly informed by the intersection of gender with class. As the ‘New Woman’ of the

predominantly middle class was defined in contradistinction to her upper-class counterpart,

the Duchess’s portrait portfolio can be seen collectively as a visual response and rebuttal,

reaffirming and redefining the power and the relevance of the upper-class woman as

cultural and moral model.

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However, in making this argument, I do not forget that these were portraits of real women

and, as such, were expected to fulfill the representational purpose of the portrait. Whether

the ideal portrait should present an idealized or realistic depiction of the subject, emphasize

artistry or accuracy in the form of the image, or be focused on the exterior appearance or

interior character of the sitter were issues that were debated over the course of the nineteenth century. These conceptual uncertainties intertwined and created a range of competing values and portrait styles. Elizabeth Fay attempts to place these forms of portraiture within a taxonomic paradigm, acknowledging that any portrait may fall within more than one classification as a result of competing objectives. Her classification system ranges from the symbolic portrait that privileges the assertion of authority over individual personality to the private portrait that reverses this value system. If we consider the

Duchess’s portraits of upper-class women from this perspective, these portraits are complex sites of intersubjectivity, in which both the Duchess, as artist, and the subject assert their personal identity through the aesthetics of the image.158 In a similar system of

categorization, David Martin focuses particularly on the facial details of the portrait to

distinguish between the individual face, the constructed social mask and the idealized

effigy.159 I have noted the tension in the female portraits of the Duchess of Rutland where

the pressure to produce a likeness battles with the desire to create a symbolic work of

Aesthetic beauty. Although I suggest that it is not necessary to assign the Duchess’s

158 Elizabeth Fay, Fashioning Faces: the Portraitive Mode in British Romanticism (Durham, N.H.: University of New Hampshire Press, 2010), 37. 159 F. David Martin, “On Portraiture: Some Distinctions,” The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 20, No. 1 (Autumn, 1961): 61–72, 65.

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portraits to any constructed category definitively, it is important to note that there were competing systems of portraiture that performed differing functions and that any one portrait could perform more than one purpose. Equally important, the viewer was accustomed to interpreting these portrait images in accordance with the competing stereotypes that formed the basis for contemporary discourse.

The Duchess’s portrait images must be considered in the social context in which they were made. In the period of the 1890s, the subjects of the Duchess of Rutland were primarily drawn from her circle of family, friends and acquaintances. She did not have a formal portrait studio, and the images were drawn in an intimate personal setting in the home of artist, subject, or at a mutually attended house party. The portraits were not status portraits in the traditional sense. As discussed, there was a conscious elimination of the external symbols that indicated external social standing. The portraits were testaments to the intimate arrangement of their production and the lack of formal signifiers reinforced the legitimacy of this claim. As portraits, they were ostensibly judged on the basis of her ability to capture a likeness of the subject, aided by her intimate knowledge of and familiarity with the situation and the personality of the subject. However, the reviews of her portraits hint at a perception of ambivalence between the aesthetic and the mimetic in her work. In a review of a collection of her portraits in Country Life Illustrated on December 30, 1899, the reviewer admired her ability to capture a sense of her male subjects but asserted that she

was “not nearly so successful with the feminine face as with the masculine.”160 The

160 Country Life Illustrated (London, England) 156, Saturday, December 30, 1899, 832.

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criticism that the reviewer expresses is arguably her recognition that the Duchess has to

some extent imposed her own vision and agenda on her replication of the image of her

female subject.

Notwithstanding this reviewer’s hesitation, the portraits of the Duchess of Rutland were

generally admired for her ability to capture the likeness of the subject. The term ‘likeness’

participates in the potentially variable purposes of the portrait. Unlike the professional

portrait painter who needed to quickly assess the primary characteristics of his or her

subject for representation, the Duchess’s relationship with most of her subjects spanned a

lengthy period and was the view of an insider. A writer for The Woman at Home in the

1890s gossiped that, “My readers may be interested to know that the one portrait of her

husband which Lady Salisbury considers perfect is the little silver-point sketch done by the

Marchioness of Granby.”161 The appellation of ‘perfect’ in this sense appears to have been

generally regarded as more than an exterior physical likeness or a statement on the public

persona of the subject. The Country Life article previously referred to lauds the manner in

which the artist has reflected the internal essence of her subject in this case, claiming that

“the presentment of Mr. Balfour’s face has that dignity which is in the man but wanting in

many pictures of him.”162 The hint that the Duchess has leveraged her personal knowledge of the subject into a more perceptive depiction that otherwise generally available had significant currency in the reception of her work. In an article on Lady Westmoreland, the

161 “The Glass of Fashion,” The Woman at Home, Vol. II, 1895, (London: Hodden and Stoughton, 1895), 458. 162 Country Life Illustrated (London, England) 156, Saturday, December 30, 1899, 832.

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writer questioned the ability of photographic portraits to do justice to her beauty: “The

photographs which appear of her from time to time cannot be said to do her justice. Only

the pencil of her friend, the Marchioness of Granby, has been able to do that.”163 The

special relationship that the Duchess of Rutland had with her subjects due to her position as

upper-class insider placed her portraits in a unique category. Executed with the augmented

knowledge of the insider in circumstances of intimacy, the portraits existed also as a social

document, a glimpse into interactions within the upper class. In considering the idea of class

intimacy and interaction, I suggest that the portrait drawing of the Duchess of Rutland was

both a reflection of her personal and social experience with the subject of her image and an

active constituent of the intimacy that characterized the relationships of upper-class

women. Shifting the focus from the product of the drawing to the circumstances of its

production highlights the social and aesthetic interchange that arose during the portrait experience.

MEDIUM AND PROCESS

The Duchess of Rutland’s choice of drawing for her portrait collection is significant in view of her attested competency in both painting and sculpture. If, as I suggest, one of the

Duchess’s purposes in compiling this portrait assemblage was to both reflect and to create a recognizable representation of upper-class women that was informed by her own definition of the attributes of that class, then the selection of drawing as the medium of her

163 “The Glass of Fashion,” The Woman at Home, Vol. VIII, October 1899 to March 1900 (London: Hodden and Stoughton, 1900), 76.

114 expression had both social and personal connotations. From the eighteenth century, the ability to draw was considered an accomplishment of the upper-class female, a testament to her culture and also to her financial circumstances, having both the leisure and the funding to pass her time acquiring this skill.

As Ann Bermingham has shown, drawing was a socially acceptable way for the upper-class girl to perform accomplishment and submit to the assessing gaze of the upper-class male seeking an appropriate mate. She notes the Romney portrait of Caroline, Viscountess Clifton and Lady Elizabeth Spencer painted from 1786–1791, in which Lady Caroline is portrayed in the act of sketching her sister. Her drawing pose was understood as a form of performance of her class and gender.164 The amateur nature of her accomplishment was also crucial to the status of the activity. In comparison to the professional artist, almost entirely male, the female amateur was removed from the taint of commerce. The purpose of her art was not to deem her an artist in that context but to inscribe the attributes of art onto her body and personality, advertising her as ‘artistic’. During the course of the nineteenth century, this association of sketching with culture and status was assumed by the middle-class woman, also eager to display her gentility and leisure status. However, by the end of the century, many of these middle-class women had availed themselves of the greater opportunities for education and for employment, turning to other pastimes and becoming professional illustrators or artists. The idea of the amateur female artist again became primarily associated with the idea of the female upper class, as a claim of culture and refinement, and

164 Ann Bermingham, Learning to Draw: Studies in the Cultural History of a Polite and Useful Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 186.

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implicitly as a statement of privileged removal from the less elevated sphere of commerce.

This association can be discerned in descriptions of art shows and exhibitions. For instance,

the description of an art exhibition in 1898 refers to the “well-known artists and amateurs

who have contributed pictures for the purpose.”165 The language demonstrates the

continued distinction between the appellation of ‘artist’ as the professional and the

‘amateur’. The list of participants names a number of male artists. The amateurs listed are

almost entirely women of the upper class, including Viscountess Hood, the Marchioness of

Granby, and Lady Jephson.

In addition to the Duchess’s portraits as a privileged view of aristocratic subjects, the choice

of a pencil drawing rather than an alternate form of medium drew on the past associations

of female amateur drawing as an aristocratic pastime. This embedded association

reinforced the perception of the viewer that, in looking at the portrait, she or he was experiencing the trace or relic of a private moment within the lives of the upper class.

Ultimately the portrait stood as a glimpse into the upper-class world otherwise only accessible to outsiders through the filtered lens of gossip columns. To the extent that the portrait contained a presence, it was a presence not so much of the subject, but of the intimate interaction between the artist and the subject in the circumstances of the work.

From the memoirs of these subjects, particularly those of her daughter Diana Cooper, we can learn a great deal about the Duchess’s practice in her portrait drawing.

165 “Music and Art by St. Cecilia,” Hearth and Home 365, Thursday, May 12, 1898, 13.

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The Duchess almost always used the same Waterman paper for her drawings. The paper was thick and ecru-coloured, with a flat matte texture. Each sheet was the same size, and her images were all oriented vertically. Although the Duchess’s drawings are often described as ‘silverpoint’, her daughter confirmed that she consistently used a hard 3H pencil. The reference to the silverpoint method in the context of the era was a testament of status, rather than an interest in accurately describing the Duchess’s artistic method. The claim of silverpoint as the medium for the Duchess’s drawings was imbedded with cultural associations of Aestheticism, with connotations of quality of technique, and served to endorse the Duchess with the elite knowledge of and participation in the art of the masters of the Renaissance.166

Family members were constant models. Diana recounts that when one drawing was finished, a new one was immediately started. “We had to be statue-still while my mother, with her Waterman’s block held firm by a cushion on her lap, peered up at her model and down at her hard 3H pencil for hours at a time.”167 In the afternoon she would entertain visitors and routinely subject them to the same experience, translating the upper-class

166 Stacey Sell, “The Interesting and Difficult Medium”: The Silverpoint Revival in Nineteenth-century Britain,” Master Drawings, 51 (2013): 80. The technique of silverpoint, a medium in which the artist uses a silver stylus to etch a fine line into a coated paper surface, leaves a fine gray line that later oxidizes to a warmer golden shade. It was a popular technique of the fifteenth-century Italian Renaissance. Interest in the technique was revived in the later nineteenth century and was used by artists seeking a delicate aesthetic effect, including G.F. Watts and E. Burne-Jones. It was perceived as an “unforgivingly indelible and demanding medium, capable only of the most delicate effects.” The height of the silverpoint revival occurred in the 1890s with awareness of the technique spreading to the general community through journals and fiction, where it “often served as a metaphor for refinement and cultivation,” “a label of the cultivated.” 167 Diana Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1958), 54.

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ritual of the afternoon call into an intense and intimate experience. Similarly, the Duchess

used the opportunity provided by the practice of country house visiting to access additional

models. Cynthia Asquith, the daughter of Lord Asquith, recalled that at the age of fifteen

she was seated on a stool in a room of her grandfather’s estate with three people drawing

her at once: “my grandfather and two guests of his, the Duchess of Rutland and her

daughter, Marjorie Manners.”168 The dragooning of other residents or guests at a country house event was not limited to the Duchess of Rutland as Cynthia Asquith recalls undergoing the same experience for three other female aristocratic amateurs.

If we try to envision the event of the portrait, we therefore picture the elegant Duchess, at home or in the home of a member of her social acquaintance, selecting a model. The selection itself conveyed a sense of status and approbation. The Duchess of Rutland, as socially prominent and classified as a talented amateur artist, had both legitimacy and authority in her social world concerning cultural matters. An invitation by the Duchess to be a model asserted that the subject was socially and aesthetically appropriate to be included in the collectivity of female portrait images and this assertion had social value to the recipient. However, beyond a reflection of the inclusion of the subject in the Duchess’s female pantheon, the experience of having the portrait executed was itself an intense exchange that created intimacy.

The Duchess always started her drawings, which offer close-up views of her sitters, with the eye of the subject, building the remainder of the face around the finished eye or eyes,

168 Cynthia Asquith, Haply I May Remember (London: James Barrie, 1950), 86.

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staring from the page. This technique required that for lengthy periods she would stare at

or into the eyes of the sitter. The experience of having someone stare into your eyes is

peculiarly uncomfortable. There is the sensation of being exposed, of allowing the starer

access into what lies within. It becomes increasingly difficult not to nervously glance away,

breaking the contact. To start with the eye reflected the Duchess’s desire to represent some

internal quality of the subject but also created a moment of intense contact.

The result of such a moment of intense contact was a pencil drawing, and I want to suggest

that the use of the pencil as the tool for the image is a particularly intimate choice. If it was

associated with the accomplishments of the upper-class woman, the medium also

enhanced the power of the material object of the portrait to function as a form of relic

imbued with the aura of the actual moment of engagement and creative process. Without

the interposition of additional materials and decisions that arise in the act of painting, such as the selection of brush and colour, the artist was focused on the moment of the engagement with the subject of the sitter. The flow of energy from the Duchess’s gaze to the movement of her pencil and the mark on the page allowed the inherent distance implied by vision to be imaginarily dissolved into the more immediate contact of the haptic.

The collapse of distance between the materiality of the painting and the physical trace of the artist provided the portrait with an additional quality of the relic, enabling the viewer to experience the portrait as imbued with the aura of the touch of the artist. Every scratch or shading of the pencil reminds the viewer of the presence of the artist. This became a method for the viewer to share an intimate relationship with the Duchess, reversing the gaze of the portrait to turn it into an access point for contact with its aristocratic creator.

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The French philosopher Jean Luc Nancy focuses on the portrait as an act of intimacy in his

essay “The Look of the Portrait.” Disregarding the purpose of the portrait as referential

identifier, he considers the portrait as a pictorial trace of the experience of the portrait production and as a site for negotiation of the complex relationship between presence and absence. For Nancy, the portrait is not intended as a mimetic replication of exteriority but rather as a means of conveying the possibility of intimacy.169 The portrait should portray the

‘sense’ of the sitter, a concept in the context of the portrait that refers to the translation of the exterior features of the sitter through the artist’s understanding and experience of the portrait subject. However, this translation is not purely technical or cognitive. Nancy points out that there is a gap between what the eye of the artist perceives, her intention for the drawing, and the final drawn line that has nothing to do with technical ability. This gap is the attempt to reproduce the feeling or intimacy created between the artist and the subject through the portrait experience, that sense of understanding achieved through the intense contact of the event. This is the unreproducible element, the sense of absence that persists even while the portrait attempts to bring the subject into presence. I am suggesting that this idea of the portrait as an experience only imperfectly reflected in the finished drawing was the active component that underlay the Duchess’s collective project to form a socius that defined her idea of the upper-class woman. The portrait encounter facilitated the experienced bond that unified this group even while the portrait image documented the trace of that connection.

169 Jean-Luc Nancy, “The Look of the Portrait,” Multiple Arts: The Muses II, ed. by Simon Sparks (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006), 227.

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PORTRAIT DISPLAY AND DISTRIBUTION

I have referred to the ‘upper-class woman’ as a classification and referred to the different sub-cliques that existed within this somewhat amorphous designation. I have also noted that while, in 1890, the upper class was still a fairly cohesive group, this was also a period of transition as the newly wealthy pushed to enter the social system of the upper class. The end of the nineteenth century was a time of class adaptation, negotiation, and resistance, and it is within this context that the Duchess’s portraits should be considered. In a time where the definition and criteria of belonging to the upper class was being challenged, the portrait practice of the Duchess of Rutland was a way in which she both solidified and publicly presented the personal relationships that ultimately formed the basis for her own collective of the included.

The constitution of this collective was both private and public. The portraits, as intimate pencil drawings made in personal environments as part of a social interaction, were ostensibly private images reflecting a non-public interaction between family, friends and acquaintances. An article dedicated to the London home of the Duchess of Rutland in

Berkeley Square describes the drawing room as including on one wall “a long line of heads, framed in ivory white executed by Lady Granby herself in silver point, and matchless, I need scarcely say, for delicacy of touch. The heads are mostly of beautiful women and children, and the likeness to the originals is caught, in almost every case, with a well-nigh uncanny

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fidelity.”170 The Duchess decorated her house to provide a setting that was consistent with

her own aesthetics, with a carefully chosen palette, as the article notes: “The walls are

painted in an indescribable shade, between a smoke-grey and the tint of an old etching; the square paneled ceiling and the woodwork are the white of old ivory, whilst the colours of furniture and hangings are so indistinguishably blent and mellowed as to appear almost neutral.”171 The deliberate stage set created by the Duchess served as a foil for the carefully chosen Aesthetic clothing she fashioned and wore, distinguishing her from the fads or trends of the moment and creating a total environment for the performance of the

Aesthetic persona in a fusion of theatre and life.

The prominence of the female portraits in the drawing room served as a vital part of this stage, a way to create an environment in which the female social world in which the

Duchess lived was ordered according to her values and ideas. Their profusion around the walls of her drawing room created a sense of presence, a form of ever-present Salon hearkening to an earlier part of the century and the salon culture introduced by Lady

Blessington and the Comte D’Orsay. In turn, this salon concept was informed by aristocratic

French culture wherein the salon was a way of relocating courtly activities to a domestic setting. Led by socially ambitious women, salons created a form of fantasy space in which participants could engage in the exchange of fashion, interests, values, and connections that

170 “The Glass of Fashion,” The Woman at Home, Vol. III, 1895 (London, Hodden and Stoughton, 1895), 243. 171 “The Glass of Fashion,” The Woman at Home, Vol. III, 1895 (London, Hodden and Stoughton, 1895), 242.

122 formed the basis for the social relations and networks of the upper class.172 The portrait display performed a dual function in this context. It supported and legitimized the perception of the Duchess’s drawing room as a space in which the aristocratic model was perpetuated, and it visually classified the subjects of the portraits as forming part of this upper-class elite. In a sense, there was a reciprocity where inclusion in the Duchess’s collection granted status to the image while the collection of images simultaneously contributed to the personal image and values that the Duchess of Rutland wanted to claim and publicly embody.

The Duchess of Rutland also gave the original or a lithographed copy of the portrait to many of her sitters. This gifting of the portrait was another means for the Duchess to both form and to present the connection that unified her subjects into a defined group of upper-class women. The production and exchange of these portrait images, based on personal connection and communal belonging, referred to a traditional aristocratic economy of social relations. This form of network has been explored by Marcel Mauss in his treatise on gift exchange. In his study, Mauss considered pre-industrial societies and the manner in which gifts of objects, services, and hospitality are tied to moral obligations that cement the relationship between the giver and receiver, intermingling them in a web of implied reciprocity.173 It is this form of understood obligation, one that cannot be reduced to the monetary value system of a free market economy that underpinned the operation of the

172 Fay, Fashioning Faces, 34. 173 Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies, trans. Mary Douglas (London and New York: Routledge, 1990), 25.

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upper class. The gift of a portrait by the Duchess of Rutland was seen as a form of social

capital, a point made by Lady Salisbury in her praise of the Duchess’s image of her

husband.174 In the country home of Winston Churchill, Chartwell, which is preserved in the state in which he last lived there, the portrait of him by the Duchess of Rutland is given prominent placement near the stairwell.

As the Winston Churchill example suggests, in both the experience of the portrait and its later ownership and display, the sitter is an active participant in the creation of meaning.

The image served the purpose of responding to the Duchess’s intention and meaning but also responded to the sitter’s expectations of the portrait as a form of self-representation that accords with the image that person wanted to project. The multiple layers of overlapping, and potentially conflicting levels of meaning are exacerbated by the dual nature of the portraits as both private gifts between friends and public spectacles in which the sitter and the artist are exposing themselves to the public gaze through the image, for

174 I use the idea of social capital in the sense proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, who argued that position in social space is determined by the volume of social, economic, and cultural capital; the composition of that capital; and the ability to convert one form of capital into another. Cultural capital, as including both the material form of cultural goods like drawings and the embodied ability and taste to recognize the aesthetic merit of cultural goods, functions as symbolic capital that serves to raise the distinction and social position of the possessor. Social capital is based on the individual’s relationships and membership in a social group, often institutionalized by the possession of titles or honours. In this case, the transmission of the portrait, as an object of cultural status, conveys cultural capital or distinction on both the Duchess, as the maker of the product and the recipient, in appreciating the value of the gift. The transfer by gift, rather than by commercial transaction confirms the social capital of each, identifying them within a relationship of mutual recognition and acquaintance and translates the value of the cultural capital of the portrait into additional social capital by reinforcing the link between the cultural distinction of the portrait transaction and the social group. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste (London: Routledge, 1984), 108.

124 these portraits were not restricted to private interchange and display but were also disseminated in the broader public forum.

The portraits drawn by the Duchess of Rutland were exhibited regularly during the late nineteenth century, at venues including the Grosvenor Gallery, the New Gallery, and the

Grafton Gallery. Her images appeared reproduced in the journals of the time, used as illustrations of the subjects in lieu of photographs. In 1902, the New Gallery held a specific exhibition of the Duchess’s drawings after three were purchased by the Musée du

Luxembourg, and in 1900, an extravagant gift book of her portrait drawings was published in Westminster by Archibald Constant and Company. The book is oversize with a cover in soft grey-blue material. The lettering is gilt, and the cover incorporates the signature of

‘Violet Granby’, a personal attestation of her authorship (fig. 1.29). The personal name printed on the cover is in distinction to the aristocratic formal title printed on the cover page. There the full title of the book, “Portraits of Men and Women,” is followed by a more formal author credit: “By the Marchioness of Granby.” The latter name was the proper public reference to the Duchess of Rutland at the time of its issuance and was fundamental to the creation of the status of the book and the authority of the author/artist to provide portraits of the subjects with insight available only to an insider.

In this context, it becomes pertinent to consider the purpose of the use of the more familiar version of her name on the cover. ‘Violet Granby’ is a personal and familiar form of her name, one that she would only use among friends. In addition, it is presented in the form of a signature rather than in the same typeface as the title. This is the form and style of name

125 that Violet would use if writing a note or letter to a friend, or to sign a guest book after the stay at the country house of another member of her class. The use of this form and style translated the book into a personal statement of the author and granted the purchaser the imaginary status of her peer. Similarly, the use of the title “Portraits of Men and Women” deliberately avoided reference to the upper-class status of most of the subjects. Although the status of the portrait sitters would have been evident on a review of the table of contents, the subtlety of the title, which declined to remind the reader of the class divisions, facilitated the fiction of broader accessibility and familiarity. In the purchase of the book, the viewer was invited to participate in this implied familiarity and, in displaying the book in her home, was able to suggest the status incumbent upon a relationship of intimacy with the titled author.

The book is a series of 51 portraits drawn by the Duchess of Rutland in the 1890s. Of these

51 images, 30 were portraits of women and all but two were of women in the upper class.175 The two exceptions, Mrs. Beerbohm Tree and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, were both elite personages in the London theatre and had a personal friendship with or connection to the Duchess. The portraits were presented with only the name of the subject as identifier.

The lack of additional biographical detail positioned this book as an offering to an intimate group who could be expected to be familiar with the subjects of the images, either directly or through an interest in society life. The book was published commercially and marketed

175 Although only 51 portraits are listed in the Table of Contents, one drawing contained the heads of two female figures, raising the total of portraits and female portraits to 52 and 31, respectively.

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through book announcements and reviews published in journals. It was issued in December

of 1899 in order to be available as a Christmas gift, marketed as a “desirable possession”

likely to have a broad social success, all factors that suggest a primary audience of females

tasked with purchasing appropriate presents or responsible for the furnishing of the

home.176 The first run of the book was limited and does not appear to have been successful as no further runs of the book were published.177

This form of book follows that of the illustrated gift book, popular in the mid-nineteenth

century. These elaborately bound and illustrated books were intended as status objects for

women of the middle class and Lorraine Kooistra describes how they were prominently

displayed on the drawing-room table as an object that attested to the owner’s taste,

cultivation, and disposable income.178 The formal qualities of the luxury book continued into the latter part of the century with the issue of oversize and extravagant books such as the

Book of Beauty or The Anglo-Saxon Journal, but with a different focus and purpose. Instead of marketing to the interests and cultural criteria of the middle class, these books were showpieces for the literary and artistic talent of the upper-class woman. I suggest that these books formed part of the discourse on eugenics and, more broadly, part of the debate on the continuing role of the upper class in a modern society, by offering a definition of ‘worth’

176 London Evening Standard, Saturday, December 23, 1899, 3 and St. James’s Gazette, Wednesday, December 20, 1899, 5. 177 In a letter of the Duchess to her husband she complains, “I wish people would buy my book. There are 130 copies left still of the first Edition – unsold. I only get £109!!! Ugh!” Archives of Belvoir Castle. 178 Lorraine Janzen Kooistra, Poetry, Pictures, and Popular Publishing: The Illustrated Gift Book and Victorian Visual Culture, 1855-1875 (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2011), 25.

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based on the physical, intellectual, and artistic qualities of the upper class showcased in

these volumes.

The Book of Beauty was issued in 1896 by Hutchinson & Co. in London as “A Collection of

Beautiful Portraits with Literary, Artistic, and Musical Contributions of Men and Women of

the Day” as edited and arranged by Mrs. F. Harcourt Williamson. A second compilation

followed in 1902. Each volume was bound in luxurious leather with an embossed gilt title

and issued on a limited print with the issuance number inscribed and certified. Mrs. F.

Harcourt Williams was the wife of a colonel who took to writing when financially compelled.

Using her position and influence, she focused her writing on the upper class and was

described in an 1896 review as “the highest authority in all Great Britain upon the manner

and matter of the “smart world.”179 The purpose of the book was to replicate, in a textual

form, the social and intellectual salons of the early nineteenth century, “following in the

footsteps of Lady Blessington.”180 The general format of the book included a selection of textual and visual works, combining the efforts of professional male writers or artists with the complementary work of the female amateur. Often reproductions of painted or photographic portraits of notable figures, particularly those of the female upper class, were included alongside copies of portrait drawings made by the figures lauded in the text.181 The

179 “Mrs. F. Harcourt Williamson,” Current Literature (1888-1912); New York, vol. XIX, no.5 (May, 1896): 389. 180 The Book of Beauty: A Collection of Beautiful Portraits with Literary, Artistic, and Musical Contributions by Men and Women of the Day, ed. and arranged by Mrs. F. Harcourt Williamson (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1896), preface. 181 The production of these commercially available books as a form of collection “fit for a Queen or a Lady of taste and refinement” continued an earlier nineteenth-century tradition of published “Drawing Room Scrap Books” or “Books of Beauty” designed to represent the

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Duchess of Rutland’s portrait images appeared frequently, combined with copies of painted or photographic portraits in which she was the subject. The 1896 Book of Beauty, for instance, included a photogravure of the portrait of the Duchess painted by J.J. Shannon and four of the portraits drawn by the Duchess of female aristocratic figures.

A similar assessment could be made of the Anglo-Saxon Review, a series of six luxury volumes organized and arranged by Lady Randolph Churchill as a quarterly journal and published from June 1899 to September 1901. The journal similarly included writing and portraiture that was provided by a combined pool of professionals and aristocratic amateurs, highlighting the talent and the images of the female upper class. In this instance, the subscription list formed a prominent facet of the publication and listed much of the elite of England and the United States at the time. The resulting ‘salon’ thereby extended to incorporate this identified group, creating a reciprocity of status and a conflation between the talent exhibited in the journal and the aristocratic public that demonstrated the cultural sensitivity to appreciate and support this luxury item.

These books can be seen as another form of response to the discourse that characterized the upper-class woman as concerned only with the frivolity of Society, an opportunity to demonstrate their continued importance as cultural leaders. In this context, the books can also be interpreted as affirmations of the desirable breeding characteristics of the upper class, contributing to the debate on the value system underlying potential measures to

images and pursuits of the upper-class woman. Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England: Ladies, Mothers and Flirts (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 45.

129 encourage an improved genetic populace. In addition, taking the Duchess’s 1900 book

Portraits of Men and Women as an example, the public dissemination of the images as a collective set also incorporated the tacit agreement of the subjects to be presented as a member of a collective group, the participants of which were selected through the personal impetus and criteria of the Duchess of Rutland. Although any individual image was intended as a representation of an individual person, in a consideration of a grouping of these images, the primary and initial impact was one of collectivity. Individuality is overwhelmed by the visual consonance of the format and artistic style. As a subject of the Duchess’s portrait drawing, the sitter participated publicly in the association of the Duchess’s reputation and, in that sense, assumed attributes of collective identity associated with the artist and also with the other subjects. In this sense, the List of Portraits that appears immediately following the title page became a ‘who’s who’ of the socius formed through the work of the Duchess of Rutland. When the 30 female portraits depicted in the volume are considered in such close proximity and as a collection physically connected by the material parameters of the book I suggest that they serve a similar function to the composite portrait as devised by Galton. Turning from one page to the next it is the similarities that are reinforced, with each subsequent image layering upon the one preceding, until the viewer is left with a generalized classification of type as much as a collation of individual likenesses. The frontispiece image of the book depicts a portrait of

Queen Victoria drawn by the Duchess of Rutland in 1897 (fig. 1.30). In this drawing, even the nearly eighty-year-old Queen is transformed into the Aesthetic model of the Duchess’s vision. The Queen is presented with a smooth marble skin, luminescent eyes staring

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dreamily into an unseen vista, a straight nose, and a firmly chiseled mouth, speaking more

to the Duchess’s collective representation of the upper-class woman than to the aging

monarch.182

The compilation of these images in a book created a physical proximity that imbued each head with significance that extended beyond the physical. The images and the collective idea of the images, even including Queen Victoria, became a ‘type’ in which each individual portrait synecdochically referred to the collective ideology asserted by Violet in her choice of subjects and her manner of depiction. The portraits became a means of disseminating and normalizing the definition of the cultured upper-class woman, establishing the criteria for hierarchical distinction as female viewers visually experienced the differences between their own exteriority and that of the images. As posited by Gilles Deleuze in Difference and

Repetition, self-individuation is produced through the recognition and integration of difference.183 The recognition and internalization of this sense of difference between the

female viewer and any one or more of the Duchess’s portraits thus assumed a greater social

significance for the female viewer as she associatively differentiated herself from the

collectivity of the cultured upper-class female as portrayed. I note that this sense of

differentiation may have equally applied to the subjects themselves, many of whom who

182 This discrepancy was noted at the time of publication of the book by numerous reviewers. They noted that the portraits drawn by the Duchess of female subjects spoke more to “types which admit, without loss of character, an idealistic treatment,” and particularly questioned the use of the idealized image of the Queen in lieu of a real image showing the ravages of time. Daily Telegraph & Courier (London), Tuesday, December 26, 1899, 9. 183 Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition, trans. Paul Patton (London: Continuum, 2004), 69.

131 led lives perhaps more influenced by society and fashion than their Aesthetic portraits may have suggested.

Even as they called attention to difference, the images became models for emulation in which the female spectator imaginatively substituted herself. For the upper-class female, the image provided a model of the Aesthetic and cultured upper-class woman that the

Duchess of Rutland had defined as the ideal. For the new class of plutocrats or upper- middle-class striving to assimilate into the upper class, it acted as a visual equivalent to the manners and etiquette assumed through the study of didactic texts. As spectators acquired copies of these images, framing and hanging them on their walls, purchasing books in which they were incorporated, or even gazing at them in a journal or at an exhibition, the portrait heads formed an informal gallery or socius in which the spectator was implicated in an act of self-reflexivity that Elizabeth Fay terms “desirous looking.”184 In their association with the highest level of aristocracy, these images served as models for the socially ambitious, who then modulated their own external appearance in the aspiration of joining or appearing to join the collectivity so defined. In this sense, the acquisition of the Duchess’s portrait images could have multivalent purposes. In addition to the commemorative motivation focused on any one of the subjects personally, the portrait image of any one subject metonymically represented the entire class of personages designated by the Duchess of Rutland and permitted the collector to associate herself with both the individual and the group.

184 Fay, Fashioning Faces, 66.

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CONCLUSION

In summary, I am suggesting that the portrait practice of Violet, Duchess of Rutland formed

one coherent vision of the upper-class female amongst a variety of others that co-existed in

London in the period from 1890 to the start of WWI in 1914. The Duchess drew upon her own vision of the ideal female and used her position and her artistic talent to create a visual socius that redefined the upper-class woman and her role in the new modern society.

Drawing upon a conflation of the associations of the Aesthetic and the Classical, the

Duchess of Rutland presented her pantheon of female images as a series of commemorative busts idealizing the spiritual and cultural leadership of the upper-class female and distinguishing her from the competing perception of the society woman as materialistic and frivolous. Her collective vision of the upper-class woman made a claim for the inclusion of the upper class as ‘worthy’ in the ongoing discourse of eugenic breeding.

While acquaintance with the individual female subjects may not have supported an objective claim to their disinterest in the fashionable aspects of society, the Duchess’s interaction with the subjects in the process of the portrait drawing, and their implied acquiescence in the public exposition of these images as a collective, suggests an acceptance and support of participating in the vision of the Duchess of Rutland. This participation itself constituted an active element that contributed to the formation of a network of association defined on the basis on these characteristics. In the terms of Norbert

Elias, the negotiation of this figuration defined by the portraits of the Duchess required the participants to publicly acknowledge their participation in the cultural meaning and associative reference that was integrated into their inclusion within the portrait group. The

133 gap between recognition and distinction experienced by each subject in viewing the

Duchess’s portrait altered the self-definition of the subject at an internal level. Further, the

Duchess of Rutland used her status and the promise of an insider view to promulgate this vision as a model for emulation by those aspiring to enter the ranks of the upper class. In this manner, the Duchess’s female portraits not only offered a visual alternative to the identity of the upper-class woman at the end of the century, they also actively contributed to the formation of this identity within the society in which the portraits circulated.

Chapter Two – Portraits, Philanthropy, and Politics

This chapter considers the relationship between the upper-class woman and the power structure of England in the period from 1890 to 1914. I focus on two individual women:

Lady Londonderry and the Duchess of Sutherland, and their direct or indirect involvement with positions of power. I suggest that this was a time of transition when the traditional class-based access to power exercised by upper-class women became more problematic, inspiring a shift from the private forum to the public forum. The upper-class women who led the way in this shift used the public fascination with images of the aristocratic female to accumulate social capital. They drew upon new technological advances in studio photography, adopting and adapting the conventions of the painted status portrait to extend and expand its meaning for a broader audience. The social capital derived from this use of the studio portrait was then translated into political capital, requiring a delicate balance between the presentation of social capital in socially acceptable form and the agency of social capital in the actual realization of power, in order to deflect direct opposition. The two women selected demonstrate the transitional approaches used by upper-class women within a changing social context. Lady Londonderry, a woman who wielded great political influence with prominent Conservatives behind the scenes, continued to use her portrait image to bolster the class division that protected the private self of the upper-class woman from the prying eyes of the public. In contrast, the Duchess of

Sutherland offered a softer, more feminine image in her photographic portraits, soliciting the personal engagement of the public. I compare their attitude towards and tactics within

134 135 an increasingly public forum based upon the dissemination of studio portrait images through the new medium of the illustrated journal.

LADY LONDONDERRY AS THE ‘GREAT POLITICAL LADY’

Theresa, the sixth Marchioness of Londonderry, was born in 1856 to an aristocratic family.

After her presentation to Court in 1873 she was quickly married to Charles Vane-Tempest-

Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (becoming Lord Londonderry on his father’s death in 1884), a suitable alliance arranged by the two families. A portrait of the nineteen-year-old Theresa was commissioned at the time of her marriage. The painting by Edward Clifford (fig. 2.1) is not unlike the Aesthetic portraits of Violet, the Duchess of Rutland, discussed in Chapter

One. Theresa’s face is presented in full profile. Her features are classically proportioned and she stares pensively, lost in her thoughts. The background and her dress are painted to create an effect, rather than an identifiable fashion or location. The shining white and shades of blue and green shimmer together in a vision that prioritizes spiritual beauty over traditional markers of status. However, where the Duchess of Rutland continued to fashion her personal and public identity on this Aesthetic persona, Lady Londonderry’s interests were more directly political and led to a different aesthetic for her public image.

In her study of political wives in the Late Victorian and Edwardian periods, Esther Shkolnik suggests a model of female power that was based on the upper-class hegemony in politics

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and the social context in which it was performed.185 This model drew on the ‘great political lady’ traditions of the earlier part of the nineteenth century as exemplified by Lady

Palmerston. Working together as a political team with her husband, Lady Palmerston used her social connections and influence to create a milieu conducive to furthering her husband’s political agenda as Prime Minister. Coveted invitations could be issued to consolidate relationships with rising politicians eager to acquire access to more exalted social circles. Similarly, political displeasure could be manifested by social exclusion. The intimate relationship between social life and politics meant that upper-class women who were leaders in Society could exercise a very real, if indirect, political influence. This influence was implemented through social functions and also through personal friendships or relationships where politically involved women acted as confidantes, social hostesses, and behind-the-scenes manipulators. The influence of the successful political hostess was most often exercised on behalf of a male relative, but it could also be extended to a man who was not a relative at any level, allowing the woman to act as political mentor to an up- and-coming young politician, gathering around her a cadre of politically useful admirers prepared to support and advance the career of her candidate.

The traditional role of political hostess and the influence of the hostess on the career of an aspiring politician was described in the 1869 novel Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope. In this novel, the young and charming Phineas Finn ascends through the political hierarchy on the

185 Esther Simon Shkolnik, Leading Ladies: A Study of Eight Late Victorian and Edwardian Political Wives (New York and London: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1987).

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support of his upper-class female admirers before finally abandoning politics and returning

to his Irish sweetheart. He first came to the attention of Lady Laura Standish, the only daughter of the Earl of Standish. Lady Laura, intelligent and ambitious, exemplifies the socially acceptable form of female aspirations to political power:

Lady Laura’s father was in the cabinet, to Lady Laura’s infinite delight. It was her

ambition to be brought as near to political action as was possible for a woman

without surrendering any of the privileges of feminine inaction. That women should

even wish to have votes at parliamentary elections was to her abominable and the

cause of the Rights of Women generally was odious to her; but nevertheless, for

herself, she delighted in hoping that she too might be useful, – in thinking that she

too was perhaps, in some degree, politically powerful; and she had received

considerable increase to such hopes when her father accepted the Privy Seal. The

Earl himself was not an ambitious man, and, but for his daughter, would have

severed himself altogether from political life before this time.186

Although a fictional rendition written by a man who was not himself part of the aristocratic caste, this novel indicates the public perception of the political role and ambitions of the upper-class woman in an era where such machinations were very much a private matter of class.

186 Anthony Trollope, Phineas Finn (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1986), 127.

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The young, spiritual figure of Clifford’s portrait quickly showed her desire to assume a

similar role of ‘great political lady’. In a parallel to Trollope’s fictional Lady Laura, Lady

Londonderry’s new husband, although positioned through birth and wealth to participate in

politics at the highest levels, was both diffident and unambitious. His involvement in politics

was limited to a series of ceremonial appointments, acknowledged to be due more to the

influence of Lady Londonderry than to her husband’s abilities or interest. 187 In her

biography of the sixth and seventh Marchioness of Londonderry, Diane Urquhart describes

how Lady Londonderry was perceived as the driving force of the marriage, and a woman

who pushed the boundaries of female involvement in the political system. She shared with

her husband a staunch and unvarying belief in Conservative politics and in the continued

union of Ireland and England and this, combined with the significant landed interest of Lord

Londonderry in Northern Ireland, resulted in his appointment as the Irish Viceroy.188

Although mainly a prestige appointment, the situation in Ireland was fraught with political tension due to the continuing agitation for Home Rule and called for a political emissary who could both support the continued Union and simultaneously ease tension with the local populace. As the Pall Mall, a London paper, remarked on his appointment, “Lord

187 In an article describing the ‘lesser lights’ of Lord Salisbury’s Second Administration, Lady Londonderry is the only female figure depicted or referred to. The article suggests that Lord Londonderry’s “chief claim to distinction, and perhaps also to the high office he now holds is that he is the husband of Lady Londonderry.” Aberdeen People’s Journal, Saturday, August 14, 1886, 6. 188 Diane Urquhart, The Ladies of Londonderry: Women and Political Patronage (London: I.B.Tauris, 2007), 80. In her memoirs, the Countess of Warwick similarly characterizes Lady Londonderry as the “strong man” of the family, a woman born to rule. The Duchess describes her contemporary as “a remarkable personality for she was amazingly shrewd and far-seeing. She was a born dictator and loved to encounter opposition so that she might crush it.” Countess of Warwick, Discretions (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1931), 111.

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Londonderry has absolutely no qualification for the post beyond his marriage with one of

the prettiest and most popular ladies in society.”189

An article on Lady Londonderry in The Belfast News-Letter suggests that the management of this delicate balance was assumed by Lady Londonderry, who transformed the Drawing

Room at Dublin Castle into a glittering social event, while simultaneously using her social position to encourage the manufacture of Irish lace and other Irish industry.190 While accepting that this praise comes from a Northern Ireland publication, it is relevant that Lady

Londonderry was lauded for the political use that she made of her husband’s position.

While initially remarked upon only for her beauty, after less than two years she was heralded as an independent force, successful with both ‘classes’ and ‘masses’. She also took a more directly partisan political involvement, assuming a prominent role in the Primrose

League, the female arm of the Conservative party.191

In many ways Lady Londonderry was the successor to the Lady Palmerston model, using social standing, personal charm, and political ambition to exert indirect influence based on personal intimacy and hospitality.192 Her friendship with the Prince of Wales, later King

189 The Pall Mall Gazette, (London) Thursday, July 29, 1886, issue 6667, 1. 190 “The Marchioness of Londonderry,” The Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Ireland), Issue 22639, Tuesday, January 24, 1888, 7. 191 “The Primrose League,” The Morning Post (London, England), Issue 35520, Saturday, April 24, 1886, 6. 192 The Countess of Warwick confirms that until the Great War, political hostesses were a dominant factor in English politics, using their social and financial resources to influence policy and secure positions for children or friends. Countess of Warwick, Discretions, 50.

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Edward VII, echoed the model of the ‘great political lady’, integrating friendship, romance and politics with a deft hand that increased her political power and position as a female of political knowledge and influence. She used her London and country residences as informal political salons where politicians and others met, alliances were formed, and political preferments negotiated. Her influence in the political system was of such a magnitude that in 1903 King Edward VII held a Privy Council meeting at the Londonderry country house at

Wynyard, the first meeting of the privy Council at a private country house since 1625. In his memoir of the era, E. F. Benson described the ‘great lady’ of the 1890s as the last vestige of a tradition of splendour and dignity and specifically identified Lady Londonderry as a representative of the classification:

Lady Londonderry was equally enamoured of power, and had a far keener

splendour, she frankly and unmitigatedly enjoyed standing at the head of her stairs

when some big party was in progress, with the ‘family fender,’ as she called that nice

diamond crown gleaming on her most comely head, and hugging the fact that this

was her house, and that she was a Marchioness from top to toe and was playing the

part to perfection…Naturally (being what she was) she wanted to manage

everything for everybody, and though she would always do her best that her friends

should get their heart’s desire, she distinctly preferred that she should compass this

for them in her own way.193

As these references suggest, Lady Londonderry emulated the traditional model of the ‘great political lady’ established by Lady Palmerston, translating her personal ambition and desire

193 E.F. Benson, As We Were: A Victorian Peepshow (London: Penguin Classics, 2001), 179.

141 for political involvement into influence through her exploitation of the opportunities available to her through her birth and marital status.

Lady Londonderry’s transition from young debutante to the assured ‘great lady’ is documented by the alteration in the style of portrait from Clifford’s to that commissioned in

1894 from Ellis Roberts, one of the leading portrait painters to the upper class at the time

(fig. 2.2). In the earlier image, Theresa sits in a casual pose on a stone bench, slightly slumped in a private moment of thought. In the later portrait, she stands erect in a conscious pose. Her head is regally tilted so that she appears slightly higher than the viewer, looking down her aristocratic nose. Although the setting is ostensibly outdoors, there is still the sense of Lady Londonderry ‘standing at the head of the stairs’, as described by E. F.

Benson. The younger Theresa is posed in a timeless white robe, unadorned, and placed in a vaguely delineated dream world of creams and greens and blues. I suggest that the more mature Lady Londonderry is equally placed in a temporally and spatially unspecific costume and setting, although with quite different connotations. Where the earlier portrait refers to the Aesthetic vision of the young girl as the site for spirituality and pure beauty, the latter draws on the conventions and traditions of the elite status portrait, resulting in an image designed for posterity as a ritualistic statement confirming class hierarchy.

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THE STATUS PORTRAIT

In the introduction I discussed the resurgence of interest in eighteenth-century forms of portraiture that occurred in the transitional period between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.194 An explanation for this focus on earlier form of portraiture is the perception of portraiture as another form of ritual or tradition, another way for the upper class to perform its status. Portraits of the upper class were exhibited each year at the Royal

Academy in such large numbers that they threatened to subsume the other categories of art.195 The display of status through the portraits of aristocratic women carefully controlled their public image as individuals and as a class. I suggest that this need for control of public perception and the deliberate reference to prior eras through the stability of the art form worked together to bolster the idea of the stability of the upper class in the manner suggested by Eric Hobshawm in his essay on the use of tradition in ritual. In essence, the portrait was another form of ritual that sought to persuade the public to recognize the upper class as representing ideas of tradition and stability in a time of instability and uncertainty.

194 This interest was well-recognized at the time as a nostalgic reference to the Georgian pre-industrial era. The Bystander, April 25, 1906, 170. 195 Journal articles from 1900 to 1914 consistently refer to the high number of portraits exhibited at the Royal Academy. For instance, in 1907 it was estimated that out of a total of 1500 works exhibited over 350 were portraits. “Portraits, Portraits, Portraits all the Way,” The Bystander, May 8, 1907, 282. The impact of society portraits would also have been increased due to the large size and prominent position granted to this form of art. In 1908 portraits were held to have replaced the subject pictures of the prior century. “Academies, Past and Present,” The Bystander, May 13, 1908, x.

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While the individual sitter may have judged the success of the portrait based on a flattering

representation, quality of technique, or the social capital of the artist, the plethora of

portraits of a similar type that were then replicated in illustrated journals blended the

individual into a class collective. Consider, for example, three published portraits of upper-

class women (figs. 2.3, 2.4, and 2.5), painted by different artists over the period of four

years between 1904 and 1908. While each of the images utilizes a different handling of the

paint and a different treatment of the subject, the confident pose of the female subject, her

elaborate dress, and the background reference to a stately residence and landed estate,

immediately classify each of them as a swagger or status image that draws on earlier

precedents within the eighteenth-century species of the portrait genus to express a stability

and a continuity in the image of the collective upper-class woman.

I suggest that we should consider the portrait of Lady Londonderry depicted by Ellis Roberts

against this contextual background. My object is not to analyze the different expressions of

the swagger portrait in depth, but to identify common features that would be quickly

recognizable by the viewers of the time and that would identify a work as a portrait

rendered for this purpose. Mr. Ellis Roberts was a prominent society portrait painter of the

late nineteenth and early twentieth century, specializing in the portraits of society women.

In an article for Tatler magazine in 1908 he describes his entry into aristocratic circles.

Roberts relates that he was fortunate to catch the attention of Lord Bury in the late 1880s and upon completion of that portrait was asked to paint the portrait of one of Lord Bury’s daughters. The exhibition of this portrait at the Grosvenor Gallery caught the attention of

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another patron and the display of the portrait in the country estate of the patron brought a

flood of commissions from the upper class. The portrait of Lady Londonderry in 1894 was

therefore one of his early works and he refers to her help on the occasion of a Royal visit of

Queen Alexandra (then the Princess of Wales) to his studio: “Lady Londonderry fortunately

was sitting to me when the royal party arrived and helped me to receive my distinguished

guests.”196 In this masterful statement of self-promotion, Mr. Roberts identified his commission from Lady Londonderry and bestowed upon himself her commendation and the

Royal seal of approval through his reference to Lady Londonderry’s assistance in facilitating the acquaintance between the artist and Princess Alexandra. The relationship between artist and subject was very much a reciprocal one. The status of the subject provided both introductions and the bestowal of society approval to the rising artist. Simultaneously, the social status of the artist and the artistic style of his portrait confirmed the elite status of the subject.

The Roberts portrait of Lady Londonderry (fig. 2.2) is only medium-sized in scale, smaller than any of the three examples cited. It is also a pastel rather than an oil painting, a form of painting that Mr. Roberts favoured in his portraits. However, the reference to the swagger portrait is clear in the composition of this work. Lady Londonderry stands erect, dressed in a flowing silk gown that seems timeless and emulates the style of gown worn in

Gainsborough’s portrait of Mrs. Baker. The landscape to the left extends into the distance

196 ‘Beautiful Women I Have Painted: An Interview with Mr. Ellis Roberts,’ The Tatler (London) March 25, 1908, No. 352, 256.

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but is spatially and temporally unspecific. The implausibility of Lady Londonderry wandering

into a wooded area while dressed in a satin evening gown highlights the symbolic nature of

the representation. This compositional device is a feature of the traditional swagger portrait

and Lady Londonderry posed in the woods is an echo of Gainsborough’s portrait of Mrs.

Peter Baker wandering about a rocky hilltop in similar attire. The landscape is not intended

to refer to a particular space: it is an abstract reference to the territorial dominance of the

upper class, drawing upon the conventions of an identifiable form of portrait image. Lady

Londonderry is framed on one side by a block of trees, simultaneously solid and full of

movement. The suggestion of a billowing wind activates the gauze of her shawl, the

quivering leaves of the trees, and the encroaching clouds in the sky. However, Lady

Londonderry is not dislocated by the breeze. She stands as unaffected as a statue, her hand

resting in a possessive pose of ownership upon the architectural pillar beside her. Her

immobility suggests immutability. Notwithstanding Ellis Roberts’s claim that he liked “to

study a face very carefully before I paint it and to arrive at some idea of the character and

disposition of my sitter,” 197 the subject portrayed here is a representative of her class and position rather than an individual.

The experience of the viewer upon encountering this painting would reinforce the idea of status and position. The painting presents Lady Londonderry in full figure, set slightly back from the picture plane. From a phenomenological perspective, the centering of the figure in

the mid-ground facilitates the separation of subject from viewer. The ground raises Lady

197 Ibid.

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Londonderry, not only away from the viewer but also higher – an effect that is heightened

when the painting is hung on the wall. The viewer would have the sensation of looking up at

the regal form, reinforced by the gaze of Lady Londonderry haughtily regarding the

observer below her. The optical effect of the composition worked metaphorically to

buttress the underlying message of hierarchy and superiority.

A portrait such as this depiction of Lady Londonderry in 1894 would receive limited public

exposure, perhaps forming part of an exhibition of the artist’s work at the Grosvenor

Gallery or other similar venue. If the subject and artist were fortunate, the portrait could be

included in the works exhibited at the Royal Academy in its Annual Exhibition that formed

the opening event of the social Season. Copies or photographs of portraits were retained by

artists to form a portfolio of images available for prospective clients or for publication in

illustrated journals.198 However, the primary purpose of this form of portrait was to take its place in the pantheon of family portraits that lined the walls of the family estates. In 1913 the portrait was displayed prominently in the drawing room of Londonderry House in

London as captured in a photograph of the room printed in The Bystander (fig. 2.6). It is now located at the family country seat at Mount Stewart in Northern Ireland. The viewers of the painting in both London and the country would consist primarily of family members and of visitors who shared a similar array of portraits in their own houses. Through the avatar of

198 A selection of photographs of female society portraits painted by Ellis Roberts illustrated the article on the artist printed in The Tatler in 1908, suggesting that he retained copies of past works for future display. “Beautiful Women I Have Painted: An Interview with Mr. Ellis Roberts,” The Tatler No. 352, March 25, 1908, 256.

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the painting, Lady Londonderry forged a visual link between past and present that would continue to assert the family legacy of status and greatness into the future. Secure within a timeless, allegorical stage-set of grandeur, Lady Londonderry took her place as a link in the continuity of the family and of the upper class in the modern world.

POLITICAL WOMEN: THE TRANSITION FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLIC

In the Trollope novel, Lady Laura, unable to fully exercise her talents on the unsuitable

material of her father, extends her reach to support and foster the career of unrelated

young politicians eager for the guidance and assistance of a politically connected female

mentor. For Lady Laura, the ability to influence and manipulate political events through

carefully orchestrated social events and contacts satisfied her need to be involved in the

political process, recognizing that her political power was a private exercise of power,

accepted within the social regulation of her class and not formally subject to the scrutiny or

awareness of outsiders. Trollope’s outsider view of female machinations in politics was

necessarily only a partial view, drawn from public knowledge of the activities of ‘political

great ladies’ such as Lady Palmerston and extrapolated based on his imagination and

perception. Similarly, the public view of the activities of Lady Londonderry in the 1890s was

equally fragmented and speculative, based primarily on snippets from newspaper articles

and fictionalized models drawn from sources such as Trollope. Sightings of her were mainly

confined to structured public appearances, either in the guise of a ritualistic procession,

such as the entry of the Viceroy and his family into Dublin, or in her public appearances as

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the ‘great lady’. Lady Londonderry, like Lady Laura Standish, appeared as an almost unreal

being, separated from the knowledge and real experience of the public through a class

chasm almost as great as the division of fiction from reality.199

In her book, The Best Circles, Leonore Davidoff argues that as the dominance of both the

economic and political systems of power shifted from the traditional upper-class male, the

purpose of Society in the social system of the era became increasingly focused on the more

social and personal aspects controlled by the upper-class woman.200 The private avenues to power for upper-class woman became progressively more restricted as the power of her male counterpart was diluted by the influx of new groups controlling the wealth and political authority of the system. I suggest that the upper-class woman such as Lady

Londonderry adapted to these new circumstances by utilizing her social capital to access new forms of power and influence, shifting her activities and persona from the private sphere of the upper class to the public arena, taking a more public role in political activities and developing an enhanced public persona through the augmented access to portrait images that became possible in this period.

199 The Countess of Warwick notes that many of the older political hostesses of the Conservative party “regarded privacy as their special privilege, and it formed a part of their social assets. What they did and thought concerned nobody but themselves.” Countess of Warwick, Discretions, 4. 200 Leonore Davidoff, The Best Circles: Society Etiquette and the Season (London: Cresset Library, 1973), 17.

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Lady Londonderry, like most of her class, did not turn her political ambitions to support for the rising cause of female suffrage. Although there were some exceptions, most of the leaders and active participants of the suffrage movement were middle-class women and the position of upper-class women on the enfranchisement of women was ambivalent.201 Many women from aristocratic circles felt that they controlled a greater degree of power behind the scenes, operating on the past model of the ‘great political lady’ exemplified by Lady

Palmerston. As Shkolnik notes, “As conformists who accepted the mores of their time and were in turn accepted by Society, such women actually could influence the course of politics, however indirectly, to a far greater degree than could suffragists, suffragettes, and other political activists, who alienated a large percentage of the powers that were.”202

Perhaps because they had this long-standing and well-established route to power, the widely held view of upper-class women during this period leading to WWI was that women were not biologically or temperamentally suited to participate directly in the political system. Public activities outside of socially accepted political avenues such as political hostess, participation in an organization like the Primrose League, canvassing on behalf of a spouse or male relative, or attending the Ladies’ Gallery at Parliament were felt to be dangerous both to women and to politics in general.203

This idea of the danger involved in female enfranchisement was tied to the discourse on the degeneration of the British race. Female involvement in the male sphere was seen as an

201 Shkolnik, Leading Ladies, 546. 202 Shkolnik, Leading Ladies, 10. 203 Lady Dorothy Nevill, My Own Times (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1912), 137.

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abandonment of traditional female roles of home and family, leading to decadence and a

resulting further decline in the race and population. Political involvement was a distraction

from the primary duty of the female to the State as mothers and wives.204 Lady

Londonderry’s publicly stated position on the changing role of women reflected this view.

Upon hearing a suggestion that she should have held a high political position, she responded that her place was to further her husband’s career.205 The Londonderrys hosted

a number of meetings for committees established to examine causes of deterioration of the

race, and in a public speech to the Nursing Society, Lady Londonderry agreed that one of

the major causes for this degeneration was the change in women’s ideas of their role,

reaffirming the primary domestic duty of the female.206

In practice, she continued to operate in the private, class-based model of the ‘great political lady.’207 The scope of her private network broadened beyond traditional class barriers as the positions of power shifted away from the upper-class male. An article in 1911 identified the influx of non-aristocratic men elected into Parliament and noted how this rise to power

204 George Nathaniel Curzon, Subjects of the Day: Being a Selection of Speeches and Writings (London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1915), 284. 205 “Woman’s Realm,” The Courier, Wednesday, May 13, 1908, 6. 206 Belfast Weekly News, Thursday, May 3, 1906, 5. 207 Sir Almeric Fitzroy recounts how Lady Londonderry would walk into the Privy Council Office to network, trading information and opinions with any occupants of the room. Almeric William Fitzroy, Memoirs, Vol. I (London: Hutchinson, n.d.), 162. She also continued an extensive correspondence with many of the leading politicians of the day. Most notable is her relationship with Sir Edward Carson. Although the letters she wrote to him were destroyed in a fire, the archives of Lady Londonderry contain over 150 letters from Carson, dealing with a mixture of personal news, political gossip, and discussions requesting political advice and strategy input. Public Records Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI), D1507.

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acted as a social stepping stone into Society.208 Women like Lady Londonderry moderated

this flow of newcomers, quickly befriending the newly elected members, attempting to

sway them on key political issues. Lady Londonderry accomplished this by embracing the

new politician, including him into the private enclaves of the upper class; she likewise

ingratiated herself with his wife and daughters, offering to present them at Court and to

introduce them into Society.209 Leveraging her social power, Lady Londonderry continued to extend and to exert her political influence in the traditional manner of the political great lady.

However, Lady Londonderry also carefully probed the line that differentiated between the acceptable role of political helpmate and independent political personage, sometimes stepping over the edge of acceptable female involvement. In his memoirs, Sir Almeric

Fitzroy, a prominent civil servant, recalled Lady Londonderry’s unprecedented involvement in educational matters following her husband’s cabinet appointment to the Presidency of the Board of Education and Lord President of the Council in 1902. He recounts how she presided over a meeting convened by her spouse, leaving him a nominal figurehead to the conference. As Fitzroy commented, “It is certainly a new departure when a Minister’s wife

208 “Parliament as the Stepping Stone to Society,” The Bystander, December 27, 1911, 686. 209 Diane Urquhart describes how Lady Londonderry, although not initially a supporter of Bonar Law, reached out to him after his appointment as leader of the Conservative Party. She facilitated her attempts to influence his leadership of the Party by assuming many of the social obligations of his position and eventually presenting his daughter at Court. She used similar methods to transition F.E. Smith from interloper to political ally and friend. Urquhart, The Ladies of Londonderry, 101.

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undertakes to look into matters of departmental administration in the very seat of her

husband’s authority, and leaves to him the simple functions of an interested listener.”210

Lady Londonderry transitioned the role of helpmeet and support into a very public and prominent role in public affairs, particularly in connection with the opposition to Irish Home

Rule. She was one of the founding members of the Ulster Women’s Union Council, created in 1911 to foster and create support in Northern Ireland and in England for the anti-Home

Rule movement. By 1912, there were more than 100,000 women participating in the

Council. While the UWUC was established as an auxiliary organisation, subordinate to the male-only Council, it operated on its own initiative, arranging for broad registration and canvassing work, the creation and dissemination of Unionist Propaganda, the organisation of demonstrations, and a series of public and widely distributed speeches designed to raise awareness and support for the cause. In her position, Lady Londonderry essentially and effectively ran a complicated national political campaign. She both controlled the direction and agenda of the Council efforts and became the public face of the female movement.

Newspaper accounts reported on her public appearances, often including the entire text of her speeches. Her correspondence with Unionist politicians discloses that she was considered an integral part of the movement, her views treated with deference and her advice and counsel sought.211

210 Sir Almeric William Fitzroy, Memoirs, Vol. I (London: Hutchinson, n.d.), 170. 211 For instance, Sir Edward Carson wrote to Lady Londonderry on January 22, 1914 after she presided over a public meeting giving a speech that was reported verbatim in the newspapers. He congratulated her on her speech, “which covered all the ground.” He then declared that “We must now commence to work on finance on a very large scale,” including

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The portrait image of the upper-class woman was of critical importance in facilitating this shift. As the scope of the political influence exercised by Lady Londonderry expanded to include the public sphere and the need to reach and to attract the attention of people outside of her class, the portrait became an integral part in the creation of a public persona.

The public dissemination of these portrait images turned the upper-class woman into a public figure, recognizable in a manner that was unprecedented for a woman of her position. This new public profile created a public interest in the lifestyle and the activities of these women that was much more intense and personal than previously experienced and this interest was then leveraged to support the foray of elite women into activities and areas of public influence that transformed them into icons for emulation and offered a new path for the continued relevance of the upper class.

If we compare the images of Lady Londonderry used in newspapers (which lacked the technological facility for easy inclusion of photographic reproductions) with the images used in the new illustrated journals that emerged in the 1890s it is clear that the drawn portraits demonstrate a similar aesthetic to the photographic images. In the early 1890s, Lady

Londonderry sat for two sets of studio portraits, one with the photographer Lafayette and the other with the photographer W. D. Downey (figs. 2.7 and 2.8). In both images Lady

her implicitly in the strategy team and requesting her advice. Letter to Lady Londonderry from Sir Edward Carson dated January 22, 1914, PRONI D2846/1/1/114. The Countess of Warwick proffers the view that Lady Londonderry’s influence was the determining factor in the failure of the Conservative party to entertain any compromise on the issue. Countess of Warwick, Discretions, 111.

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Londonderry is depicted in profile, unsmiling, wearing a pearl choker and her famous

diamond tiara. Other studio portraits of Lady Londonderry of the same period offer a similar

form of persona, emphasizing the accessories and facial characteristics that identified the

class of the subject (figs. 2.9 and 2.10). Drawings produced in newspapers continued the effect of these portraits as images of status, simplifying the facial structure, reducing Lady

Londonderry to a caricature of a haughty profile with a pearl choker and jewelled tiara (figs.

2.11 and 2.12). Unlike the drawings of the Duchess of Rutland discussed in Chapter One that idealized the upper-class subject translating her into a metonymic symbol of her class, I suggest that the ability of illustrated journals to include the photograph of Lady

Londonderry translated her from an anonymous representative of class into an individual. If we consider the images together it is clear the photographic portraits are composed images, structured to induce a particular response in the viewer. These are status images that emphasize the public position of the subject, not images that are intended to translate her into an object of Aesthetic beauty, or images that attempt to reveal the private, inner soul of the sitter. Despite their constructedness, however, the photographs have an

emotional impact that speaks beyond the mere statement of status replicated by the

drawings.212 The essential characteristic of photography, according to Roland Barthes, is its

relation to the referent. It is not a product of imagination, and even in these controlled, stiff

212 As status portraits, these studio portraits of Lady Londonderry support the position raised by Snyder and Allen, who argue that photography is another form of painting or drawing, involving a similar creative involvement of the photographer, where the photographic equipment and process can be seen as simply a different medium. However, these images also highlight the weakness in their proposition. While cognitively the viewer can appreciate the technical manipulation involved to produce the desired image, the connection to the referent provides an emotional resonance.

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portraits, Theresa Lady Londonderry becomes a real person, distinguishable from others of

her class. I suggest that it was this ‘realness’, the connection between the referent and the

individual that heightened public awareness and interest in Lady Londonderry, turning her into a nationally recognized figure as her portrait image was disseminated through illustrated journals utilizing the new photomechanical reproductive technology.

THE RISE OF THE ILLUSTRATED JOURNAL AND THE SOCIETY PORTRAIT

In contrast to the ambitions of Lady Londonderry, the Duchess of Sutherland, married young into an exalted social position (as I will describe in more detail in the next section), had no interest in participating in the realm of politics, either directly or through her spouse. However, I argue in this chapter that she used the mass publication of constructed portrait images in the newly emerging society journals to cultivate a public image that would provide her with the public leverage necessary to further her charitable interests on a broad public basis. Her ability to create a broadly recognized public following was similarly dependent on the illustrated journals using the new technology to incorporate portrait images on a basis that was unprecedented.

To understand the purpose and impact of new journals illustrated with photomechanical technology, we can consider the journal Country Life. Country Life was one of the first society journals conceived of with the goal of exploiting the new technology of photomechanical reproduction. Starting in 1897, the goal of this weekly publication was

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“the production of a weekly illustrated paper of the highest quality that should get the best

possible results from half-tone blocks.”213 The magazine was large in size, measuring approximately 15 by 9 inches and containing roughly 95 pages, of which over half consisted of photographs. The paper was of good quality, durable and strong, and the cover had an additional thickness and glossiness. In its early years, it attracted a mainly female readership, facilitated by the adoption of a photographic portrait of a society woman as the full-page frontispiece and regular articles on fashion and society news. The front page of the

March 5, 1898 issue provides a representative example, displaying a full-page portrait of the

Duchess of Sutherland (fig. 2.13). The Duchess of Sutherland was recognized as one of most prominent Society hostesses, on a level commensurate with Lady Londonderry and her name was thus prominently featured in the reports of Society columnists.214 The journal

1 was issued on Saturdays, at a price of sixpence or 6 2d if sent by post. The cost of the

journal rendered it affordable for the upper and most of the middle class, and the ability to

receive the weekly offering by post meant that it was available throughout the United

Kingdom.

213 Roy Strong, Country Life: 1897-1997: The English Arcadia (London: Country Life Books, 1996), 16. 214 However, where Lady Londonderry was primarily concerned with the use of such events to increase her social capital and thus further her political interests, the Duchess of Sutherland was required to act as Society hostess because of her rank and position, and she devoted her energies and the social status she derived from her influence in Society to extend her philanthropic pursuits. The Countess of Warwick writes that Society hostesses could be divided into two classes, political and social. She identifies Lady Londonderry as one of the exceptional few who could give both classes of reception. Countess of Warwick, Discretions, 52.

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The large size and the value contrast of the full-length photographic portrait image of the

Duchess of Sutherland against the cream page of the journal ensured that it was the major visual feature of the front page. In this photograph of the Duchess taken at the studio of

H.S. Mendelssohn, the female subject is posed in a manner familiar to those acquainted with the form of status or swagger portrait. The Duchess stands erect and confident.

Although she is fashionably attired, her dress with its billowing sleeves and flowing gown also seems to echo the similar features of dress of eighteenth-century portraits. She is framed on one side by the combination of architectural reference and flowing natural elements. On the other side the blurry landscape vista recedes behind her. In his use of photographic props and backdrop Mendelssohn has deliberately appropriated the language of the status image. The portrait was intended to be identified as a work of art commensurate with the works of portrait painters displayed on the walls of galleries and country estates, appealing on a cultural and aesthetic basis to the conventional standards of the art of the aristocracy. The composition and pose of the subject confirmed her position as a member of this elite cadre, providing information on the intended perception of the subject through the formal qualities of her image.

The portrait was also meant to convey an implied statement of status about both the publication and its readership. I suggest that this image worked indirectly but synergistically with the text of the heading, to identify the persona of the reader. Country Life Illustrated identified its readership through the statement that it is “The Journal for All Interested in

Country Life and Country Pursuits.” On its face, this is an ambiguous statement; it is a claim

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that could be made equally for the farmer or the country villager. However, in the context

of the elegance of the journal as a whole, and the proximity of the text to the status image

of the Duchess of Sutherland, this statement became a reference to the contemporary

discourse and anxiety regarding the future sustainability of the relationship between the

upper class and the land. In an era where the profitability of land ownership was threatened

and many lesser peers and less wealthy gentry were unable to maintain a traditional upper-

class lifestyle rooted in the possession of a landed estate, this journal became a vehicle of

elite support for the continuity of the relationship between upper class and territory,

elevating it from a discourse of class sustainability to one of national identity. As Roy Strong

emphasized in his history of Country Life, it sought to provide an ideal of refined country

living and thereby create a nostalgic myth of a golden past, apotheosizing the lifestyle and

culture of the aristocracy and gentry of a pre-industrialized Britain.215 In this context, the

image of the Duchess of Sutherland was more than a personal portrait. It stood as a situs for

the abstract ideas that imbued this discourse, reinforcing the reference to the hierarchical eighteenth century through the visual markers of the portrait. In addition, the Duchess, presented as a beautiful woman of refinement, became the symbol of the upper class, of the preservation of the pre-industrial way of life, and of the nation and its self-

identification.

It is relevant to note the prominent statement that this issue is No. 61, forming part of Vol.

III. The numbering of the issues and particularly the reference to the volume suggest a

215 Ibid, 37.

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collectible form of seriality. This is not exceptional for periodicals, but the numbering,

combined with the durability of the material and the aesthetic presentation, supports the argument that this journal was not intended to be read and disposed of in the manner of a daily paper or even a magazine of household tips. In a manner similar to the form of luxury book produced by the Duchess of Rutland, this journal was intended to be displayed in a public space of the home, testifying to the aristocratic interests and tastes of the household, and in particular, the female head of that household. Eventually, perhaps, the volumes could be collected and bound, adding their status value to the library of the house. In the display of this volume, the political and social ideals represented by the journal and by the form of image were assumed and appropriated by the owner, identifying her within the interests and cultural frame of reference of the landed upper class.

On a more prosaic level, the mass access to this image of the Duchess of Sutherland through the purchasers and readers of the journal and the people exposed to the display of the issue in the home of the purchaser resulted in the Duchess becoming a figure that was widely recognizable.216 This potential recognition of any sitter was magnified by the frequency of portrait publications in the same or various venues. The popularity of photographic portraits with the readers of society journals resulted in an explosion of demand for

216 Although Roy Strong does not give circulation statistics for the early years of Country Life, he identifies that the journal was ‘extraordinarily successful’ from its inception, engendering “substantial advertising revenue during a period when the commercial potential of the half-tone block as an illustrative medium was also being realised.” It initially appealed to a primarily female fashionable audience but expanded to a broader-based readership, drawing also from the middle class and both genders. Roy Strong, Country Life 1897-1997: The English Arcadia, 20 and 28.

160 additional images, a demand that was multiplied by the proliferation of society journals. In addition to the cover portrait of March 5, 1898, the Duchess of Sutherland also was the subject of the cover frontispiece of Country Life Illustrated on July 8, 1899, January 9, 1904,

August 20, 1904, March 20, 1909 and April 23, 1910. Country Life Illustrated was only one of the numerous society journals that published portraits of the Duchess during this period.

The flood of demand for portrait images of upper-class women altered both the practice and the aesthetics of female portraiture. Photographic portraits were no longer being used primarily as a reproducible replacement for the painted portrait, intended to be retained as a private record or provided as a memento to friends as a tangible relic of personal regard.

The portrait now had a bifurcated purpose with an increasing spotlight on broad dissemination. Although the same image could be re-used in different journals, the public desire for novelty required a constant supply of new portraits. The increased distribution of photographed images in the expansion of illustrated journals meant that many upper-class women were having their photographs taken repeatedly for public forums rather than for private exhibition and exchange, creating a need for new portrait types and fermenting a burgeoning concept of the upper-class woman as a public persona with a distinct form of public image.

Society photographers responded to these pressures by drawing on a more contemporary form of romantic female aesthetic and by combining the idea of the status image with the rising trend of pictorialist rather than ‘straight’ or documentary photography, which

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emphasized the medium’s artistic qualities. In order to distinguish themselves within the

rapidly expanding cadre of aspiring society photographers, each photographer strove to

balance the need to create a branded ‘look’ that identified their images with the need to

provide images identifiable as status portraits within the changing environment of portrait

conventions. If we compare the photographic portrait of the Duchess of Sutherland taken

by Mendelssohn and published in Country Life Illustrated in 1898 with his subsequent portrait of the Duchess published in The Bystander on May 1, 1907, the development of the portrait aesthetic is apparent (figs. 2.13 and 2.14). In the later image, there is a new feeling of intimacy created by the apparently casual pose, as if the viewer is seeing the ‘real’ sitter without artifice. The relaxed position of the sitter is of course carefully constructed, with the sitter posed off-centre on her seat, her shoulders relaxed and her hand in an artless,

natural position supporting her head as she sits lost in thought while reading a book. The

suggestion is that the viewer is an intimate friend allowed access to the private life of the

Duchess. References to status are subtle, particularly in comparison to the 1898 portrait

where the iconography of status in the image is emphasized by the placement of the

portrait on the cover of Country Life, a journal dedicated to the lifestyle of the upper class.

In contrast, in the 1907 portrait wealth and position are more subtly hinted at by the soft

fur of her collar and the long string of lustrous pearls draped over her gown. The

background is plain, the chair is simple, and the focus is on the Duchess as an individual

rather than as a link in a hereditary social structure.

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The Duchess of Sutherland did not confine herself to one photographer. Each photographer produced a slightly different version of the Duchess. A selection of these images demonstrates how each image simultaneously shifted the viewer’s understanding of the

Duchess while also creating a cohesive and identifiable composite persona. The photographic portrait of the Duchess of Sutherland with her children taken at the studio of

Ellis & Walery and published in The Tatler on April 16, 1902 provided a vision of the Duchess

in a different function (fig. 2.15). In this portrait, the Duchess stands behind her two seated

sons, who are engrossed with each other in a mutual project or game. She gazes fondly

down at them, her hand resting affectionately on the shoulder of the younger boy. The

backdrop asserts its materiality as a fabricated image. It is a roughly painted scene that

identifies the status of the sitters without pretending to be a real space they inhabit. In this

manner, it continues to make reference to the mechanisms of the status portrait. Similarly,

the juxtaposition of the aristocratic mother with her two ennobled sons confirms the

traditional role of the upper-class matron to ensure the continuation of the title through

production of an ‘heir and a spare’. However, the playfulness of the two children, the visual

affection of the mother’s gaze and touch, and the constructed ‘unawareness’ of the

subjects of the photographic process combine to suggest a spontaneous moment. The

viewer is permitted a glance behind the façade of class to a projected ‘real’ and identifiable

personal interaction between mother and sons.

In the portrait photograph of the Duchess of Sutherland taken by Lallie Charles and

published in Country Life on August 20, 1904, an additional version of the Duchess is

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depicted (fig. 2.16). In this portrait, the Duchess is poised to depart for an evening event.

Although the background clearly indicates that this was photograph was taken in a studio location, the effect of the posed figure and the accompanying props suggests a more intimate revelation. The glimpse of the simple chairback, with a lace shawl casually flung over its arm, ready to be gathered, provides the narrative of a specific moment. The

Duchess, on the point of departure, is caught in the act of turning. Perhaps the viewer has entered the room and the Duchess has turned to greet her. Perhaps the viewer is the mirror to which the Duchess is turning for a final confirmation of readiness. The image incorporates the viewer into a simulated interaction with the Duchess, imaginarily rendering her a character in this visual anecdote of the Duchess’s life.

Finally, in the portrait taken by Langfier and published in The Bystander on July 17, 1907

(fig. 2.17) we see yet another perspective of the Duchess of Sutherland. Here, the Duchess is dressed for afternoon activities in London. The fashionable and luxurious nature of her clothes and her composed and confident air attest to her class and economic status, notwithstanding the simple chair forming the only external prop of the image. She continues to wear her gloves, her hat and her coat, suggesting that she is away from home.

The dotting indicating that the Duchess is wearing a light veil further serves to separate the subject from the viewer and render her less accessible. The viewer is confronted with the

Duchess of Sutherland as a society woman. However, this is not a formal pose speaking to the symbolic nature of class or gender. The casual manner in which the Duchess sits on the bentwood chair, half-turned and with one arm slung over its back, once again provides the

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foundation for a narrative. The unadorned nature of the chair and the ‘outside’ dress of the

Duchess imply that she is not at the home of a friend or acquaintance. However, the casual

nature of her seated pose suggests that she is in a location and in an activity in which she is

relaxed and at ease, providing an access to her as a person rather than to her symbolic

persona. Perhaps she is at an afternoon Society function or is out shopping and has taken a

moment to pause and rest. The blank background encourages the stimulation of the

viewer’s imagination, inviting the creation of a personal storyline. The Duchess’s active posture, her direct gaze, and the tilt of her head give the impression that she is not alone in contemplation but has stopped with a friend to engage in a brief moment of conversation.

The viewer, the object of her gaze, is invited to step into the place of the absent friend, to imagine herself seated across from the Duchess and to participate in the intimate moment of interchange before each continues on her busy round of social activities. Even while the formal attire of the Duchess is a reminder of the social stratification that separated the

Duchess from the majority of the readers, the aesthetics of the image suggest the possibility of an accessible personal presence.

In the above examples, I have identified one instance of the publication of each of these portrait images of the Duchess of Sutherland. However, many of these images were reproduced in print on more than one occasion, in different publications and even in the same journal title, separated by time. In addition, these studio photographic portraits were supplemented by additional painted portraits of the Duchess. While still a rarer form of portraiture due to the cost and the time commitment, it was common for aristocratic

165 women to have numerous painted portraits commissioned by the fashionable artists of the day. The Duchess of Sutherland had her portrait painted on several occasions, for instance by Ellis Roberts on the two occasions noted and by John Singer Sargent in 1904. These painted portraits were no longer simply hung in dark corridors of similar ancestor portraits, attracting the occasional perusal by a guest of the house. Photographs of these portraits were reproduced in articles reviewing the Royal Academy exhibitions, used in luxury books, and substituted for studio photographs. The repetition resulted in a feeling of familiarity for the viewer encountering the image on more than one occasion. It also resulted in a widespread familiarity with each of the different forms of presentation, providing a broader access to viewers both over time and geographical location.

I suggest that these disseminated images were intended to fulfill a number of different functions that responded to the discourses of class and gender of the period. The multiplicity of different images and the repetition of publication of identical portrait images permitted the Duchess of Sutherland to construct a visual persona with a carefully constructed meaning in a manner previously only available to a very limited group of females. Nancy Armstrong has analyzed a similar use of images in her article addressing the portrait images of Queen Victoria during the second half of the nineteenth century.

Armstrong argues that Queen Victoria consciously issued portrait images into the public sphere that used a variety of tropes, providing a stereographic effect that created a multi-

166 dimensional perspective of subject.217 The differing images were bound together by the commonality of the Queen’s features and expression. In this way, the Queen constructed a three-dimensional public persona that was able to act as her substitute in satisfying the demand of her subjects for access. The advances in printing technology that created the potential and the demand for the public dissemination of images of less exalted aristocratic women opened the possibility for these women of replicating a similar form of image creation. In this context, the plurality of images of the Duchess of Sutherland published from 1898 to 1914 created an experience for the viewer that merged recognition with novelty and discovery. The collective effect of the different perspectives presented the illusion of a three-dimensional, multi-faceted persona, in other words, a form of phantom presence that drew the viewer closer to the referent even while its conscious construction pointed to the absence of that referent. The viewer was imbued with the sense of ‘knowing’ the Duchess on an intimate level that transcended the formal representations or performances of position and class. This illusion of intimacy attached the viewer to the life and the interests of the Duchess. The increased exposure of the image of the Duchess in different aspects simultaneously furthered the perceived knowledge of the viewer and left the viewer desiring even greater intimacy through exposure.

217 Nancy Armstrong, “Monarchy in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Nineteenth- Century Contexts 22 (2001): 505.

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THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND AS PHILANTHROPIC HOSTESS

The Duchess of Sutherland appreciated the public influence she acquired through the broad

recognition of her portrait images. I suggest that she translated the social capital of her new

public identity into political power, orchestrating the release of personal images to

transpose her philanthropic activities onto a national forum.

Millicent, the Duchess of Sutherland was born Lady Millicent Fanny St. Clair Erskine on

October 20, 1867 in Scotland. Her father was the 4th Earl of Rosslyn and her mother came

from a family with both religious and aristocratic credentials. Her marriage to Lord Stafford

(later the Duke of Sutherland) on her seventeenth birthday acquired a mythical status when

reported in the gossip columns of the papers and journals. As recounted in The Tatler on

June 10, 1908 as part of a biographical article on the Duchess, Lord Stafford was invited to

the family home in Scotland as a potential mate for Millicent’s older sister. However, “the

day after his arrival he went up to tea in the schoolroom, saw a vision of beauty in your

girlish face, and at once became deeply fascinated.”218 As she was only fourteen at the time, her thirty-three-year-old suitor had to wait almost three years, but on October 20, 1884 they were married in a large and extravagant society wedding. In 1892, her husband inherited the title and became the 4th Duke of Sutherland. The couple moved to the grand

218 ‘The Searchlight in Society: Our Open Letter. No. V. – The Duchess of Sutherland,’ The Tatler (London) No. 363, June 10, 1908, 274.

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mansion of Stafford House in London and the Duchess assumed the position of one of the

most prominent London hostesses.

The Duchess of Sutherland was a public figure from the time of her marriage in the sense

that her elite aristocratic position made the events in her life the object of interest for

gossip columns in newspapers and journals. For instance, the social column of the London

journal John Bull reported on the wedding in some detail, describing the nature of the

service and the dress of the bride and the bridesmaids, and listing the notable figures

attending the event.219 In the gossip section of Horse and Hound, a paragraph written on

the wedding described the bride as “one of the fairest flowers of the English aristocracy.”220

The narration of sumptuous clothing, elaborate ceremony, and illustrious guests, combined with the hyperbolic description of the bride could as easily come from a fairy-tale. No illustration or image accompanied either article and, in a manner similar to Lady

Londonderry, the new Lady Stafford (later the Duchess of Sutherland) remained an abstract personage to those readers located outside of the upper class. Without the barrage of images available only later in the century, she was a form of imaginary story-book being, moving in a fictional world.

The position Millicent occupied as the Duchess of Sutherland offered her a similar opportunity as that available to Lady Londonderry, to participate in political intrigue. The

219 ‘Society,’ John Bull (London, England), Issue 3,336, Saturday, October 25, 1884, 708. 220 ‘Town and Country Gossip,’ Horse and Hound: A Journal of Sport and Agriculture (London, England) Issue 32, Saturday, October 25, 1884, 439.

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family status and the ownership of Stafford House, one of the most prestigious houses in

London, compelled her to act as political hostess to some degree. It was expected that

aristocracy would respond to requests of Court or government officials to host official

functions for visiting diplomats or foreign royalty. However, she was perceived as being

uninterested in becoming a ‘great political hostess’ in the traditional form. In the

biographical article published by The Tatler she was criticized for failing to fulfil her duties as

a great hostess in the world of London. “In a word, you give charming parties but hardly

entertain in a style that befits your great station.”221 The Duchess was influenced by her

mother, a woman who merged her strong religious views with the performance of her

traditional charitable duties.222 Instead of focusing her engagement with the political issues of the time to the behind the scenes maneuvering of the political hostess, The Duchess of

Sutherland preferred to exercise her political influence masked in the guise of the ‘Lady

Bountiful” role expected of the upper-class woman. I am suggesting that the Duchess

recognized the opportunities available for the upper-class woman to develop a new form of

widespread public image and to leverage this image to expand her ability to influence and

affect social and philanthropic policies on a far more extensive and political level than ever

before.

221 ‘The Searchlight in Society: Our Open Letter. No. V. – The Duchess of Sutherland,’ The Tatler (London) No. 363, June 10, 1908, 274. 222 Denis Stuart, Dear Duchess: Millicent Duchess of Sutherland 1867–1955 (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1982), 27.

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The obligations of the upper-class woman to perform charitable acts stemmed from the

traditional aristocratic paternalistic model based in the ownership and control of rural

estates. In the roles assigned through this model, the female aristocrat was responsible for

seeing to the physical and moral welfare of the tenants of the estate.223 Although the rural

paternalistic tradition of the upper-class frayed in the nineteenth century, this idea of

aristocratic female charitable duty was perpetuated in the Victorian ideas of the woman as

a spiritual icon. In the mid-nineteenth century, John Ruskin gave written expression to the

charitable exception to the Victorian dogma confining females to the private sphere when

he proclaimed that female duties extended into the public realm to “assist in the ordering,

in the comforting, and in the beautiful adornment of the state.”224 This became increasingly problematic as the population shifted to urban centres in the nineteenth century, and responsibility for the physical and moral care of the poor became a site of discourse and negotiation. As Seth Koven has analyzed in his book Slumming, by the second half of the century, well-to-do philanthropists started invading the poorer urban areas in an ill-defined mixture of voyeurism, investigation, missionary activity, and public duty. Although upper- class women continued to be involved in this hands-on dispensation of charity, their traditional space as Lady Bountiful was contested effectively by men and by middle-class

223 The Countess of Warwick, noted for her extreme socialist philanthropic ideas, identifies that traditionally the chatelaine played the part of Lady Bountiful. She notes that although the benefactress was often kind-hearted and well-meaning, the charity was still founded on a form of serfdom, and expected to be repaid through responses of subservience and humility. Countess of Warwick, Discretions, 251. 224 John Ruskin, ‘Of Queen’s Gardens,’ Sesame and Lilies, ed. Deborah Epstein Nord (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002), 88.

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women who joined organizations such as the Salvation Army in large numbers.225 For the

aristocratic or upper-class female, venturing into lower-class areas was often derided as

mere thrill-seeking or an inappropriate display of socialism. Ideas and expectations of

aristocratic benevolence continued to be confined to and derived from the nostalgic

recreation of a past paternalism, re-imagined in the numerous novels and stories of the era.

For instance, in The Making of a Marchioness published in 1903, Frances Hodgson Burnett

describes the life of the lady of the manor as including “strolling in the garden…paying little

visits to old people or young ones in the village. She would help the vicar’s wife in her

charities, she would appear in the manor pew at church regularly, make the necessary dull

calls, and go to the unavoidable dull dinners with a faultless amiability and decorum.”226

This form of classification relegated the upper-class female to a passive, symbolic role while reserving the active, dynamic philanthropic activities to the New Woman of the middle class.

Millicent was not content to limit herself to the performance of this limited role. As a young girl, she was taken by her mother into the poor East End of London to engage in missionary and charitable work, and she continued her passion for philanthropy as a society woman, attracting a degree of skepticism and criticism. As her biographer notes, “Her attitudes were derided as a whim, ridiculed as aristocratic exhibitionism or dismissed as unhelpful

225 Seth Koven, Slumming: Sexual and Social Politics in Victorian London (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 7. 226 Frances Hodgson Burnett, Emily Fox-Seton: Being “The Making of a Marchioness” and “The Methods of Lady Walderhurst” (New York: Grosset, 1909), 224.

172 conscience-salving.”227 As early as 1894, upon ascension to the title of the Duchess of

Sutherland, she began to exercise the power of her position for philanthropic ends. Her initial charitable forays were based in the paternalistic model that was rooted in the geographical terrain of the lady of the manor. She focused her interest on the economic issues of the Scottish crofters and pottery workers. However, instead of limiting herself to the passive charity of visits, comfort, and limited aid in response to immediate crises, the

Duchess envisioned her assistance on a broader scale, working to facilitate economic independence for those under her purview. She focused primarily on female workers and organized them into a guild, encouraging local industry in weaving and pottery. Although more active than many of her peers, this level of organization was not novel; the creation of this guild was a reactivation of a similar organization inaugurated by an earlier Duchess.

Descriptions of the Duchess’s charitable endeavours in the 1890s clearly placed her work within this model of local charity based on the female duty to provide spiritual comfort and physical care for her dependents. For instance, in a paragraph in The Realm in 1894, the

Duchess was lauded as setting “a constant example of womanly sympathy…always ready with a kind word, as well as with help of a more substantial kind.”228 The condescending tone of this ostensible praise denigrated the significant organizational and leadership qualities exhibited by the Duchess in reactivating the economic guild and the substantial economic benefit and the boost to the morale derived by the local community. It reinforced

227 Denis Stuart, Dear Duchess, 27. 228 The Realm, December 14, 1894, 177.

173 the limited scope of the upper-class woman, conflating her substantive achievements with the traditional basket of soup delivered to the peasants.

The originality of this Duchess of Sutherland was to use her personal public popularity to translate this local charitable concern into a nationally-based issue, to break out of the geographical and economic limitations of a model based on regional influence, and to redefine the parameters of female enterprise and public power within the cloak of the socially acceptable activity of charity. She did so in part through a form of newly spectacularized Charity Bazaar.

CHARITY BAZAAR

The Duchess transposed the local displays of female Scottish works to London, starting an annual Scottish Bazaar held at Stafford House in London during the social Season. The idea of a charity bazaar had precedent and was, for example, used to raise funds for the Boer

War in 1900. As outlined by Annette Shiell in her book on the charity bazaars, this form of bazaar was initiated in the early nineteenth century and operated in a pre-modern environment before the development of retail shopping later in the century. The charitable bazaar was the province of the leisured woman of the middle and upper classes, operating as a location for women to display their female accomplishments of fancy work, to mingle

174 with peers or with women of a higher station, and to flirt with male patrons. The charitable recipient of any proceeds was often of minor relevance to the participants.229

The Duchess adopted this form of occasion and positioned her charity event as an annual function of the social Season, using the interest of the public in her life and in the lives of her fellow female aristocrats to create a public investment in and level of awareness for her cause on a level that turned the charity bazaar into a grand spectacle. In the first decade of the twentieth century there was a transformative enlargement in both the frequency and the nature of the charity bazaar. Bazaars became paradoxically more of a Society social event even as they became more socially accessible. Instead of personal handicrafts, stalls were often filled with the work of the recipients of the charity, using the bazaar as another form of retail outlet. Society women used the advertisement potential of the illustrated journals and gossip columns of the newspapers to promote events, calling attention to the illustrious personages expected to attend.230 Articles compared the haphazard barter

229 Annette Shiell, Fundraising, Flirtation and Fancywork: Charity Bazaars in Nineteenth Century Australia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012), 29. Talia Schaffer also provides a useful summary of the development of the charity bazaar, identifying the bazaar as a “kind of reservoir in which earlier modes of economic behavior were preserved.” She echoes Shiell in identifying the bazaar as a site for the display of female handicrafts, themselves a testament to the female accomplishments of the leisured women involved in the bazaar. The charity bazaar maintained its own economic rules, with prices often determined on the whim of the stallholder as part of the social interaction between seller and purchaser. Talia Schaffer, Novel Craft: Victorian Domestic Handicraft and Nineteenth-Century Fiction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 11. 230 For example, the archived correspondence of the Duchess of Sutherland includes a note from King Edward VII, advising his “dear Duchess” that it would give him great pleasure to visit the Exhibition of Scottish Industries at Stafford House as she had proposed. Staffordshire Record Office. An article in The Tatler then announced the upcoming garden

175 system of the old bazaar to the “vastly more businesslike “sales” which philanthropic and other good-natured ladies push with so much spirit” at the new form of event.231 The augmented use of photographs and accompanying text in widely disseminated journals played a critical role in this transformation of the charity bazaar into the format it assumed in the early twentieth century.

The cover image of The Tatler on June 11, 1902 depicted another full-page portrait of the

Duchess of Sutherland. In this studio portrait by Mendelssohn the viewer is present at another intimate introspective moment for the sitter (fig. 2.18). The background is indistinct but in the lower right corner there is a diagonal bar, perhaps suggesting that the Duchess is descending a staircase. Her evening dress with exposed shoulders invites the narrative that she is poised in the moment before entering a social environment. In that fiction, the viewer is in the position of privileged insider, glimpsing some of the weariness and slight sadness that lies beneath the social exterior the Duchess will assume in moments. The potential empathy and connection that the viewer was encouraged to feel for the Duchess was then connected to the caption under the photo, which reads, “THE DUCHESS OF SUTHERLAND.

The hostess of Stafford House, where an exhibition and sale of Scottish home industries was held last Monday.”232 The additional information about the Duchess and her interests

party, emphasizing that the Duchess invites her friends to come and buy, and noting that it is generally visited by Royalty. The Bystander, June 30, 1909, 649. 231 “Charity ‘In Excelsis’,” The Bystander, November 25, 1908, 375. 232 The Tatler London, June 11, 1902, 405.

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simultaneously inspired interest in the cause she promoted and stoked the constant desire

of the reader to intensify the sense of ‘knowing’ the Duchess.

Images of the event itself were published with the idea of providing the viewer with the

illusion of presence. In the collage of images published in The Tatler on July 28, 1909 (fig.

2.19), the viewer becomes a spectator at the Scottish Works Sale at Stafford House, provided with access to the private residence of the Duchess and a spotlight on the notable personages attending. Although the focus of the photospread is on the Duchess and her immediate family, the listing of other elite upper-class women contributed to the sheen of glamour and prestige that surrounded the event. The Duchess of Sutherland would, in a reciprocal fashion, be among the aristocratic names used to promote attention at the charitable events of her peers. To be listed or photographed at these events contributed to the social currency of the event even as the listing or photograph asserted the status of the person mentioned. In this manner, the images, the name, and the charitable causes of a

figure like the Duchess of Sutherland were constant and recurring fodder for these society

journals. The ability to publish these types of images for a far-reaching public, and the

frequency with which the image of the Duchess and the references to her charitable cause

were printed, created a new forum of publicity and a new scope of influence for her

charitable causes on a previously unprecedented scale.

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I am suggesting that the development of these journals, with their emphasis on images of

upper-class women, was combined with the socially acceptable activity of charity to form the embryo for a pervasive and symbiotic relationship between charity and celebrity that was dependent upon the spectacle of mass media. In his book Celebrity Humanitarianism,

Ilan Kapoor considers this phenomenon in the current environment. He argues that the ostensibly philanthropic and positive motives and effects of charity act in a late capitalist society as a form of diversion or shield, stabilizing and supporting the continued inequality of the system. The glamour and attention on the celebration of celebrity depoliticizes the structural inequalities of the system in the sense that the positive response to these events eliminates disagreement and conflict, thus upholding a top-down politics. He also identifies the way that, through a connection with a charitable cause, the unelected patron obtains a powerful say in the policy issue underlying the cause, becoming a public advocate and the visible expert on the topic.233 Although Kapoor addresses the subject matter on a global basis and therefore draws a distinction between the nineteenth-century paper sources such as newspapers, journals, and books and the late-twentieth-century information revolution, I suggest that the circumstances prompting many of his arguments germinate from the seeds of similar issues in the late nineteenth century when considered on a more geographically limited scope.

233 Ilan Kapoor, Celebrity Humanitarianism: The Ideology of Global Charity (London: Routledge, 2013), 3.

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The philanthropic motives of the Duchess of Sutherland may have been sincere, and it is not my intention to impugn the charitable motivation of the Duchess or any other specific aristocratic woman who devoted her energies to these forms of charitable spectacle.

However, it is appropriate to note that these events quickly proliferated, becoming a mainstay of the social calendar for the Season. The ubiquity of the charitable bazaar was a frequent complaint, leading a reporter for The Bystander to applaud the Duchess of

Portland for opening a bazaar “by declaring sympathetically that she knew we were all tired to death of bazaars, and that it was not the most effective way in the world of raising money.” The reporter then further expounded:

These bazaars, what unutterably boring, what really rather useless institutions they

are! They consist, it would appear, chiefly of enormous and most high-sounding

prospectuses, which contain, on their list of patronesses (whatever that word may

mean), the names of some of the highest-born and highest-placed women in the

country. Most of these high-born ladies, however, have as a rule, no connection

whatever with the charity in question, and when approached on the subject, far

from enlarging thereon, generally give it to be understood that their name was given

under pressure only, and on the distinct understanding that their interest, patronage

and entire duties towards it ceased therewith.234

This diatribe suggests that the motives for the involvement of upper-class women in charitable events were the subject of discourse and skepticism.

234 The Bystander, December 12, 1906, 552.

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Kapoor has suggested that one potential motivation for the philanthropic aspirations of the

elite is to stabilize and to perpetuate the existing hierarchical political and social system.

Through philanthropy, the upper-class woman claimed an active role in public assistance, thereby arguably re-positioning the upper class as having a continuing beneficial and necessary role in the structure of society. As the unilateral control by the upper class of the official political organization was compromised, aristocratic women were able to shift emphasis to their position of social leadership based on a media-driven platform of public approval and to connect that social leadership to a tangible public benefit. One specific emphasis in this approach was the continuing reference to the voluntary contribution made by the upper-class through the opening of their houses for public purpose. Images such as the reproduction of a painting documenting a famous fête at Stafford House were printed

(fig. 2.20), underscoring the long-standing tradition of this form of public service. The caption below the image underlines the Royal patronage of the event, providing official sanction and authority. This form of image worked with texts that stressed the continued reliance upon aristocratic residences for charitable causes as a rebuttal to criticism over the continuing purpose of the English aristocracy. For instance, The Tatler’s report on a charitable exhibition at a ducal residence defended the aristocracy, stating, “At this time when so many ill-natured things are being said about the English aristocracy it may well be pointed out how extremely generous the much-abused owners of historic London houses are in lending them for patriotic and philanthropic purposes. The Duke and Duchess of

Sutherland are among those who constantly lend their stately town mansion, Stafford

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House, for all manner of good causes.”235 In this context we can consider the photographs of the annual fête at Stafford House (such as those in figs. 2.19 and 2.21) as drawing from the precedent of paintings documenting events like the Sutherland fête with a similar focus on depicting a melange of identifiable notables. While ostensibly publicizing a charitable cause, these images are simultaneously making a claim in the discourse for the essential role of the upper class as a whole, asserting an argument for the stabilization and continuing subsistence of the existing social system.

I also suggest that this philanthropic veneer distracted attention from the perceived failings of upper-class women as a ruling or exemplary class. I have discussed the approach taken by the Duchess of Rutland in her portrait drawings that were intended to respond to the presentation of the upper-class woman as the frivolous, pleasure-seeking, indulgent

“other.” I suggest that charitable events served as another focus of this discussion. The attendance at these functions by luminary figures was the focal point for the images and for the accompanying text reporting on the event. In the three pages reporting on the Annual

Bazaar of the Duchess of Sutherland in 1908, there was no mention of the actual cause beyond the reference to the name of the fête. Instead, the report described in fine detail

the clothing and fashion accessories worn by the more prominent of the guests, reinforced

by the images depicting a variety of vignettes of finely dressed ladies, lounging and chatting

in the garden of the mansion (fig. 2.21). The poses assumed by the photographic subjects,

such as the casually seated women in conversation, worked synergistically with the form of

235 “In Town and Country,” The Tatler, No. 449, February 2, 1910, 107.

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pose constructed in portrait photographs such as the image of the Duchess of Sutherland

previously considered (fig. 15), providing a possible context for the construction of a

personal narrative.

Kapoor also suggests that public philanthropy is used to support the capitalist economic

system and to distract attention from the inequalities inherent therein. These images, with

accompanying text, can be seen to use the façade of charity to glamourize consumption and

to re-characterize it in a philanthropic construct so that extravagant and conspicuous

display is not a self-indulgent act but rather part of a philanthropically motivated spectacle.

In his book, Kapoor recognizes the complicity of the viewer in the process and I again argue that the nexus of the symbiotic relationship that weaves the strands of celebrity, charitable spectacle, mass-media, and public together arose in this form of charitable event and, in

particular, in the form of images that were available to publicize both the upper-class

woman and her charitable cause.

In one sense, the purported charitable cause could be and was identified as a façade to

publicly and morally justify the extravagance of a Society entertainment and the display of

elaborate fashion by an upper class, forming part of a discourse on the relevance of the

upper class in the modern world. However, the analysis is complicated by the importance of

a spectacle focused on these well-dressed and aristocratic women in the public profile of

the charity. In offering their images to the public through illustrated journals, and in the

contextual and textual connection of these images to charitable causes and events, these

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women were able to transform a local and limited duty of charity into a much broader

mandate for female involvement and skill development in the public arenas of politics and

business and for the public acceptance of female leadership in these spaces.

The ubiquity of female portrait imagery in the context of the charitable social extravaganza

was not solely driven by the desires of the upper-class woman. The combination of the

Society charity event and the publication of female portrait images became an access point

for class contact and integration. As noted regarding the portrait painter Ellis Roberts, his

popularity as a society portrait painter arose through his contact point in the aristocracy.

Similarly, fashionable portrait photographers built their reputations through initial support

of the upper class, often offering to provide their portrait services and products without

cost to popular society figures in return for the right to publish the images or to resell them

for mass publication. In contrast to the earlier practice of the carte-de-visite, where technological limitations encouraged a uniformity of pose and expression, the new form of studio portrait facilitated the development of stylistic branding and specialization among photographers, creating an identifiable hierarchy of status. Once the reputation of the photographic studio was established, the studio could broaden its prospective client base to include provincial gentry, socially ambitious members of the middle class, and foreign visitors, particularly American. Having a portrait commissioned or a photo taken by a fashionable artist or photographer became a way to participate in an upper-class ritual, permitting the client to sit in the same studio space, have her image included in the same client book, and even use the same backdrops and accessories that appeared in numerous

183 illustrated papers. The portrait practice allowed these women to create and experience a visual persona that fulfilled a fantasy or desire. The fashionable brand of portrait image given as a gift, displayed on the mantel, or even, for the most prominent, appearing in

Country Life or other published paper was a means of social advancement, a chance to actively construct and present a visibly elite persona.

The public nature of the charitable bazaar or social event provided another point of contact and emulation. In an article dated May 15, 1907, the Bystander offered a cynical insight on

“Charity – or How to Get Into Society,” mocking charity as the fashionable craze of the grande dame, necessitating solicitation of a financial contribution from the wealthy social climber. In an exchange of social recognition for funds both parties achieve their goals:

The great lady gets credit for philanthropy. The social aspirant gets a ‘way in.’ She

converses, strictly on business, with duchesses. She bows the knee to princesses

(generally minor). She sees her name coupled with both in the papers, and she

makes acquaintances which, judiciously fostered and carefully gold-baited, are

bound to prove, from the social climber’s point of view, highly advantageous.236

The report in The Tatler of the Scottish Home Industries bazaar of the Duchess of

Sutherland in 1911 similarly reported on the ‘swarm’ of suburban females who attended the bazaar solely for the sake of mingling with the aristocratic patrons and stall holders; it provided a page of photographic images of the event.237 I suggest that these types of

236 The Bystander, June 5, 1907, 483. 237 The Tatler, March 22, 1911, 303.

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images were the fulcrum for the translation of the social power of the upper-class woman

from a private exercise of class hierarchy to a more broadly based application of popular

support. In the case of this 1911 event, the full page of images sets out four photographs of

prominent society women attending the event (fig. 2.22). The captions set out a key to the figures portrayed, further augmenting the public image of the figures depicted while providing a memento or a retroactive guide for identification. These images serve as the tangible traces of the social and financial exchange that is occurring, with money being exchanged for cultural and social capital.238 The access to upper-class women through

photographs, through information, and through actual contact provided the opportunity or

at least the fantasy of personal emulation and intimacy. However, it is the portrait

photographs that first stimulate the personal, if unilateral, relationship between the

aristocrat and the reading public, and that offer the possibility to the viewer for the

construction of a similar persona.

CHARITABLE WOMEN: THE TRANSITION FROM PRIVATE TO PUBLIC

The Scottish industries were only one of the many charitable causes that the Duchess of

Sutherland promoted. She was president of a society for the protection of animals,

supported the Women’s Temperance Association, started a Technical School, campaigned

against lead poisoning in the pottery industry, and started a home for crippled children.239

238 On a more restricted basis, the process operated on similar principles to the marriage of the wealthy foreigner or parvenu into the ranks of Society. 239 Denis Stuart, Dear Duchess, 105.

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For each of these causes she followed a similar promotional strategy as implemented for her patronage of Scottish industries, she used her social position and her personal profile created through media exposure to raise awareness, to solicit funds, and to implement charitable relief that was focused on the underlying structural issues rather than on the conventional individual and personal relief of the Lady Bountiful model. This approach to charity led to her assuming a more direct public role; she chaired conferences and meetings, and wrote political criticisms calling for reform. In the pottery industry discourse she became a public face for lobbying efforts to regulate the use of lead, culminating in the imposition of restrictions in 1903. She established a home for crippled children arranging for them to be trained in printing, weaving, flower-making, art-metal work and similar artisan crafts.

In her work for the Crippled Children specifically and for the children of the Potteries generally, the Duchess implicitly staked her position in the ongoing discussion of eugenics.

In contrast to ideas of degeneration that focused on the conditions of life for the lower class that resulted in their physical deterioration and sought to ameliorate these conditions, the logical conclusion of the theory of eugenics was the elimination of the “weaker” or less desirable genetic strands of the British population with a view to strengthening the future

British race. In this theory, the “worth” of the individual for reproductive purposes was a product of genetics and could not be altered by a change in living conditions.240 Charity that

240 In a lecture by Dr. Saleeby, he claimed that ameliorating the living conditions for the lower class would not alter the natural gifts of their offspring. “The Child,” Leeds Mercury, Tuesday, August 24, 1909, 3. Professor Karl Pearson agreed with this claim, stating that “the

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focused on the support of the lower class, enabling the class to reproduce, was seen as

counter-productive to the ultimate welfare of the State. In her article on “The Children of the Potteries” published in 1904, the Duchess of Sutherland focuses on the plight of the crippled children of the area, blaming the defects on living conditions rather than on poor genetic material. She emphasizes the working class as the nostalgic backbone of the nation, asserting that “these plain people carry longest the hall-mark of their creator.”241 Instead of the abstract theory of genetics, the Duchess of Sutherland emphasizes the individual, using photographs to reposition these children in the accepted guise of respectable industry. A photograph of the children at the Guild (fig. 2.23) shows well-dressed girls, with their hair pulled back in tidy plaits, industriously fashioning artificial flowers into marketable products.

Working in parallel with the text, the photograph operated to present the crippled children as viable and productive members of the population, an idea that underpinned the

Duchess’s goal that the business be operated on a self-sufficient basis rather than as a continuing philanthropic endeavour.

widely prevalent notion that better environment and better education meant progressive evolution for humanity was found to be without any satisfactory scientific basis…Selection of parents was the sole method known to science by which the race could continuously progress.” Pearson then logically extended this premise and asserted that the most efficient way to ensure that only “worthy” parents reproduced was to rely upon the selective death- rate. “The survival of the fitter was one of the most excellent factors of human growth,” effectively eliminating those who could not stand the strain of life. “Prof. Pearson on National Eugenics: Nurture Versus Nature,” Aberdeen Press and Journal, Thursday, February 25, 1909, 8. 241 The Duchess of Sutherland, “The Children of the Potteries,” The Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. XXXII, January 1904, 1.

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To facilitate this goal, the Duchess opened small businesses locally and in the fashionable shopping areas of London to sell the resulting products.242 In an image published by The

Tatler on December 28, 1910, the Duchess is depicted at the Bond Street depot for the

Crippled Children’s Guild holding a piece of metalwork made by one of the children and

offered for sale (fig. 2.24). She is fashionably dressed and posed as if anticipating making a purchase. The iconography of the image is constructed to resonate with the imagery used in advertisements for luxury products printed in similar publications (fig. 2.25). Both use the concept of the society female engaged in the fashionable leisure pursuits of her class to transmit an aura of status to the product being marketed.

In her book analyzing late-nineteenth-century advertisement, Lori Loeb differentiates between products marketed as luxury items for the upper and the wealthy, socially aspirational class, and products intended to appeal to the broader middle class. She suggests that only those in the first category rely on visual reference to the lifestyle images of the upper class while the remainder emphasize selection, quantity, and accessibility.243

The use by the Duchess of Sutherland of her own image in the photograph at the Crippled

Children’s Guild worked synergistically with this form of advertisement. The association of

the iconography of the elite advertisement with a luxury item assisted in the establishment

of the connection between the products sold in the Duchess’s store and the quality of those

items. This association was then accentuated by the use of an identifiable aristocratic

242 Ibid, 111. 243 Lori Loeb, Consuming Angels: Advertising and Victorian Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 160.

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promoter in lieu of a fictional drawn image. The Duchess is the actualized version of the

imagined image of the advertisement. The figure is used in the advertisement to represent

the conscious and unconscious desires of the marketplace, to proffer a view of a lifestyle for

the consumer that can never be fulfilled. In the image of the Duchess, the photograph

offers more than the vision of a lifestyle as a Society woman; the Duchess is herself the

product marketed. Access to her through public charity functions and repeated images

offered the chance at an intimacy that appeared possible even while it was known to be illusionary.

It is important to recognise how radical a shift such images represent for the upper-class female. In this case, the automatic association made by the viewer between the image of an

identifiable upper-class woman holding a product for sale and a commercial advertisement shifted the traditional vision of the accepted conduct of the aristocratic female. The connection of the two images implicitly conflated the drawn and fictional female image of the advertisement with the recognizable aristocratic visage and facilitated the acceptance and toleration of the entry of the aristocratic woman into the public world of commerce, while ostensibly appearing merely as an image of charitable activity. In a similar indirect manner, the incursions made by the Duchess into the forums of politics, education, and business were masked beneath the socially recognized activity of charity. The participation of women at this level of involvement in these public arenas was rendered familiar and legitimate through continual public exposure, validated through the empathy and interest of the public in the interests of the Duchess of Sutherland and her contemporaries. The

189 opportunities offered through this new use of images allowed the upper-class woman to transition her philanthropic and political work from the traditional parameters of the upper- class woman into a new popular-based form of power, translating her social capital into political action.

The increased visibility of upper-class women in public roles, however, was complicated by an attempt to control or to minimize their political or business activities through the characterization of these images as part of the discourse on beauty. In making this suggestion I draw from the work of Naomi Wolf in her book on The Beauty Myth. Wolf’s premise is that the idea of beauty as an objective essential standard is a myth. The focus on female beauty should be perceived as a cultural construction that speaks more to male institutions and male power formed with the purpose of diminishing the actions of women.

Wolf dates modern ideas about ‘beauty’ to the introduction of daguerreotypes, photographs, and other new technologies permitting reproduction of images on a broader basis in the mid-nineteenth century. She argues, in part, that as more women entered the public sphere, the need to control the terms of their influence resulted in a vastly increased barrage of idealized images disseminated on a far wider basis. She places the impetus for this response on male-dominated institutions but also identifies the complicity of women in this process; as existing gender relations are challenged, the desire for change is countered with a bulwark of reassurance against the uncertainty of potential destabilization. Although

Wolf is speaking of the later twentieth century in her analysis, she suggests its extension to

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the late nineteenth century in her reference to the ‘ugly feminist’ in contrast to the

acquiescent beauty of the nineteenth century.244

I argue that the period from 1890 to 1914 was a seminal era in the introduction of these concepts as the social changes destabilizing Victorian definitions of gender were being negotiated through images and the technological processes that created a more effective form of mass media. Although the standardization of ideas of beauty started with the public availability of reproducible images in the mid-nineteenth century, the ability to incorporate these images into the new form of illustrated journal in the last decade of the century accelerated the process facilitating the public dissemination of numerous additional portraits, permitted the repetition and classification of these images through textual organization, and established a much broader base of public reception of the images and of the messages imbedded within the context of their production.

The concept of ‘beauty’ during this period was the subject of active definition. As photographers jostled for the trade in society portraits, they used new technology and new techniques to put sitters at their ease, aiming at a more natural image that solicited a feeling of intimacy rather than distance. From the 1890s photographers shifted from a reference to conventional portrait painting to a new form of image in which traditional symbols of status and lineage were replaced with the development of a new system of signs that combined ideas of status with ideas of pictorialist photography. The cover of Country

244 Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth (USA: Vintage Canada, 1987), 18.

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Life dated January 9, 1904 depicts a portrait image of the Duchess of Sutherland taken by

the society photographer Lallie Charles (fig. 2.26). Lallie Charles was a society photographer

who developed an identifiable brand image recognizable by the suggestion of soft, feminine

luxury: “pale soft pinky prints, artificial roses, Empire furniture and Chippendale chairs.”245

The image of the Duchess of Sutherland by Lallie Charles is an example of this new language in images. The identifiers of status are no longer represented by the grand vista, the classical architecture or the commanding pose of the sitter. Status is now intermingled with ideas of beauty, associated with a soft romantic femininity. Elegant lace and pearls blend with the artistically mediated pictorialist technique of fading the subject into a cloud-like atmosphere. The viewers’ eyes are directed to the face of the subject, the clearest point of focus in the constructed image. There, the wistful look of the sitter reinforces ideas of softness and vulnerability. In a continuing reciprocity between painted and photographic portraiture, artists similarly adopted these visual markers of feminine beauty. The portrait of the Duchess of Sutherland painted by Ellis Roberts in 1898 (fig. 2.27) bears a notable similarity to the Lallie Charles vision. Denuded of the traditional symbols of status, the

Duchess is presented as a youthful beauty, vulnerable in her direct and open gaze. In 1900, a photographic reproduction of this painting was offered as an example of a “Type of

Beauty” in a series that visually established the idea of beauty for the new century.246

245 Yevonde, In Camera (London: John Gifford Ltd., 1940), 68. 246 “Types of Beauty,” The Woman at Home, Vol VIII, October 1899-March 1900 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1900), 12.

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I do not mean to suggest that there was a wholesale rejection of previous conventions of

status portraits. These continued and, for some women, even a concession to the newer

forms of portrait image was inflected with a desire to retain the older forms of imperious

status image. To return to Lady Londonderry, her portrait on the cover of Country Life on

August 3, 1907 by the prominent society photographer, Alice Hughes, bears compositional

similarities to the Lallie Charles image of the Duchess of Sutherland but operates in a very different manner (fig. 2.28). Each is bust-length portrait image against a nondescript backdrop. Each woman is dressed in luxurious and fashionable clothing and jewellery.

However, where the image of the Duchess of Sutherland conveys softness and intimacy, the portrait of Lady Londonderry is constructed to inspire ideas of hierarchy, status, and

distance. Where the Duchess of Sutherland blends into a softly shaded background, in Lady

Londonderry’s portrait, the greater contrast in tone and the sharper focus of the

photograph results in a much more distinct figure. The tiara and the full sleeves of the gown

emphasize the hierarchical status of the subject placing the viewer in the perspective of

watching an official procession. Finally, the full profile of the subject with her chin

arrogantly tilted makes reference to the conventional association with power and authority

that was derived from antique numismatics and medallions.

Associated with the bust format, the purpose of the coin or medallion portrait image was

not primarily or even necessarily to capture any essentialized interiority of the individual. As

Irene Winter suggests in her discussion of ancient royal portraits, the focus of the image

was the construction and dissemination of the public persona of the subject as embodiment

193 of his or her institutional role – in other words, as a semiotic rather than a mimetic representation.247 The profile format was considered particularly appropriate for this role as it holds itself aloof from interaction with the viewer. In the grammar of the look, the profile constitutes a removed third person (he/she), aware of being looked at but refusing to reciprocate.248 In the same way as Lady Londonderry refused to abandon the prerogative of the politically inclined upper-class woman to involve herself in politics through private channels of social influence, she also resisted the association between the upper-class woman and ideas of intimacy and a softer, feminine concept of beauty.

Lady Londonderry continued to commission studio photograph portraits for herself during the period to 1914. Two other examples published as cover images for Country Life display the work of two different society photographers (figs. 2.29 and 2.30). If we compare these two images with the portrait by Alice Hughes on the 1907 cover, the similarity in the images is striking. Each of the three portraits are profile images emphasizing the strong aristocratic features, a pearl choker, and large drop earrings. Two of the three photographs include the diamond tiara, the third substituting the ruff of a high formal gown to indicate elite status.

Even more interesting is a comparison of these images with the two photographic portraits taken of Lady Londonderry in the early 1890s. While adhering to the demand of the

247 Irene J. Winter, “What/When is a Portrait? Royal Images of the Ancient Near East,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 153, no. 3, (September 2009): 269. 248 Richard Wendorf, The Elements of Life: Biography and Portrait-Painting in Stuart and Georgian England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 73.

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illustrated journals for novel images, Lady Londonderry essentially replicated her

constructed image in successive portraits, creating new forms of the same persona.

In contrast to the images of the Duchess of Sutherland, whose public persona shifted to

provide a controlled access of the viewer to an ostensibly private vision, the repeated image

of Lady Londonderry emphatically refused to breach the class division that protected the

private self of the upper-class woman from the prying eyes of the public. Numerous

accounts of Lady Londonderry by acquaintances and intimates emphasize her warmth and

vitality. The descriptions suggest a woman of great charm with an intense and vital interest in the people and the events around her.249 These narratives suggest the conscious choice

made in the portrait photographs to maintain a distance from the public viewer. The

portraits became a form of paradox: the frequency of exposure and the wide dissemination

promoted the public recognition of the subject, implicitly creating a form of intimacy of

knowledge between the public and the sitter. However, the portraits simultaneously acted as a form of wall or shield, their remote inaccessibility emphasizing the status and the hierarchy of the figure, denying admission to the private person displayed. Where the

249 For instance, Sir Almeric Fitzroy describes her as having “apt intellectual equipment, she has industry and readiness, which, with the warmth and élan of very agreeable manners, will carry her far.” Fitzroy, Memoirs, 162. The biographer of Edith, Lady Londonderry (the daughter-in-law of Theresa Lady Londonderry) notes that “Colonel Repington, the military correspondent of The Times described Theresa as feared by many but beloved to her many friends. “She was …clear-headed, witty and large-hearted…with immense vivacity and joie de vivre.” She described herself as a good friend, loving passionately and always willing to do her best for her friends. Anne de Courcy, Society’s Queen: The Life of Edith, Marchioness of Londonderry (London: Orion Books Ltd., 1992), 45.

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Duchess of Sutherland presented herself as a symbol of a new form of female beauty, Lady

Londonderry reinforced the vision of the upper-class woman as the remote goddess.

IDEAS OF BEAUTY

The discourse of the era struggled to negotiate a definition of upper-class beauty,

juxtaposing the model of the imperious and statuesque figure of status and hierarchy

against a newer vision of soft femininity. In Loeb’s analysis of the use of the classical

goddess image, she argues that Victorian advertising images of the female goddess overlay

the statuesque classical ideal with visual references to dignity and even aggression,

suggesting recognition of a latent female power (at least in the commercial sphere).250 This suggests a viable alternative model of beauty that drew on the association of the classical goddess with ideas of female power and claims to higher levels of culture and spirituality.

References to the ‘goddess’ were not restricted to the arena of advertising but also permeated fine art in the paintings of artists such as Sir Frederick Leighton, Lawrence Alma-

Tadema and J.W. Waterhouse at the turn of the century, many of which served as the inspiration for such forms of advertisement.

The idea of the goddess was one drawn upon to make claims for the identification of the upper-class woman in particular. In a series of articles running from 1908 to 1911, the society journal Tatler published a set of full-page biographies of the upper-class women of

250 Fitzroy, Memoirs, 38.

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the era. Each entry referred to the physical appearance of the subject, making a common

reference to the classical or goddess-style of beauty. In a 1910 article describing the

Countess of Brownlow, the Tatler described the taxonomy of female aristocratic beauty.

“Women should, I think, be divided into dolls and statues. The dolls are small, pretty, and

provocative, and the statues are stately, serious, and classical. Most of us put our money on the dolls. But the fine-woman style has also its ardent admirers.”251 In the cartoon printed in The Bystander in 1913 showing Winston Churchill returning from France after inspecting the French Fleet he is flanked by two allegorical female figures, presented as strong and powerful goddess-type images representing Britain and France (fig. 2.31). The caption below identifies one of the figures as his wife and the other as the Duchess of Sutherland.

The cartoon is based on a snapshot taken on the Riviera of Churchill trotting behind the two figures, as acknowledged by the inclusion of the snapshot in the upper corner of the cartoon. For the viewer, the translation of female aristocrat to goddess is made patent in the adaptation of the photograph as the fashionable lady of Society is transformed into a symbol of political power.

While this example raises a number of potential interpretations of the relationship of the goddess image with the upper-class woman, it is also necessary to further complicate the evaluation of the use of the goddess image and its range of potential meanings at the end of the century.252 Without treading into any discussion of whether the goddess image in

251 The Tatler, (London) September 7, 1910, 260. 252 The physical dominance of the two female figures in both the snapshot and the cartoon image may also refer to the behind-the-scenes influence of both women over the political

197 advertising and fine art drew on an association between the goddess and the female upper class, it is perhaps sufficient to argue that, in the discourse of the era, the visual representation of the goddess figure was not a stable reference and did not necessarily or consistently connote ideas of power and nobility, or offer an alternative model of gender that contradicted the definition of beauty as objectifying and disempowering. If we consider a poster dated from around 1900 advertising the health benefits of the coastal town of

Harrogate (fig. 2.32), the focal point is the figure of Hygeia, the goddess of health, cleanliness, and sanitation. Hygeia is positioned on a pedestal, perched above the town and extending a chalice full, presumably, of the healthy waters of Harrogate. Although draped in a form of classical robe, the figure as presented is not a marble statue of a powerful entity.

Her skin is tinted and she stands in a casual contrapposto position, one hand drawing attention to the large expanse of chest exposed and the other casually holding out the chalice in a manner that suggests an offering of champagne at an elegant party. The goddess’s slight figure and sweet, pretty features deny any association with ideas of dominance or authority.

At the end of the century, as boundaries for and definitions of acceptable female roles and activities were being challenged, I suggest that the image of the goddess became one of numerous sites for debate. While I do not deny that the perception of the classical goddess

activities of Churchill. The public view of female involvement in the political or public forum was mixed. The Duchess of Sutherland was called “Meddlesome Millie” for her charitable and political activities. However, her activities were also lauded and supported. She became one of the first women permitted to run an ambulance corps in France after 1914. Denis Stuart, Dear Duchess, 105 and 125.

198 retained allusions to the classical ideal, I suggest that the reference to ‘goddess’ at the turn of the century was a term that had acquired multivalent meanings and was as easily associated with sexuality and passive beauty as with ideas of purity, culture or inherent domination. I propose that it is necessary in each instance to consider the reference in its context and to focus close attention on the visual composition of the image. On this basis, I argue that while the reference to the classical in the portrait drawings of the Duchess of

Rutland evoked associations of moral and spiritual leadership, the classical may not inevitably carry the same meaning in an alternate context or form of portrait.

The biographical article on the Duchess of Sutherland in The Tatler forming part of the 1908 series described her appearance as “beauty beyond praise…tall, fair and exquisite, and with a touch of the picturesque.”253 Although this description is perhaps unclear as to whether the Duchess should be considered a ‘goddess’ or ‘doll’, the article is accompanied by a portrait of the Duchess by Lallie Charles, similar to the image published on the cover of

Country Life, and again drawing on the pictorial language of vulnerable femininity (fig. 2.33).

Whether ‘goddess’ or ‘doll’, I suggest that the Duchess of Sutherland accepted and was complicit in this characterization of her public self as a soft, feminine beauty in order to facilitate and encourage the public investment in her image and the resulting popular support for her causes. In addition, her acceptance and promotion of her femininity acted to minimize the impact of her inroads into traditionally male areas of influence and allay or

253 “The Searchlight in Society: Our Open Letter. No. V. – The Duchess of Sutherland,” The Tatler, (London) June 10, 1908, 274.

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reduce the resistance experienced by aristocratic women who claimed power in a more

direct manner.

This occasionally resulted in a disorienting dichotomy between image and text. Images of

the Duchess of Sutherland continued to foster the public recognition of her as an elegant and delicate beauty. In The Bystander in 1910 she is featured as one of the ‘Picturesque

Peris of the English Paradise’ (fig. 2.34). A “peri” is a form of fairy spirit from Persian

mythology translated into the vernacular English context through Gilbert and Sullivan’s

1882 operetta, Iolanthe. The Duchess is presented in a dress that mimics classical robes in

its flowing drapery. She leans upon a pillar, her chin resting lightly on her raised hand. More

goddess than fairy, the Duchess is a figure of slender elegance. Notwithstanding the

allusions to the goddess model, through images such as this collation of “peris,” the

Duchess of Sutherland participated in a public perception that focused visually on her

attributes of beauty where beauty was defined as ethereal and feminine. However, textual

references to the Duchess conjured a very different image of a dedicated and organized

woman of direction and power. The 1908 biography of the Duchess in The Tatler juxtaposed

the romantic Lallie Charles portrait against text that described the Duchess as having a good

head for business and good organizational skills. It applauded her study and expertise in the

areas of labour and socialism, her far-reaching charitable measures and her lobbying for

increased government regulation.254 In the linguistic theory proposed by Saussure, words

254 “The Searchlight in Society: Our Open Letter. No. V. – The Duchess of Sutherland,” The Tatler, (London) June 10, 1908, 274.

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and images are each ‘signifiers’ but operate in different manners. Although they are

connected, they are not equivalent and cannot be reduced to each other’s terms.255 The illustration inevitably alters and adds something to the text. As expressed by J. Hillis Miller, the image interferes with the text “as two melodies playing simultaneously sometimes harmonize and sometimes do not seem to go together.”256 The new proximity of image and text further aggravated this situation as the representations were considered simultaneously, fused into one process of absorption by the reader. The reconciliation of text and image required of the viewer is indicative of the tension underpinning the attempt to reconcile the substance of female intervention in areas of male power and expertise with the guise of beauty and philanthropy.

We can contrast the softly feminine image of the Duchess of Sutherland with the biographical entry for Lady Londonderry published in The Tatler on July 15, 1908 (fig. 2.35).

The published image of Lady Londonderry is an exemplar of the status portrait translated to the photograph. She is dressed in full regalia, staring down her nose with disdain at the viewer. In the grammar of the look, the unseeing gaze, like the profile, constitutes a

removed third person, aware of being looked at but refusing to reciprocate.257 In this manner the portrait image becomes inaccessible, a form of icon to be venerated but not possessed. The ability to ignore the demand for reciprocation that the viewer’s look

255 Julia Thomas, Pictorial Victorians: The Inscription of Values in Word and Image (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), 7. 256 J. Hillis Miller, Illustration (London: Reaktion Books Limited, 1992), 103. 257 Irene J. Winter, “What/When Is a Portrait? Royal Images of the Ancient Near East,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 153, no. 3, (September 2009): 269.

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imposes is an implicit assertion of arrogance or superiority. As characterized by Harry

Berger Jr., “The aura is strangely enhanced when the object is invested with that ability to

return the look precisely in order to dramatize its refusal to use it. For then, the sitter’s look

dies in the gaze.”258 In her disdainful refection of the viewer, the subject of the portrait seems either to deem the spectator unworthy of response or to be elevated in thought above the level of recognition of the demands of social intercourse. Although the publication of Lady Londonderry’s photo in The Tatler situated Lady Londonderry as a subject for public identification, the composition of the image explicitly denied any relationship of intimacy or personal interaction. The article, while flattering, focuses on her place as a passing icon, a woman “who has made her mark on the history of modern times” but is a symbol of the past.259 Certainly by 1909 the papers were starting to comment on the passing of the ‘great political lady’ model of Society hostess who used her social events as forums for the exercise of political influence and the continued activities of peeresses like

Lady Londonderry were noted as exceptions rather than as normal practice.260 If I return to

E.F. Benson’s recollections of Lady Londonderry, he describes her political approach as

‘going for’ life, “hammer and tongs, she collared it, and scragged it and rooked it like a

highwayman in a tiara, trampling on her enemies, as if they had been a bed of nettles.”261

The admiration of his description is mixed with an equal measure of censure. Even when

258 Harry Berger Jr., “Fictions of the Pose: Facing the Gaze of Early Modern Portraiture,” Representations 46 (Spring 1994): 104. 259 “The Searchlight in Society: Our Open Letter. No. X. – The Marchioness of Londonderry,” The Tatler, July 15, 1908, 52. 260 The Tatler, (London) June 2, 1909, 229. 261 E.F. Benson, As We Were, 179.

202 written from a retrospective position in 1930, his memory of Lady Londonderry connoted an aggressive lack of femininity that required reproof.

CONCLUSION

I have argued that the Duchess of Sutherland recognized that the political approach of aristocratic women like Lady Londonderry was the practice of a passing era. Instead of relying upon traditional markers of status and hierarchy to maintain the distance between the upper class and the public, bolstering the idea of the upper class as a private forum for influence and power, she used the opportunities of the era to provide a constructed access point for the public. The portrait images she commissioned and disseminated to the public worked collectively to create a persona that solicited public empathy, interest, and loyalty, offering a fictional intimacy that, in the impossibility of its fulfilment, inspired the desire for even greater access and connection. She then focused this public recognition and support on her charitable causes transforming the previously limited local influence of the ‘Lady of the Manor’ to a broadly based national forum of influence. The wide dissemination of her image created a public persona of delicate feminine beauty and acted as an avatar for her public actions and goals. This combination of the shield of philanthropy and the form of image fostered a gap between image and action to provide a space for the acceptance of her conduct, legitimizing activities that could otherwise have been perceived as a threatening incursion into male territory.

Chapter Three: Youth, Beauty and Celebrity

Diana Manners was the fifth and youngest child of the Duchess of Rutland. She was born in

1892. Upon her death at the advanced age of 93 (in 1986), her obituary in The Times characterized her as the “Vital spirit of a vanished age,” “one of the glittering social personalities of an era of wealth and privilege.”262 From her birth in 1892, she became one of the first ‘child celebrities’, her portrait and news of her activities publicly disseminated and forming a nexus of public appeal derived from but not equivalent to the fame of her mother. Diana was one among a number of similar figures, as technology and the presence of illustrated journals translated children from the sequestered cloisters of their childhood homes into public figures. Excluding the Royal family, these children were raised with a consciousness of the public eye in a manner never previously encountered. In this chapter, I draw upon the case study of Diana Manners to consider the basis for this public celebrity and the consequent effects on definitions of class and gender, as these young female children moved from childhood to the status of debutantes in the era prior to WWI. In the historical context of the era, Diana and other similar young women became ‘celebrities,’ and, as such, the site of conversations that challenged existing perspectives and reflected differing anxieties over a changing social system.

262 The Times, (London) Tuesday June 17, 1986, 1.

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Daniel Boorstin offers the resonating definition of ‘celebrity’ as “a person who is known for

his well-knownness.”263 The idea of the celebrity differs from the historical concept of fame

or renown in its inter-dependent relationship with a structural system of urbanization,

capitalism, democracy, and mass media. Where the terms ‘fame’ or ‘renown’ imply a

recognition of ‘greatness’ that has stood the test of time, the impression of ‘celebrity’ is

ephemeral, based on public recognition of a personality. Francesco Alberoni reinforces the

distinction by positing that the celebrity differs from the conventional famous person in

their limited or non-existent relationship with institutional power, appealing to the cultural

values of a society rather than its structural system.264 Consistent with this definition, most studies of celebrities have concentrated on entertainers, examining the meaning of the celebritization of the star within the ideological realm of society.

There are differing views of the birth of ‘celebrity’ in the Western world. However, the proposition that the phenomenon began in the nineteenth century with the rise of mass media and in conditions of social change wrought by an urban capitalist system is widely supported.265 Eva Giloi, in particular, focuses on the 1860s as the relevant point of conception of celebrity. Her focus, consistent with much of the scholarship in the area, is on the rise of accessible visual media through photography. Giloi writes on the ways in which

263 Daniel Boorstin, “From Hero to Celebrity: The Human Psuedo-Event,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. David P. Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006) 72–90, 79. 264 Francesco Alberoni, “The Powerless ‘Elite’: Theory and sociological research on the phenomenon of the stars,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. David P. Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006) 108–123, 108. 265 Graeme Turner, Understanding Celebrity (London: Sage Publications Ltd., 2004), 10.

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the accessibility of the photographic portrait through the carte-de-visite facilitated and instigated a desire of the public to achieve intimacy with a public figure.266 In particular, her

article addresses the use of the image to inspire an aura of charisma around the figure of

the German Kaiser. Although, as a political figure, the Kaiser contradicts Alberoni’s

definition of celebrity as removed from the political sphere, Giloi highlights the origins of

the junction between celebrity and the photographic portrait and perhaps suggests a more

fluid classification of fame and celebrity in this early period of mass media. Notably, Sharon

Marcus identifies certain key identifiers that mark celebrity through changes in media. The most important factor noted by Marcus is the asymmetrical and interdependent relationship that exists between the celebrity and her public. While the celebrity, by definition, does not exist without a public, the celebrity is also the unique or special one versus a numerically larger group of followers. The celebrity system operates through a combination of presence and representation where widely circulating representations create a longing for the actual physical person and experience of the subject. Access to images and to details of the life of the celebrity provide an intimacy that suggests a form of egalitarianism which is countered by a distancing that maintains the hierarchy of celebrity status.267

266 Eva Giloi, “Autograph Hunting and Royal Charisma in the German Empire, 1861–1888,” in Constructing Charisma, ed. Edward Berenson (New York: Berghahn Books, 2010), 47. 267 Sharon Marcus, “Celebrity 2.0: The Case of Marina Abramovic,” Public Culture, vol. 27, 1 (2015): 36.

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In Chapter Two I discussed Nancy Armstrong’s analysis of the multiple photographic portraits disseminated by Queen Victoria in the latter half of the 1900s. However, it is more relevant for the purposes of this chapter to take note of the rise of the ‘professional beauty’ in England in the 1870s. Relying on the medium of the carte-de-visite, this handful of women, who included representatives of the upper class, became the subjects of a public adoration that qualified as a new form of celebrity. In her memoirs, Cynthia Asquith compares the standardized beauty of the 20th century with the individualized beauty of the

‘professional beauties’ of the 1880s. The lack of access to beauty treatments and beauty enhancements meant that women were forced to rely solely on their natural advantages;

Asquith notes that the severe hairstyles of the period limited qualified candidates. She speculates that “probably that was largely why their era was the heyday of the so-called

‘Professional Beauties,’ such as – to give two famous examples – Lady Randolph Churchill, and the ‘Jersey Lily,’ Mrs. Langtry, both legendary figures of whom it was said that, like the

Miss Gunnings, they were mobbed in the Park.”268 Famous for nothing more than their appearance and style, these women introduced a type of celebrity in England that was not related to a status as either a political figure or entertainer.

I am suggesting that young aristocratic girls like Diana Manners followed the path initiated by these professional beauties, but with significant differences that resulted in a more profound impact on the public perception of class and gender and that entered more fully into the discourse of social change of the era. The limited exposure of the carte-de-visite

268 Cynthia Asquith, Remember and Be Glad (London: James Barrie, 1952), 85.

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was replaced by the far greater distribution network of the illustrated journal, and the

artificial poses of the portrait images of professional beauties were succeeded by less

formal compositions, especially after 1900 with the increasing prevalence of the snapshot.

The shift in production and dissemination of upper-class female portraits allowed these

figures to develop as fully rounded, ‘real people’ and significantly enlarged the number of

upper-class women participating in this celebritizing process. As Daniel Boorstin notes,

before this period, “a lady of aristocratic pretensions was supposed to get her name in the

papers only three times: when she was born, when she married, and when she died. Now

the families who are Society are by definition those always appearing in the papers.”269 His reference to this celebritized Society relates to the time he wrote in the 1960s, but I suggest that it was this group of aristocratic girls at the turn of the twentieth century who prompted the revision of the upper-class position, inviting the public relationship of celebrity in order to establish a purpose and a base of mass support for the continuing cultural relevance of the upper-class woman in the changing world of the period.

The softening of the upper-class position on the construction of a persona mediated through the photographic portrait had its roots arguably in the Victorian female fashion for album making. Patrizia Di Bello examines this feminine pursuit during the period of the carte-de-visite from 1850 to 1870. She identifies how the upper-class woman collected photographic portraits of family, friends, and celebrities, sometimes just arranging them in albums commercially sold to hold the carte-de visite. At other times however, the

269 Daniel Boorstin, “From Hero to Celebrity: The Human Psuedo-Event,” 82.

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aristocratic female artistically re-contextualized the photographic image by cutting and pasting the portraits, placing them in constructed stage sets or collages that performed the cultural identity of the persons represented. These images would then be displayed in the drawing room, shown to guests, exposed to public scrutiny in a controlled setting. Di Bello effectively argues that, in creating these albums, the upper-class woman is not simply presenting a reflection of genteel feminine identity but is actively articulating, negotiating, and reformulating this identity, “revealing how both gentility and femininity were open to negotiation by individual women.”270 The manipulation and the personal control exercised over the construction and the public exhibition of the photographic persona through these albums arguably facilitated the willingness of the upper-class woman to extrapolate this practice into the more public sphere of the mass-produced and mass-disseminated image and to envision a public upper-class female identity as a concept subject to performed construction.

The engagement with album making was not limited to the upper-class female. The practice, authorized as a genteel feminine pursuit by its association with the upper class and by the publication in 1860 of a ‘Royal Album’ containing cartes-de-visite photographs of

Queen Victoria and her family, was adopted by the aspiring middle class who mixed celebrity images with personal portraits.271 The proximity of portrait images in an album

displayed to contemporaries was a means of claiming a relationship, potentially suggesting

270 Patrizia Di Bello, Women’s Albums and Photography in Victorian England (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2007), 153. 271 Ibid, 16.

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an intimacy sufficient to have been given the image.272 As photographs of upper-class women became more widely available with the mass distribution in public journals, the potential for display of a celebrity portrait image was broadened to incorporate a wider selection of women qualifying as celebrities.273

The intimacy and engagement of the public with the image of the upper-class woman based

on a practice of translating possession of the image as a form of indexical personal

relationship was augmented for the celebrity girls through a familiarity engendered over

time. Diana Manners, like others of her class and gender, became celebrities from

childhood; they did not spring fully-formed into the awareness of the public. Instead, by allowing the public to effectively watch them grow up, they invited the development of a more intense and personal communal affinity. As such they occupied a unique position in the developing arena of celebrity, shifting their cultural impact as they aged and participated in the social rituals that accompanied this process.274

272 Ibid, 111. 273 With the advent of the snapshot camera at the end of the nineteenth century, the practice of album making changed. The carte-de-visite album was replaced by a more heterogeneous practice of albums and framed display of photographs. Halftone images cut from journals and postcards augmented the snapshot, often resulting in a multiplicity of albums or other collecting practices. Elizabeth Siegel, Galleries of Friendship and Fame: A History of Nineteenth-Century American Photograph Albums (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), 158, 160, and 164. 274 In making this assertion for the unique position of these debutantes, I distinguish them from the daughters of the Royal Family. Although the social circles of the Royal Family and the upper class shared many commonalities and were significantly interdependent, the expectations, the privileges, and the constraints enjoyed by or imposed on the daughters of Royalty differed in substance and extent from those applicable to the upper-class female. The children of Queen Victoria were exposed to the public in carefully regulated images that served to create the constructed identity of the Queen and of the Royal Family. Nancy

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In particular, I argue that the constructed celebrity images of these girls influenced the creation of a youth culture and fundamentally altered the social meaning behind the ritual of the Court Presentation. The upper class was called upon to negotiate issues of image control, privacy, and celebrity on a basis that was unprecedented and that presaged many of the issues that remain unresolved in the current era. The ‘celebrity’ of these girls became a way for the upper class to manage questions about their relevance in a social system that was adopting broader democratic principles. Without direct political power, the mass popularity of Diana and other society girls was not perceived as threatening to the shifting institutional power structure but allowed the upper class to continue to exert a social and cultural influence on a broad scale.

MOTHER AND CHILD

The images of the aristocratic female children I examine, which precipitated their becoming well-known figures were informed by aesthetic, scientific, and social conversations that focused on the visual image of the child figure. From the 1890s, one of the visual forms of social portrait that became ubiquitous was the mother and child image.275 The portrait

Armstrong, “Monarchy in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Nineteenth-Century Contexts 22 (2001): 498—505. 275 Although the images discussed are limited to depictions of mothers with their daughters, there are numerous images of mothers with sons. I concentrate on the mother and daughter portraits to provide continuity for the investigation of the development of the female image from birth to adulthood. Interestingly, there are few images of fathers and sons that appear in illustrated journals or newspapers. I speculate that there are a number

211 painted by Edward Hughes of the Duchess of Rutland and the infant Diana is an example of this new form of maternal portraiture (fig. 3.1). This is not a dynastic swagger portrait. The

Duchess is dressed very plainly and positioned against an indeterminate background, suggesting a simple outdoor setting. More unusually, the Duchess’s face is turned away so that only the slope of her chin and hint of her characteristic features are apparent. The focal point of the portrait is ostensibly the young Diana, who stares solemnly out of the painting at the viewer. However, I suggest that the function of the painting is less to serve as a portrait of either the Duchess or her daughter and more as a portrait of maternity that projected a soft and intense bond between mother and child. The softness of the moment is visually manifested in the blurred background and in the ruffled and rippled material of the clothing. The attachment between the two figures is patent in the tilt of the Duchess’s head so that her chin gently sweeps the curls of her daughter’s head. This attachment is reciprocal and the child leans into her mother, shyly obscuring part of her face in the ruffles of her mother’s blouse, as she clutches the Duchess’s arm in an act of total trust.

This form of mother and child image was not limited to painted portraiture and was even more actively promoted through photographic studio portraits of the era. Alice Hughes, the

of reasons for this discrepancy. First, the images of women and children was responding to a traditional gender concept of the woman as mother, reactivated in the climate of discourse on the rights of women and on eugenics and the degeneracy of the British populace. Second, the readership of these publications was more interested in the social and aesthetic value of the beautifully dressed female holding an equally well-dressed child. Third, the female upper-class woman cultivated the publication of these images, posing with their children for formal portraits with the fashionable photographers of the era, in order to present an individual and collective class identity that disputed charges of superficiality and frivolity.

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daughter of the painter Edward Hughes and a prominent society photographer from 1890

to the 1910s, adapted her father’s image to create a similar mother and daughter portrait of

the Duchess of Rutland and her daughter Diana (fig. 3.2). This image was published

repeatedly, including in Black and White on May 18, 1895 and on the cover of Country Life

on September 16, 1899, and depicts the Duchess, seated once again with her daughter

posed on her lap. The studio backdrop is indistinct, highlighting the figures. Compositionally,

the focus of the Duchess on her small daughter directs the eyes of the viewer toward Diana, who playfully performs for the audience. However, the meaning of the portrait again lies in the interaction of the figures. The devoted focus of the mother is echoed in the intimacy of the trust and touch of the daughter, who reaches to point at her mother. Alice Hughes incorporated the mother and child pose into her signature style, and her images of

aristocratic mothers and their progeny captured in moments of intimacy graced the covers

and interior photographs of numerous journals (figs. 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5). Other photographers

adopted the concept, and mother and child poses of this type became a staple for the

illustrated magazines.

I suggest that there were numerous contextual discourses and circumstances that

prompted and provided social meaning to the publication of these images. First, as

considered in Chapter Two, the desire for new images of popular female upper-class figures

continued to expand as the number of publications enlarged and as the reading public grew

increasingly involved with the figures portrayed. Journals offered the prospect of a “new

image” of an aristocratic figure as an inducement to attract readers. The need for new

213 forms of composition as a marketing strategy is one possible explanation for the inclusion of a child figure in the female aristocratic portrait. A second reason could be that the conventions of upper-class portraiture traditionally incorporated the theme of mother and child as a testament to the dynastic continuation of the lineage of the family and as a confirmation of the female role and marital obligation to ensure this perpetuation. In Sir

Joshua Reynold’s portrait of Lady Elizabeth Delmé and her children painted in 1777–1779

(fig. 3.6), the artist has portrayed a naturalness and intimacy in the way in which the children interact with the dog, with each other, and with their mother. The young boy leans casually against his mother and Lady Delmé’s arm curls around the shoulders of her offspring. However, if we compare this form of image to the portrait and photographs of the Duchess of Rutland and her daughter, we can identify an attempt in the later images to translate this convention into something that speaks more to maternal emotion than to an exhibition of continuation of the family heritage. In the Reynolds portrait, the detailed landscape behind the stone balustrade resonates with ideas of aristocratic land ownership.

This reference, combined with the elaborate dress and hair of the female figure, and her composed and confident expression, render this image a status portrait in which the children are contextually incorporated as symbols of future continuity. This form of image diverges notably from the concentrated focus on the tenderness of the mother and child bond in the later images of the Duchess and her daughter Diana.

The simplicity of the presentation that emphasized the innocence and intimacy of the moment referred to a maternal naturalism that drew on the conventions of eighteenth-

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century French paintings of artists such as Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. In a famous self-portrait

with her daughter, Vigée-Lebrun used the conventions of the Renaissance Madonna images

to visually depict an essential and naturalized maternalism in keeping with the discourse on

maternity raised by the French theorist Rousseau (fig. 3.7). Carol Blum argues in her book

on Strength in Numbers: Population, Reproduction, and Power in Eighteenth-Century France

that there was a widely held belief that the population of France was declining and a

corresponding anxiety over the appropriate approach to the encouragement of

reproduction.276 Rousseau is credited with establishing the theoretical basis for a new perspective on female gender construction. In his treatise, Emile, published in 1762, he emphasized the role of the female as a mother and as the spiritual and moral centre of the family. This symbolic identification of the female was bolstered visually by an outpouring of mother and child portraits by artists such as Vigée-Lebrun that focused on the intense maternal bond using artistic conventions of the Renaissance that equated contemporary maternity with the relationship between the Virgin and Child.277

If we compare the Edward Hughes portrait of the Duchess and her daughter to the self-

portrait of Vigée-Lebrun with her daughter and to the painting by Raphael of the Tempi

Madonna painted in 1508 (fig. 3.8), there are formal compositional similarities that link the

three images. Each portrait of mother and child eschews the elaborate background and

276 Carol Blum, Strength in Numbers: Population, Reproduction, and Power in Eighteenth- Century France (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002), introduction. 277 Carol Blum, “Rousseau and Feminist Revision,” Eighteenth-Century Life 34:3 (2010): 51– 54.

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fashionable clothing used to denote status, eliminating visual distractions that could

compromise the focus of the image on the maternal relationship. This relationship is

expressed through the gesture of pose and contact. In each mother and child portrait, the

mother protectively clasps the child to her chest, her head angled to promote the nestling

of the child. The child reacts with an innocent trust, unrestrictedly confident in and

responsive to this offering of maternal devotion.

How do we explain this change in focus for the aristocratic mother and child image? Instead

of perpetuating the conventions of aristocratic English portraiture, these later compositions

turn to a different thread of reference, drawing on the visual counterpart to the mother and

child discourse of Rousseau in eighteenth-century France. I argue that this iconographic and

tonal transition was related to contemporary ideas of degeneration in late nineteenth-

century England, an idea that converged with the discourse on eugenics. In her article on

the fear of degeneration in fin-de-siècle England, Sally Ledger identifies how social and political uncertainty at the end of the century was translated into an anxiety about the fitness of the English population to continue to maintain its internal stability and external dominance in the world forum. Highlighted by the discovery of the dismal physical condition of soldiers called to fight in the Boer War, the concern over the vigour and competitiveness of the British race opened the discussion to the proposed solution of legislatively supported eugenic breeding.278 As previously discussed, the concept of eugenics was designed to

278 Sally Ledger, “In Darkest England: The Terror of Degeneration in Fin-de-Siècle Britain,” Literature and History, 4:2 (Fall 1995): 73.

216 discourage the breeding among the lower classes while simultaneously encouraging propagation among the more ‘worthy’ classes, thus reinforcing the idealized Anglo-Saxon purity of the general populace.

The female figure formed an integral component in this rejuvenation strategy. Books and articles exhorted young women to embrace the responsibility of child-bearing as a civic duty. In a review of a book entitled New Life: its Genesis and Culture (1890), the reviewer asserts that the ‘special object’ of the book is to teach young women that “they are destined for the highest work of which humanity is capable; to set before them vividly the duties inseparably united to the joys of maternity, and to show them how to fulfil the noble part of preparing in the rising generation a race that shall excel the present, physically, intellectually, and spiritually.”279 This exhortation was deemed necessary as the anxiety over degeneration was connected to the decline in the birth rate of the middle and upper classes. The reasons offered for this decline were numerous and often contradictory, and interest groups utilized the debate to offer new definitions of gender and class for women of the new century.

In previous chapters I noted that the conceptual focus of the corrective strategy of eugenics was to encourage the expansion and propagation of the professional middle class. In this context, the idea of the New Woman at the end of the century conflated ideas of

279 “Young Mothers,” Northern Daily Mail (Hartepool, England) Issue 3879, Monday, October 27, 1890, 2. The book, published by Sonnenschein in London, was by H.C. O’Neill and Edith Barrett.

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degeneration with the attempted emancipation of women, a term that was considered

revolutionary and encompassed female education, the entry of women into fields

traditionally limited to men, the claim for equality of the sexes within the home, female

participation in the political system, and the option for a woman to live independently, free

of the protection of a father or husband. The ‘New Woman’ remained a fluid concept,

particularly as it related to the concept of motherhood. Detractors, such as Goldwin Smith,

a fellow at University College, Oxford and part of the Royal Commission to reform the

university, cautioned against the admission of women into academic institutions,

connecting this demand to the “general revolt of women against what have hitherto been

regarded as the limitations and the safeguards of their sex.” For Smith, this female desire to

assume male privileges was part of the aspiration of women to avoid the “fetters of

matrimony and maternity.” He drew a contextual parallel to the end of the Roman Empire

or the licentious times of Edward III, implicitly connecting female emancipation with the

decline of society.280 The response to this discourse from among the supporters of female emancipation varied. In a rebuttal to the Royal Geographical Society for refusing to accept female members, one writer argued that not all women are meant for motherhood, and asked, “If they have the capacity for the higher toils of the human race, why should they be cabin’d within the walls of a nursery during the best years of their life? The multiplication of the race is no doubt important; but its intellectual progress is no less so.”281 On a

280 “The Revolt of Women,” The Evening Telegraph (Dundee, Scotland) Issue 5981, Saturday, April 18, 1896, 2. 281 “Women and the New Learning,” Leicester Chronicles and the Leicestershire Mercury (Leicester, England), Saturday July 15, 1893, 8.

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fundamental level, each approach acknowledged an inherent choice to be made, an

understanding that a woman could not both enter the world of men and fulfill her function

of maternity.

However, the most prevalent stream of argument in favour of the New Woman was that

the education and emancipation of women countered the degeneracy of the race by

rendering them fit mothers for a superior strain of progeny: maternity was used to create a

strand of defence. In this context, writers argued that the view of women as being primarily

meant for maternity has “been the origin of a thousand evils, and that we shall never have

really good mothers until women cease to make motherhood the central idea of their

existence. The woman who has no interest larger than the affairs of her children is not a fit

person to train them.”282 On a theoretical level, this approach was supported by

mathematical statisticians like Karl Pearson, a follower of Francis Galton, who conflated

socialism and female rights to argue for female emancipation on the basis of providing

society with the maximum benefit of work from all citizens. For Pearson, entering the male

world of work should not require the female to sacrifice maternity; the population question

was also one that needed to be addressed by society. Maternity should be approached as a

civic activity and women who choose to act both as mothers and as workers should be

protected by the State against the competitive advantage of the spinster and the male.283

Pearson’s argument leaned heavily on the concepts of degeneration, calling the “unlimited

282 “Woman’s World,” Citizen (Gloucester, England) Issue 111, Tuesday, May 10, 1892, 3. 283 Karl Pearson, “Woman and Labour,” The Fortnightly Review, May 1894, 577.

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reproduction of bad stock” an injury to the community at large. His strategy for rectification

again relied on the conscious encouragement of careful procreation, privileging the stock of

the educated middle-class woman.

In this discourse, the upper-class woman was projected as an inefficient or inadequate

progenitor, as numerous proponents of eugenics, commencing with Francis Galton,

considered the upper class to be “physically and mentally inefficient,” identifying the middle

class as the means to improvement of the British race.284 In writing about female

emancipation and the upper-class woman, Lady Violet Greville asserted that the upper-class

woman did not reject maternity in favour of higher learning but rather to more fully exploit opportunities for frivolity and social entertainment.285 Lady Jeune offered a similar

sentiment, suggesting that the real motives for the avoidance of maternity by both the

upper and middle-class woman could be found in the desire to more fully enjoy the

amusements of modern life. Her solution was to reawaken the primal joys of motherhood,

to emphasize maternity as a deep, primal urge essential in the female nature. As Lady Jeune

poetically phrased the sentiment, “It is the fulfilment of her life and of her existence; desire,

passion, love, everything pales before the flood of joy that the little wailing infant awakens

in its mother’s heart.”286

284 Angelique Richardson, “The Eugenization of Love: Sarah Grand and the Morality of Geneology,” Victorian Studies, (Winter 1999/2000): 227–255, note 8. 285 “The Modern Woman,” The Dover Express (Dover, England) Issue 1883, Friday, July 27, 1894, 3. 286 “The Ladies’ Corner,” Evening Telegraph (Sheffield, England) Issue 2495, Tuesday, June 11, 1895, 2.

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Each of these women pointed to an approach available to the upper-class woman to insert

her class-based gender grouping into the discourse of degeneration and to redefine the

perception of the upper-class woman as the ideal maternal figure on a social and racial

basis. One strategy employed by aristocratic women who seized this opportunity was to

extract the child from the nursery and to enact the role of doting mother in the public

forum, encouraging publicity through newspaper reports. For instance, the Duchess of

Portland was lauded for setting fashionable mothers a good example as she took every

opportunity to exhibit her daughter. The newspaper report in the Lady’s Pictorial

acknowledged that the “baby Lady Victoria Bentinck duly put in an appearance, and was

proudly displayed with great success to the public” at a bazaar opened by her fashionable

mother. The reporter continued by honouring the Duchess for having “made public the fact

that her baby is her proudest possession, and maternity more precious to her than coronet

or riches.”287

I am suggesting that the slew of mother and child images procured by upper-class women and disseminated through illustrated journals of the period constituted another form of active participation of the upper-class woman in this debate, working with the text of social gossip reports that reported on public appearances of elite mothers and their children to reconstitute the public image of the upper-class woman and her maternal fitness. If we

287 “The Duchess of Portland and Her Little Girl,” The Evening Telegraph (Dundee, Scotland) Issue 4433, Saturday, May 9, 1891, 2.

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consider again the Alice Hughes image of the Duchess of Rutland with her infant daughter,

Lady Diana Manners (fig. 3.2) in this light, I suggest that the simplicity of the image, which

avoids explicit emblems of status in favour of a narrative of doting mother, is composed to

correlate with the textual positioning of public performances of aristocratic women such as

the Duchess of Portland. In this image, it is the young Diana who is the focus, proudly

displayed on her mother’s lap in a performance designed to attract the female audience of

the journal. The Duchess, leaning back in apparent unawareness of the photographer or

potential audience, is in a relaxed and casual pose and totally engrossed in admiring her

offspring. In this portrait, the Duchess of Rutland and her daughter visually responded to

accusations of upper-class indifference to their children by specifically avoiding visual status

references and instead emphasizing the relationship of maternal devotion.

The image is in conversation with the ongoing debate that often referred to the ‘ideal

woman’ through analogies to images of the Madonna and child that, regardless of

differences in form, “all portray the painter’s ideal of pure maternity and joyous

innocence.”288 I have noted the parallel use of art in eighteenth-century France to participate in similar discussions over the maternal fitness of the female figure and how the mother and child images of eighteenth-century pre-Revolutionary France correspondingly drew on conventions of presentation of the Madonna and Child. I am suggesting here that, in the same manner in which eighteenth-century French painting drew on the recognizable

288 “The Ideal Woman,” The Ipswich Journal (Ipswich, England) Issue 9436, Saturday, March 17, 1894, 16.

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iconography and connotations of Renaissance images of the Madonna and Child to

reinforce a claim to maternal devotion in a culture preoccupied with issues of population growth, these nineteenth-century British portraits similarly utilized a widely recognizable artistic convention to assert an argument for the purity of their maternal instinct for the purposes of the ongoing discussion of degeneration and eugenics.

Renaissance images of the mother and child were publicly exhibited in numerous forums, including the National Gallery. Perhaps even more to the point, there was a surge of interest in the paintings of eighteenth-century France at the end of the nineteenth century in Britain, with works by artists such as Vigée-Lebrun frequently referred to and exhibited.

For instance, an 1891 article in The Portfolio, an art periodical, contained a lengthy biographical article on Vigée-Lebrun. The photographs forming part of the article included one of her self-portrait, Madame Vigée Lebrun and her Daughter (fig. 3.7), described as “the most charming of all her works and a perfect model of tenderness and refinement.”289

Appealing to an inherent recognition factor among viewers, these images became a popular

tool for aristocratic women to introduce an alternative definition of the upper-class woman

in modern society, becoming so ubiquitous that by 1903 they were referred to as an “all-

prevailing fashion of society mothers.”290

289 “Elizabeth Louise Vigee-Le Brun,” The Portfolio, Jan. 1891, 22. 290 “Society Mothers,” Onlooker (London, England) February 21, 1903, 526.

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For the upper-class woman, this discourse on the education and employment of women offered an opportunity to present the life of the aristocratic female in a national and civic context. As Diana Manners recounts in her autobiography, her education was limited and erratic, focused more on artistic and social accomplishments than on the skills necessary for independence or employment.291 The expectation was still that a young aristocratic girl would be presented at Court and thereafter make an acceptable marriage from among the eligible men she encountered during the social Season. Following an early marriage, the bride was under some pressure to produce sufficient offspring to ensure the continuation of the family line. In this sense, the aristocratic female life was already in compliance with the measures advocated for the effective repopulation of the British populace. However, the form of the mother and child images that prevailed were an essential part of recasting the perception of the upper-class way of life. Novels and newspaper articles that supplied the public with ongoing references to upper-class marriages emphasized the aristocratic marriage as an unemotional affair, determined for reasons of status, finance, and heredity.

Similarly, the upper-class daughter was a means to an end, a link in a chain, and confined to the schoolroom until ready to take her place in an adult world. The focus on the maternal bond in the disseminated mother and child images of aristocratic women and their daughters portrayed these women as devoted mothers raising visibly attractive and well- cared for children. Past conventions from the Renaissance Madonna and the mother and child portrait from pre-revolutionary France extended the meaning of these images from the individual and personal to a broader discourse on the genetic future of the State.

291 Diana Manners, The Rainbow Comes and Goes (London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1968), 70.

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In appropriating the historical meaning of the mother and child pose through a repetition

and reiteration of the compositional structure of Renaissance Madonna paintings, upper- class women sought to renegotiate the cultural signifiers that defined them as a class and gender. In an era where past definitions of both gender and class were being renegotiated, I suggest that this visual performance, repeated and broadly disseminated, operated in a space in which resignification was a viable possibility.292 The intersection of the visual

images with the discourse of eugenics and the future of the race that permeated the

cultural context, provided an environment where the mother and child images were

reasonably anticipated to operate as symbolic signifiers of the upper-class woman as

emblems of maternity, visually responding to critics and offering a new perception of the

upper class woman.

CULT OF THE CHILD

I have suggested that the performance of Diana Manners, seated on her mother’s lap, was

designed to appeal to the audience. In this suggestion, I have implied the existence of a

marketable appeal of the image of the child independent of the appeal of the aristocratic

mother. This interest in the depiction of the beautiful, innocent child created an additional

292 Moya Lloyd, “Performativity, Parody, Politics,” Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 16, 2 (1999): 210. Lloyd refines Judith Butler’s theories of performance by pointing out that the political productiveness of the performance depends on the historical context, “the space within which performance occurs, the others involved in or implicated by the production, and how they receive and interpret what they see.”

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basis for the influx of aristocratic mother and child images, the ‘cult of the child,’ and

extended beyond representations of the mother and child bond to portraits of upper-class

children that were disseminated broadly in a manner that altered the contextual meaning

of the child in society.

In Malcolm Warner’s essay on Millais’s portraits of children, he notes that the concept of

childhood as a significant stage of life was invented in the eighteenth century, starting as a

corollary to Rousseau’s re-envisioned perspective on the mother and child in society. In

England, this exaltation of children was translated in literature through the poetry of

William Wordsworth and the paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds.293 This eighteenth-century vision of childhood as “a paradise of heightened perception and imagination,” was one that remained as a shadowy recollection of glory through the advent of adulthood. Warner argues, though, that while the interest in childhood continued to pervade the nineteenth century, the perspective of childhood as represented in text and image shifted meaning to reflect the changing social and cultural context. In other words, the concept of ‘childhood’ became a metaphor for the expression of contemporary anxieties or emotions. Thus,

Warner suggests that Millais’s portraits of childhood, which incorporate a sense of nostalgia and loss, use the loss of innocence of the child to express societal anxiety over the erosion of pre-industrial life.294

293 Malcolm Warner, “Portraits of Children: The Pathos of Innocence,” Millais Portraits (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 118. 294 Ibid, 121.

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The focus on the child continued and even intensified during the last part of the nineteenth

century as the distribution of images and text concentrated on the depiction of childhood

continued to increase. This is recognized by Barbara Dayer Gallati in her analysis of the

paintings of children produced by John Singer Sargent at the turn of the century. She

suggests that when Sargent entered the art arena in England in the 1890s, “childhood was a

predominant theme that was receiving unprecedented critical attention. What had been

one of the crowning glories of the English artistic tradition – the subject of childhood – had

sunk to the level of saccharine, popularized imagery.295 Millais’s painting of his grandson in

1886 serves as a case in point (fig. 3.9). The small child with his halo of golden curls and rounded face raptly gazes upward as he watches as the bubbles he creates pop and disappear. He is dressed in what appears to be a fancy-dress costume that hearkens to the eighteenth century and is seated in a rustic setting. The composition and symbolism of the

image reflect the Victorian values of nostalgia, innocence and the longing for a lost past that

Warner suggests. Purchased by Thomas J. Barratt of A. & F. Pears, this portrait was then

reproduced as a print and used as an advertisement for Pears Soap following the addition of

a bar of soap into the corner of the painting. The translation of the cultural value of the

eighteenth-century precedent of the child image into a commercial marketing tool through

the sentimental Millais portrait is not unlike the process underpinning the creation of the

photographs of aristocratic maternity I have been discussing, which also drew on past

cultural meaning to market the value of the aristocratic mother.

295 Barbara Dayer Gallati, “From Souvenir to High Art: Childhood on Display,” Great Expectations: John Singer Sargent Painting Children (New York: Bulfinch Press, 2004), 87.

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The portrait of the Society juvenile assumed a new public dimension from the 1890s,

drawing on the artistic convention of the romantic and innocent child. The image of the

young Diana, seated on her mother’s lap in the Alice Hughes photograph (fig. 3.2) exhibits

numerous characteristics that suggest this classification. If we compare this image to the

Millais portrait or to a more contemporaneous painting by Sir Arthur John Elsley, renowned

for his huge outflow of sentimental images of children and pets (fig. 3.10), we can see how

Diana fits genetically and compositionally within the genre of the blonde tousle-headed

imp. She is dressed in a simple white frock with bare feet to replicate the feeling of childhood vulnerability and innocence standardized in works such as those of Elsley. A

similar comparison can be made to the portrait of Diana made in 1895 by J.J. Shannon (fig.

3.11). In this painted portrait, Diana is posed against a dark background that highlights her golden blond curls, her fair complexion, and her bare feet. These signifiers of innocence are complemented by the costume ball gown and single flower that she extends, references to the fancy-dress captured by Millais in his portrait of his grandson. As Diana clutches the gown with her left hand to prevent it from trailing on the ground, the idea of dressing-up, of assuming the costume and conventions of another time, is reinforced.

The use of these recognizable artistic conventions for the romantic child placed these images within the context of the popular child images of the period, images that were based on the references to an idealized version of childhood that extended back to the eighteenth century. Dayer Gallati has identified the prevalence of these works in the English

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artistic arena of the era. I am suggesting that a specific subset of images of children was

constituted by portraits of the aristocratic child. In addition to the mother and child images of the Duchess of Rutland and Diana, portraits of Diana alone appeared in numerous exhibitions and published periodicals. The Shannon portrait was included in the 1896 Book

of Beauty and was reproduced in illustrated magazines such as Black and White on August

3, 1895. Portrait drawings of Diana that were created by her mother, the Duchess of

Rutland, were publicly exhibited at galleries and in exhibitions repeatedly during the 1890s

and 1900s, and reports of the exhibitions were offered by newspapers and journals.296 Her image appeared as part of a family grouping in portraits with her mother and sisters, and was highlighted on the occasions on which she acted as a child bridesmaid in a society wedding. In the 1902 wedding of Society beauty Pamela Plowden to Lord Lytton, Diana, as bridesmaid, was provided with almost as much photographic coverage as the bride. The report of The Tatler on April 9, 1902 included inset photographs of the bride and of Diana, giving both almost equal prominence (fig. 3.12). On May 16, 1902, The Tatler provided a full-page photograph of Diana and another bridesmaid. Diana, although the younger bridesmaid, is the focal point of the image (fig. 3.13). The other bridesmaid featured stands further back. Her arms dangle awkwardly at her side while she gazes down at Diana, reinforcing the sense that the younger girl is the chief subject of the photograph. Diana sits confidently, clad in the white gown of childhood innocence and gazing wistfully into the distance.

296 Some examples include the exhibition at the Grafton Galleries in 1893 and at the Grantham Industrial Exhibition in 1902, 1904, 1906, and 1907.

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Diana formed part of a cadre of similarly publicized aristocratic children. The December 9,

1900 edition of Country Life published a full page of portraits of society children, each

decoratively placed in an oval framing device and connected by an illustrated flowering

vine, perhaps symbolically referring to these children as the flowering of the aristocratic

lineage or tree (fig. 3.14). Although the portrait photographs were taken by a variety of photographers, it is remarkable how similar the images appear. Each of these children wears a white gown and, in most cases, the gown has a costume flavour, a reference to a past era. The child is placed against a backdrop painted to suggest a simple outdoor space and many of the images contain references to flowers, symbolically referring to the blossoming of childhood and the association of childhood with the organic pureness of the natural state.297 In the majority of the portraits the child is depicted with a profusion of golden curls, a fair complexion, and barefoot, imagery of angelic or holy purity that can be traced back to pre-Renaissance religious iconography. The characteristic features of these portraits accord with the imagery discussed in the portraits of Diana and the repetition of these features indicates that this was a widespread iconography designed to be easily understood by the public. As noted, the formal elements of the images draw on the artistic conventions established by Reynolds in the eighteenth century and perpetuated into the nineteenth and early twentieth century by artists such as Millais and Elsley and by

297 The use of floral imagery as a female attribute in child portraits had a long history in European art and formed part of a common pictorial vocabulary that equated the female with ideas of beauty and natural innocence. Holly Pine Connor, “Angel Children: Defining Nineteenth-Century Girlhood,” Angels & Tomboys: Girlhood in 19th-Century American Art (San Francisco: Newark Museum, 2012), 29.

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numerous advertisements, cards, and other commercial products that reinforced the image

of the fair, naïve child as the symbol of pure and innocent beauty.

The distinction between these images and the other visual references to childhood is the

transition from the abstract to the specific. These were not anonymous children. The key

below the images identifies the child depicted, their connection to an identifiable upper-

class mother, and the society photographer responsible for the photograph. The presentation of the images corresponds with the design utilized by the journal in its arrangement of images for aristocratic women, graphically equating the two in terms of the interest of the reader. In the same manner as aristocratic women became public figures, their children, and in particular, their daughters, also became recognizable and identifiable personas. The publication of these child images was pervasive and augmented by independent or accompanying text that reported on the activities of aristocratic children in the same manner as for their aristocratic mothers. In 1906, The Bystander spoke of the fashionable ‘Cult of the Children,’ in which the Society parties of small children were the subject of wide public interest.298 In its June issue, it published a short humorous paragraph mocking the ubiquity of the publicity of aristocratic childhood:

I am asked by several babies of more or less importance in the “great” world to

protest against the unwonted and unwished-for publicity which is being thrust upon

them by the “Society” paragraphists of the papers. I am told that it is impossible to

cut a tooth, come out in a rash, hit one’s nurse in the eye, or dash one’s feeding-

298 “The Activities of the Modern Child,” The Bystander (London) December 26, 1906, 652.

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bottle out of one’s pram, without the fact being recorded in the newspapers, and

they (the babies) are just about sick of it. They tell me they are quite ready and

willing to feed with “copy” the voracious maw of these people when they are, say

turned three, at which time they make their débuts in the social world (provided

they are pretty, picturesque, or even “weird”-looking) as pages or bridesmaids, as

the case may be; but, meanwhile, they just beg to be left in peace with nurse.299

Diana was one of these children, from earliest childhood a public figure who attracted notice and comment.

Later in life Diana recounted that she was not sure how or when her reputation for beauty began. In her own memory, she was not particularly pretty but acknowledged that she had a “strange, unaccountable publicity” generated by the numerous portraits in which she was the subject. “It was the period of portraits and I was paintable, I suppose, because I was so blonde. I was in all the portrait exhibitions of the day – done by Macavoy, J.J. Shannon,

Sargent…I was also much be-photographed.”300 This widespread public notoriety during

childhood was a dramatic change for the female aristocratic child. Previously confined to a

schoolroom from which she emerged only for specific and limited occasions, the aristocratic

female child was sporadically trained in the necessary upper-class accomplishments of

drawing, music, and perhaps languages. Intelligence and worldliness were considered

handicaps for the only future open to her, marriage to a suitable mate. The early public

299 “Social Infants,” The Bystander (London) June 13, 1906, 530. 300 “Lady Diana Cooper,” by Jenny Nicholson, Daily Mail (London) September 25, 1954, 16.

232 exposure and access to public events that mirrored the entertainments of her mother changed the nature of childhood for a young upper-class girl.

Diana became accustomed to the spotlight and the attention as a way of life. She and the other children of her class were feted at children’s parties and costume ‘balls’ which were then the subject of photographs and society reporting. On January 15, 1902, The Tatler provided a full page of images from two fancy-dress balls held for society children (fig.

3.15). Clad in elaborate costumes, these children assume theatrical poses that assert their self-confidence and comfort under the eye of the camera lens. Although Diana was not featured at this event, her costume as Joan of Arc at a similar event was memorialized by the pencil of her mother and by a photograph (figs. 3.16 and 3.17). Similar to the children in the 1902 Tatler images, Diana is not only self-aware and at ease in her role as subject of the image; she assumes an expression and a stance that performs the costumed persona she has assumed.301 From infancy, Diana was identified as a beauty and fashion icon, assuming a position as a Society figure in the public eye. In 1901, when Diana was less than ten years old, her looks were compared to a “young Saxon Princess, with her fine features, and crop of pale flaxen curls.”302 Her presence was noted at Society events and her wardrobe was the subject of repeated comment. The continuing textual references worked synergistically with

301 The frequent posing for her mother’s drawn portraits and photographic experiments suggests an early training in effective expressions and poses. In her memoirs Diana describes how her mother was an exacting pose-master, starting a new drawing of Diana as soon as the previous one was complete, and requiring Diana to sit statue-still while the drawing session was underway. Diana Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, 54. 302 Grantham Journal (Grantham, England) Saturday, September 21, 1901, 4. The description stresses racial purity as well as beauty and class – a point to which I shall return.

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the flow of images, rendering Diana part of the first generation of upper-class children to

grow up under the public eye of celebrity.303

In the sense that Warner has identified the Millais child as representing the anxieties of the

era, shifting the meaning of the artistic conventions appropriated from an earlier period, I

suggest that these turn-of-the-century images of aristocratic children performed a similar

function. Although much of the imagery of these aristocratic child portraits emulated earlier

representations of children that were intended to be understood as statements of natural,

untouched Edenic innocence, I suggest that the use of these references assumed an

additional theatrical element at the turn of the century. If we again consider the portrait of

Diana painted by Shannon (fig. 3.11), the overlarge white dress, the obviously staged narrative of the young child extending a single perfect rose, and the affected anomaly of

Diana’s bare feet infuse this image with the sense of a conscious and artificial manipulation

of symbols. I suggest that the increasing demand for portraits of upper-class children,

combined with the textual references that augmented the public profile of this generation

and class of children, transformed these infants into identifiable figures whose activities and

personal characteristics were the subject of a broad public interest. Instead of being

sequestered in the nursery, anonymous until adulthood, these children were raised in the

public domain in a manner that had not previously been experienced. Even as they

performed childhood for the portraits, the enhanced exposure arising from the unceasing

303 See note 13 for the qualification regarding the experience of daughters of the Royal Family.

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demand for additional images and narratives of aristocratic childhood eroded the

unselfconscious innocence that the portraits were designed to showcase. The very need to

perform a state that was considered authentic and essential to the idea of childhood spoke

to the erosion of past values in a modern society that was experiencing uncharted social

change and to the theatrical nature of the enactment of traditional values – the need to pretend a naturalness that was no longer experienced.

COURT PRESENTATION

Although individual families would have varied, the upper-class daughter traditionally only

became an interesting or relevant figure in her family structure or in society as she

approached the time of her Court Presentation and first Season. Often compared to a

butterfly, the debutante was expected to emerge from her restricted existence in full

splendour. This schema for upper-class daughters likely continued for many. Even in 1911, a

column in The Tatler, written from the ostensible voice of the debutante, commented on

her public unveiling in her first Season by claiming, “There are some advantages, I find, in

having been hidden away during one’s childhood. One blossoms out with all the charm of

novelty instead of having been under observation through all one’s awkward stages.”304 The

article visually emphasized the theme of metamorphosis in a full-page cartoon of young

debutantes emerging from their chrysalides in the rising dawn of the new Season (fig. 3.18).

304 “The Letters of a Debutante,” The Tatler (London, England) No. 514, May 3, 1911, vi.

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However, this was not the practice for the group of aristocratic girls where the public

exposure initiated in childhood continued through the period prior to Presentation.

Diana was first presented at Court in 1911 at the age of nineteen. However, by the time she

joined the procession of young debutantes awaiting their turn to enter the Drawing Room

at Buckingham Palace, she, like many of her compatriots, was already a well-known Society

figure, identifiable to the reading public. She appeared in numerous published photographs

prior to her Presentation, either alone or with her sisters. Newspaper columns reported on

her presence at events, on the clothes that she wore, and on her appearance and reputed

artistic talents.305 The images presented Diana as a fully-grown woman, not as a child yet to

break free of her confining shell (fig. 3.19). On the cover of The Tatler for June 1, 1910,

Diana is presented in the pose of the huntress: a reflection of her interest in archery, a play on the classical reference of her name, and perhaps a gesture to the expectations placed on young girls of her class to capture suitable matrimonial prey. Diana wears her hair ‘up’ and her skirts long, features that designate her as out of the schoolroom. Although informally clad, her dress is open suggestively at the neck in a deep vee and her top is draped to affirm that she is no longer a child. In an article dated November 30, 1910, The Tatler refers to the three ‘Manners girls’ as “perhaps more talked of, written of, and photographed than any

305 In an article on prospective debutantes of 1909, The Tatler notes how many society mothers bring their girls out in society before their official Court Presentation and “indeed, make them their companions while they are still in the schoolroom.” Diana Manners is explicitly mentioned and distinguished for her appearance, her style, and her talents. “Débutantes, 1909,” The Tatler (London, England) no. 394, January 13, 1909, 44.

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other girls in society.”306 In the full-page article on “Debutantes, 1910,” Lady Diana Manners

is one of the noted ‘comers-out,’ a debutante to be watched.307

The public exposure of young girls from childhood allowed the public to develop an interest in the success of identifiable debutantes in the matrimonial sweepstakes of the social

Season. Illustrated journals such as The Bystander, Onlooker, or The Tatler intensified the focus on these young women as the time of their Court Presentation approached.

Anticipating this first official Season, the flow of images and textual references increased, with journals often providing collected images and background material in a column such as

“Debutantes, 1910,” that acted as a form of key or catalogue, permitting the public to follow the success of debutantes through the Season as one might watch a horse race.

Debutantes like Diana achieved a transatlantic presence, as London news was repeated in

American social columns on a national and local level. The Plain Dealer in Cleveland published a photo of the debutante Diana in 1911, noting that, as one of the most photographed women in England, her Court Presentation was an eagerly awaited event.308

306 The Tatler (London, England) November 30, 1910, xxviii. 307 The Tatler (London, England) no. 452, February 23, 1910, viii. 308 Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), February 13, 1911, 10. The public exposure of debutantes formed part of a larger context of the visual commodification of young beautiful girls. Portraits of the actresses of the popular theatre appeared regularly in illustrated journals, where their images often metaphorically rubbed shoulders with portraits of the upper-class girl. Their faces appeared on boxes of chocolates and confectionary and were reproduced in the form of picture postcards that were collected and exchanged. Peter Bailey, “‘Naughty but nice’: Musical Comedy and the Rhetoric of the Girl, 1892—1914,” The Edwardian Theatre: Essays on Performance and the Stage, Michael Booth and Joel Kaplan eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 53.

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The formal tradition of the Presentation at Court continued, marking the ritualized entry of

the young girl from childhood into the ranks of young women eligible for marriage. Upon

her formal Court Presentation, the debutante was thrust into a frantic whirl of social

engagements, formulated with the goal of attracting a suitable husband. In her memoirs,

Cynthia Asquith described her Presentation as a debutante, noting the requirement for

lessons on deportment, the donning of Court sanctioned apparel, and most evocatively, the

trip to Buckingham Palace: “One of an endless line of conveyances, our hired coupe crawled

through the unbroken avenue of sight-seers, many of whom actually pressed their noses

against the glass just as though we were a shop-window display, and made personal

remarks rich in cockney wit.”309 For the crowds that thronged to watch the debutantes of

Diana’s generation stream slowly toward the Drawing-Room at Buckingham Palace, many of

the faces were identifiable. Readers of illustrated journals who had followed the

debutantes’ growth from childhood were in a position to watch their progress as the

debutantes officially entered the marriage arena. At the end of the 1906 season, The

Bystander summarized the results: “During the last week or two several quite interesting

engagements have been disclosed to the world but the crop, nevertheless, is not what

mothers and chaperons had hoped to see, several really important fishes still remaining to

be caught, many of them having for yet another season evaded the tempting bait offered

them.”310 The use of agricultural and sporting metaphors transformed the upper-class ritual to a spectacle for outsiders, now able to engage with the Season on a more personal level,

309 Cynthia Asquith, Remember and Be Glad (London: James Barrie, 1952), 60. 310 The Bystander, (London, England), August 1, 1906, 220.

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using their access to specific debutantes to turn an abstract event into a personal emotional

investment.

The Court Presentation was certainly a form of public spectacle prior to this period. When

Lady Augusta Fane described her Presentation to Queen Victoria in 1875, she noted what a

fine sight it was to “see a hundred coaches and chariots drive down the Mall on a bright

May day, whilst crowds of people on foot flocked to see the show, and gazed in at the

carriage windows to admire the great ladies in their Court attire.” However, the

Presentation was essentially a coming of age ritual forming part of a traditional pattern of

upper-class life that acknowledged the passage of the young woman from the ranks of

childhood to the status of eligible female. Lady Fane describes an intimate and personal

event, recounting how she curtseyed to each member of the Royal Family, was kissed on both cheeks by Queen Victoria, and then hustled home for tea and visits from numerous friends anxious to see her in her elaborate dress.311 However, for the celebritized debutante of the early twentieth century, the Presentation was a much more public experience.

In the terms described by the ethnographer Arnold van Gennep, who studied rites of passage, rituals are often focused on an event of transition in the life cycle, the critical moment in which the individual moves from one status to another. This type of ritual is frequently characterized by formality, tradition, and a performative element in which the

311 Lady Augusta Fane, Chit Chat (London: Thornton Butterworth, Limited, 1926), 65.

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individually physically enacts the metaphorical movement in life stage.312 In a closely knit society bonded by family ties and alliances, the Presentation at Court performed both a personal and a social function for the debutante. It marked a fundamental shift in the way she was expected to act, to dress, and to see herself in relation to her family and to society.

Similarly, the Court Presentation acted as a designation or certification of the status and eligibility for marriage of the female within the ranks of upper-class society.

I suggest, however, that for many debutantes who formed part of the class of aristocratic children exposed to the public eye from childhood, the Court Presentation became a ritual for which much of the meaning was eroded. Philip Ziegler, in his biography of Diana, notes that at the time of her Court Presentation, “she had for years dressed and behaved as if she were into if not past the debutante stage, had won frequent mention in the social columns and even been awarded a column all to herself in the New York American on the eve of her presentation.”313 Instead of a moment of life stage transformation, the Court Presentation became a form of theatrical event. Diana’s own description of her Presentation in 1911 exults in the fact that her mother’s entrée permitted her to bypass the enormous queue.

She remarks that her dress and required headgear “looked less ridiculous when everyone was wearing them,” and describes the actual ceremony in mocking terms. “The courtiers are very alarming and martinettish – they shoo you and pull you back and speak to you as they would to a wet dog, but once the trial is successfully over you have the fun of seeing

312 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 36. 313 Philip Ziegler, Diana Cooper (New York: Harper & Row, 1981), 21.

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others go through the same ordeal.”314 While not intending to extrapolate Diana’s amusing recollection into a general perspective, I note that Diana’s emphasis on the externals of the performance rather than on the transformative aspects of the event mirror similar recollections of other debutantes such as Cynthia Asquith quoted above. For many of this generation of aristocratic young females, the distinction between childhood and debutante had become blurred. Never totally in the schoolroom, the significance of the ritual was almost entirely in its public performative quality. In this manner, I suggest that balance

between private, intra-class rite of the passage and public exhibition was reallocated,

emphasizing the role of the Court Presentation as public spectacle, a vehicle for the public

performance of status and celebrity.

The long line of carriages full of young debutantes slowly winding its way to the Palace

before the large crowds of onlookers lining the streets can be interpreted as a form of

theatre or pageant. The physical separation between the participants and the spectators

creates a form of stage or fourth wall, emphasized by the asymmetry between those within

the carriages and those outside. To a public inured to a culture of pageants, this procession

of debutantes reiterating the performance of the upper-class rite of passage served as a

projection of an absence of change, a confirmation of the continuity of the hierarchical

power structure, and a living, affective experience in which the past and the present were

conflated and commemoration and memory intermingled. However, like the pageant, the

audience refused to maintain the physical or metaphorical separation, interjecting

314 Diana Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, 86.

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comments and shifting position to obtain better views of favoured debutantes. The

debutantes themselves acknowledged the presence of the spectators, either directly by

waving or responding to calls, or indirectly, by pretending unawareness. The theatre philosopher Denis Guénoun proposes that while the breach of the fourth wall through the confrontation between performer and audience generates theatrical impact and energy, the refusal to acknowledge the audience is actually a deeper solicitation of attention, intensifying the theatricality of the event.315 The public portion of the pageantry of the

Court Presentation provided the viewer with an active and embodied experience of reliving the past with the engaged immediacy of presence.316 I suggest that the effect was heightened where the audience could recognize and feel a bond of intimacy with a particular debutante through the celebrity status facilitated by the wide dissemination of portrait images. However, the elevation to “celebrity,” in the broad sense of the focused

interest of the many on the relatively few, touched all of the participating debutantes,

providing them with a few moments of public prominence.

As we have seen, the exclusive nature of the upper class had been subject to erosion since

the last quarter of the nineteenth century, and by the Edwardian era, the press of the

315 Denis Guénoun, Actions et acteurs. Raisons du drame sur scène, quoted in Sharon Marcus, “Salomé!! Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, and the Drama of Celebrity,” PMLA, vol. 126, 4 (October 2011): 1003. 316 The spectacle of the Presentation in this period thus does not conform to Guy Debord’s suggestion that the society of the spectacle, in which everything “that was directly lived has moved away into a representation,” produces passive spectators; he minimizes the effect of direct action or agency of the viewer. Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1983), 5.

242 demand by the nouveau riche and the aspirational classes to have their daughters included in this rite of passage necessitated the expansion to four separate Court Presentations.

Included in the ranks of young women seeking entrance to the ceremony were daughters of the gentry clergy, naval and military officers, professional men, bankers and members of the Stock Exchange, and “persons engaged in commerce on a large scale.”317 In 1908, The

Bystander commented on the overcrowding of the recent Courts, remarking that “the lists were so long that the King got tired,” and suggested a more rigorous weeding-out process.318 The Presentation became an evening event, held in the much larger Drawing

Room at Buckingham Palace, and kissing was dispensed with. Debutantes repeatedly commented on the torture of waiting in interminable lines, unable to sit comfortably, to eat, or to drink while confined to their regulated costume. The greatly extended group of young girls presented at Court no longer corresponded with the pre-existing tight clique of upper-class debutante. After Presentation, many of these young women would not meet again, retreating to their own social circles to search for a suitable spouse.

In The Invention of Tradition, Eric Hobsbawm explores the adaptation or creation of ritual in periods like the end of the nineteenth century in Britain when “a rapid transformation of society weakens or destroys the social patterns of which ‘old’ traditions had been designed.”319 I argue that as the original meaning of the Court Presentation diminished, the

317 Anna Sproule, The Social Calenda, (Dorset: Blandford Press, 1978), 54. 318 “Overcrowding at Court,” The Bystander (London, England) May 27, 1908, 428. 319 Eric Hobsbawm, “Introduction: Inventing Traditions,” in Hobshawm and Terence Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 5.

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form and historical reference was adapted to serve a new social purpose. In broadening the

scope of the event, the upper class reinforced the legitimacy of class hierarchy. The young

women, and their parents, who were newly permitted to participate in the form of the

ritual did not necessarily experience the inclusion in the social activities or ecosystem of the

upper class. However, in their performance of the ceremony they publicly positioned

themselves as symbolic representations of the upper-class debutante. The experienced

reality was suborned to the projected and perceived public affirmation of status. As they

emulated the aristocratic debutante, they inherently affirmed their support of the

continued relevance of the institution of the Court Presentation and its implications for an

enduring social hierarchy. Notwithstanding the dramatic increase in debutantes, the number of aspiring candidates still constituted only a tiny minority of the populace. I suggest that the more significant adaptation of the ritual was the enhanced focus on the engagement of the broader public in the spectacle of the event, and that the portrait

images and accompanying text published in illustrated journals played a pivotal role in this

process.

Immediately following the Presentation, the debutantes were ushered to the photography

studios, waiting for hours for their turn to have the event immortalized: “waiting their turn

before the camera, the daughters of the nobility, the bishops and lesser clergy, the bankers,

doctors and barristers gossiped and sipped coffee till dawn.”320 From 1900, these

photographic portraits were regularly published in the illustrated society journals, forming a

320 Sproule, The Social Calendar, 56.

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gallery presentation of debutantes (fig. 3.20). A page of debutante portraits published in

The Tatler on June 3, 1908 depicts an interchangeable arrangement of young women. The

prescribed dress, hair style, and bouquet created a kind of uniform in which the

individuality of the subject is subsumed in the collectivity of the classification of debutante.

Notwithstanding that the images were taken by different photographic studios, they adhere

to a common convention, clearly marking their purpose as an evidentiary trace of the performance of the ritual of Presentation. The title of the page of images, “Frocks and Frills at Their Majesties Third Court,” reinforces this sense of the standardization and interchangeablility of the debutantes by transforming them into the accessories to the elaborate dresses attending the Court. The backdrops to the portraits draw on material references to an elite lifestyle, with hints of wooden–panelled drawing rooms and elegant

French furniture. The captions below the images identify the debutantes, permitting the

socially astute to distinguish between the aristocratic participant and the remainder.

However, to the broader public, the images asserted an equality that visually assimilated

the daughter of the plutocrat or aspiring middle class into the social stratum of the

debutante, providing a motivation for middle-class support for the continuation of the class

structure. Images of the debutante taken at these studios and subsequently published in

illustrated magazines, exhibited in silver frames in family homes, and distributed to friends

and families as mementos, identified these young women within the classification of the

‘debutante’, suggesting a lifestyle of aristocratic affluence and tradition, regardless of the

limited expectation for integration within the social world of the upper class for many of the

participants.

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Paradoxically, as the event of Court Presentation became less exclusive and the

standardized images of the debutantes publicly asserted a democracy belied by the

experience of many of the debutantes, it became increasingly critical for the illustrated

journals to highlight specific individuals in order to emotionally engage the attention of its

readership. I suggest that this need facilitated the enhanced focus on those aristocratic

young women, such as Diana Manners, who had already established a public profile. In the

minds of the public they became the representative symbols of the upper-class debutante.

In her article discussing the cultural relevance of a later Diana, Princess of Wales, Catherine

Lumley focused on the role played by Diana as liaison between the hereditary or positionally ascribed celebrity of the Royal Family and the popular-based attributed celebrity that her ubiquitous media presence generated. Lumley identifies the fascination of the public with uncovering the private individual behind the public image of class status, suggesting that this public desire “is all part of a social hunger to uncover the real person behind the image.”321 I am suggesting that, on a much more limited scale, the swelling

public interest in information and images that appeared to reveal Diana Manners allowed

her to act as a similar link between the individual and representative figure. While the

increased press coverage focused on Diana before, during, and following her ‘coming out’ as

a debutante induced the public to believe that they were obtaining access to an individual,

she was nevertheless also presented within the genre of the upper-class debutante and in a

321 Catherine Lumby, “Vanishing Point,” in The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. David P. Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 530–546, 542.

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manner similar to other girls of her class and age – as a type. She functioned as a

dichotomous figure, simultaneously appearing special or unique and as an emblematic

representative of her class and gender.322

According to her biographer, Diana became a public favourite such that everything she did was news. The society journals were littered with images and references to her, accelerating each year until, by the time she was married in 1919, her wedding took on the character of a state event with police required to hold back the pressing crowds. Her husband described her as second only to Kitchener in public popularity.323 She epitomises

the idea of celebrity as the being known simply for being well-known, famous for nothing

more than her everyday life. The unceasing portrait images worked with the public sightings

of Diana to create an ongoing tension between presence and absence, intimacy and

distance, and the unique and the identifiable. The frequent images and accompanying

reportage suggested revelations of the corporeal person that distinguished the celebrity

from fiction, and provided a model for mimesis. At the same time, the image created a

longing for presence that was only satisfied with the distance of the spectacle, reminding

her fans of her hierarchical status achieved through a conflation of the class structure and

322 Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann suggest that the formation of a social worldview is creating by typifying, placing the individual into a general classification. Further information about the individual may require modification of the relationship between the individual and the social classification but Berger and Luckmann point out that without personal contact it becomes difficult to displace the initial assessment of “type.” Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor Books, 1966), 31. 323 Ziegler, Diana Cooper, 108.

247 the effects of celebrity.324 Schneider describes this process through a more psychoanalytic lens, arguing that the continuing obsession for access is fueled by a desire to access the

“real” that is impossible to ever realize. “The desire for the real is marked, continually, by loss, but that loss is what fuels the desire.”325 It was never possible to access the “real”

Diana; she became the embodied symbol of her own representations. As a symbol of something that was both real and unreal, the constructed “she” of her portrait images represented not only her embodied self but the generation of young debutantes that she personified. They arose as new focus of interest in this period, becoming the locus for the process of desire that marked the celebrity. I suggest that the pubic focus on Diana, as an individual and a representative, young, unmarried upper-class woman, both drew from and influenced contemporary discussion on the rise of a new form of youth culture in England.

THE RISE OF YOUTH CULTURE

In her study of youth in Britain and America, Christine Griffin argues that the concept of

‘youth’ in England as a stage of life separate from childhood or adulthood arose only in the second half of the nineteenth century. She also notes that the idea of youth was very much tied to ideas of class and gender, such that the meaning of the term depended upon the

324 Sharon Marcus, “Celebrity 2.0: The Case of Marina Abramovic,” Public Culture, vol. 27, 1 (2015): 29. Marcus emphasizes the interdependence of the image and the presence of the celebrity as instrumental in generating public excitement and fantasies of intimacy. 325 Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance (London: Routledge, 1997), 95.

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social discourse in which it was being applied.326 If we consider the images and textual references to young women like Diana in the context of the social restrictions imposed on the lives of young upper- and middle-class women in the Victorian era, they can be interpreted as establishing new parameters of freedom and public exhibition that altered existing definitions to posit a new classification of the single female as a distinct social category rather than merely as a brief transitional stage between childhood and marriage. I am not suggesting that the goal and the duty of the upper-class debutante was not to marry as quickly and as advantageously as possible. Numerous journals of the time confirm that this remained the experience of virtually all young upper-class women. I am, however,

suggesting that the idea of the socially active debutante assumed new forms of influence

and visual focus in this period, tied to associated discussions of social change.

The compilation of studio portraits of Diana and her two sisters printed in The Bystander on

January 25, 1911 depict Diana on the far right, posed theatrically in a rendition of a Greek

robe, her hair pulled back in an artful mimic of a Classical style (fig. 3.21). One arm raised against the window frame, she reveals her profile as she stares out of a backdrop window, suggesting Penelope awaiting the return of Odysseus. In a social environment where the typical English debutante was often noted as being raw and shy, “a drearily dowdy little

person…so gauche, so sulky, so badly dressed, and so unalloyedly unalluring,” Diana and her fellow debutante celebrities offered a new model that promoted the youth and beauty of

326 Christine Griffen, Representations of Youth: The Study of Youth and Adolescence in Britain and America (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 13.

249 the debutante.327 The image of Diana and her sisters is reminiscent of the Aesthetic presentations of women painted by artists like Sir Frederic Leighton and Albert Joseph

Moore in the second half of the nineteenth century. For instance, in Leighton’s 1889 painting entitled Invocation, a beautiful young woman similarly clad in clinging classical robes stands with her arms gracefully upraised, a pose designed to emphasize the youthful beauty of her figure (fig. 3.22). The general effect of the composition is echoed in the positioning and costume worn by Diana and her sisters in the studio images.

In Chapter One, when I considered the portrait drawings of Diana’s mother, the Duchess of

Rutland, I discussed how the reference to the Aesthetic female was used to promote the idea of the upper-class woman as spiritual and cultural leader. I also investigated the connection between Francis Galton’s ideal of the Greek and Roman genetic model and the positioning of the upper-class woman as the inheritor of these ideal genetics and therefore the preferred progenitor of the future British population. Through the Bystander photograph’s allusion to classical statuary and to the Aesthetic paintings that adopted and adapted this classical ideal, Diana and her sisters reinforced these connections and reiterated the claim of the upper-class woman as the natural exemplar and biological model of feminine England. However, I suggest that these photographic poses further connected the idea of the ideal English woman to the concepts of youth and beauty. Leighton’s

327 The Tatler (London), August 3, 1910, 118. In her memoirs, Diana describes the debutantes of her day as “raw and shy, innocent of powder and on the whole deplorably dressed with their shapeless wispy hair held by crooked combs.” Diana Cooper, The Rainbow Comes and Goes, 65.

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adoption of the female classical figure in his work has been suggested to refer to a Hegelian

idea that finds the Ideal in the beautiful human body. For Leighton, the reference to

classical sculpture in his painting of young women was a way to embody spiritual meaning

in the young and sensuous body.328 If we consider the Leighton painting, the idea of beauty

is strongly rooted in the lithe and youthful form and I suggest that the images of Diana and

her sisters draw on this association. The young form of the debutante revealed in the body-

skimming robes was the beautiful body that provided spiritual meaning, defining the upper-

class woman as the ideal of British womanhood.

Fred Inglis argues that celebrity is often accompanied or based on the idea of ‘glamour,’

which he defines as an admixture of physical desirability, youth, and money.329 Although more often considered in studies of Hollywood stars, I suggest that images of Diana and her fellow debutantes introduced the idea of glamour to the public perception of the upper- class debutante. Images and references to Diana place her at the opera, at public costume balls, at charity bazaars, at country houses, and at a myriad of other social events. The image of Diana at the Melton Hunt Steeplechase printed in The Tatler April 8, 1914 serves as an example of the glimpse afforded the public into the life of the elite debutante (fig.

3.23).330 Diana is the focus of the image, standing in the centre of a group of four but

328 Elizabeth Prettejohn, “The Classicism of Frederic Leighton,” Art for Art’s Sake: Aestheticism in Victorian Painting (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007), 149. 329 Fred Inglis, A Short History of Celebrity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), 12. 330 The Melton Hunt Steeplechase was an annual horse race located in the Belvoir Hunt country and held in the early Spring. The race preceded the official Season and attracted local viewers and participants. However, it was primarily an event focused on the upper

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separated from the herd of the common people. While the more distant crowd is blurred,

Diana stands in clear focus, close to the front of the image, her white outfit highlighted by

the drab colouring of her friends. She half-turns, as if caught unawares by the

photographer, but gazes straight into the lens looking towards her, and at the viewer.

Additionally, her mouth is parting, as if ready to speak, intensifying the illusion of

connection. Diana is stylishly dressed in a white skirt and jacket with a perfectly matched

accompanying hat and gloves. Her jacket is draped open and the fine detail of the ruffled

shirt and the lining exposed on the interior of the jacket and on the upturned sleeve of her

left arm evoke an aura of expensive elegance. The luxurious fur is casually draped over her right arm to reveal its silk lining and fashionable tassels. In her left hand is an open program that highlights the gambling that is part of the upper-class connection with horse races.

This image offers a multitude of possible interpretations and connections as it does not didactically insist upon a certain meaning. However, I suggest that the combination of physical proximity of Diana to the front of the picture plane, her casual stance and direct facial contact with the viewer, and the narrative exposition of her lifestyle that can be extrapolated from the physical details of the image provide an illusion of accessibility that is essential to the emotional affinity that characterizes the relationship between celebrity and viewer. At the same time, her arrogant stance, the almost haughty tilt of her head, and the

class and local gentry. The Belvoir Hunt was a prestigious association and the annual race, which ran from 1864 until 1939, attracted the regular attendance and participation of the aristocracy and of Royalty. Diana, as the daughter of the Duke of Rutland, the owner of Belvoir Castle and much of the Belvoir Hunt land, was particularly noteworthy in the context.

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spatial distance between her and the other people in the image, suggest an inaccessibility,

creating the tension between intimacy and aloofness that Sharon Marcus identifies as a

marker of celebrity.331 The implications of luxury, of special privilege, and of a daily life filled with the indulgences of money and leisure are all present in the moment captured by the image, creating a visual form of escapist fantasy world that is tethered to reality by its relation to the real person of Diana Manners. The distance between the life of the viewer and the unique personage of Diana is emphasized by her careless attitude to the exotic fur over her arm, treating an object of decadent luxury in the offhand manner of an everyday item. However, I suggest that the image also offers a model for emulation that reaffirms both the economic capitalist model and the hierarchical social system. While objects like the fur would have remained unobtainable by all but the extremely wealthy, many viewers would have been able to approximate the separates of coat, skirt, and blouse in a ready-to-

wear or copied version and even to approximate the idea of the fur through a shawl of

cheaper textile.332 While the individual reader may or may not have been able to acquire (or

interested in acquiring) the costume worn so elegantly by Diana, she has provided a model

331 Sharon Marcus, “Celebrity 2.0: The Case of Marina Abramovic,” Public Culture, vol. 27, 1 (2015): 39. 332 During the period of 1890—1910 the mass production of women’s fashion expanded rapidly, focusing on items of clothing such as the coat and skirt, the blouse and the dress, based on the designs of exclusive fashion but rendered in an inexpensive manner. The availability of cheap fashion was augmented by the expansion of local dressmaking establishments that would copy from fashion images and the rise of department stores that offered both readymade and dressmaking from scratch based on the copying of expensive models. By the early twentieth century the wealthy middle class and sections of the lower middle class and working class had sufficient income to permit women of these classes to wear versions of current fashion, albeit in a range of quality of material and manufacture. Elizabeth Wilson, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity (London: I.B. Taurus, 2013), 76-78.

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of style that can be adopted and adapted. A sense of accessibility is provided by the

opportunity to visually participate in Diana’s life through the apparently spontaneous

photograph, along with the ability to self-identify with her in a very personal embodied

experience by donning similar forms of fashion. In a synergistic manner, the associative

meaning of the fashion works with the performed presentation of Diana in the photograph

to emphasize this liminality between achievable emulation and the unrealizable desire to

become the celebrity image.

In the terms suggested by Joseph Roach in his book on celebrity, this experience of

accessibility is actually a ‘synthetic experience,’ fabricated to replace an unobtainable

reality as the opportunities to personally become an upper-class debutante like Diana were

limited to a few.333 The interaction between the image and the viewer oscillates between the fantasy of accessibility and the reality of social distance. The image of Diana offers both the inequality or elitism that is a necessary component of celebrity and the illusion of egalitarianism based on the synthetic experience of assuming an intimacy through the image and the possibility of personally adopting that image through the expanding consumer system of department stores and affordable replicas. I suggest that Diana, as an individual and a representative of the debutante of the upper class, combined “specialness” with the potentially emulable style and the glamour of the celebrity in a mixture sufficiently

333 Joseph Roach, It (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2007), 76.

254 potent to translate the potential envy of the upper class into a model for admiration and imitation. 334

One of the key components referred to by Inglis in his definition of glamour is the idea of

‘youth’. While I do not necessarily ascribe to the necessity of youth as a factor in the image of glamour, I suggest that the focus on youth as a marker of beauty and the accompanying social veneration of youth as a stage of life to be admired, prolonged, and emulated formed part of the discourse of beauty that arose at the end of the nineteenth century and that the influx of visual images of the youthful debutante was also implicated in this discourse. In an article on the feminine body and the politics of beauty, Kathy Davis identifies cultural

334 In the terms suggested by Thorstein Veblen, Diana, as a female representative of the upper class worked to support the stability of the social and economic order by performing an identity that, through its luxury and extravagance, confirmed the elite social status of the subject. At the same time, through its potential for imitation, Diana’s style inspired the desire of the viewer to live vicariously through these symbols of consumer goods that identified social stratification and encouraged the possibility of social mobility through an acquisition of these markers. William Waller and Linda Robertson, “The Politics of Consumption and Desire,” Torstein Veblen in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Doug Brown (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 1998), 37. Similarly, Georg Simmel described fashion as the manifestation of the duality of imitation and difference, suggesting that the use of fashion in the projection of an elite identity serves to identify that social circle, holding it together and simultaneously closing it to others. However, the ability to imitate these markers of class identity and the desire to breach the closed social circle results in the universal adoption of a fashion, whereupon it loses its distinctive character, requiring a new set of fashion markers. In this way, Diana acted as a fashion symbol signposting the style of the class and inspiring a continual desire for imitation and inclusion. George Simmel, Simmel on Culture, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (London: Sage Publications, 1997), 189. Both Veblen and Simmel based their theories on social structures at the fin de siècle, a period prior to the academic formulation of ideas of celebrity. In many ways, these theories point to the class representative as a celebrity who is recognized as a representative member of the class while performing an enviable identity that promotes the desire for emulation.

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beauty norms as the site of a multiplicity of meanings negotiated through the power

struggles of the cultural context. The availability of illustrated journals during this period

facilitated the dissemination to the public of a continuing onslaught of female images,

allowing this form of discourse to assume a visual presence that both influenced and

reflected the form of discussion.

From the early 1890s, illustrated journals cooperated with portrait studios to promote

“ideal forms” of national beauty. In 1894, the Sketch published a continuing series of female

portraits from the Bassano studio under the heading “Bassano’s Types of English Beauty.”

The portrait printed on March 28, 1894 is one example of the form of image published (fig.

3.24). This photograph, like its companions, is a portrait of a young woman dressed for a formal event; it occupies nearly a full page, and, although the name of the sitter is indicated by the journal in this instance, many of the others are silent, emphasizing that these young women are being presented as the exemplars of a type, rather than as individuals. The nationalistic hierarchy suggested by the nomenclature of classification was reinforced by the publication of similar series of portraits that depicted the ideal beauties of other nations. In 1908, this rivalry between nations assumed a more formal aspect as the Daily

Mail ran a competition to determine “The Fairest of the Fair” when challenged by the

Chicago Tribune. The presentation of the results of the competition in The Bystander depicts portraits of the two contenders. The page is further embellished with four drawings, intended to represent young women who represent the ideal features of Scotch, English,

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Irish, and American beauty (fig. 3.25). The women all appear to be of a similar type, young and fair, with oval faces, straight noses, full lips and light hair.

At the same time as these images were being promoted to the public, an exhibition of “Fair

Women” was held at the New Gallery in London. This exhibition was dominated by

portraiture of the past and current era, in which the upper-class woman was the

predominant subject matter. The press reporting the exhibition accepted the idea that

physical beauty is a concept that assumes greater or lesser importance in a specific

temporal social context. They suggest that the re-emergence of physical beauty is a societal

value is an alternative to existing criteria for female attractiveness, where physical beauty is

“a matter of indifference, subservient to manner, conversational powers, charm, and a

hundred other subtleties.” The new emphasis is on beauty, and beauty is inextricably tied to

youth in the article, which proclaims, “It is so nice to be pretty. No one ought to expect

brains, or manner, or even tact, but only beauty, at twenty.”335 The drawing of a young

Diana Manners by her sister forming part of the Fair Women exhibition is an exemplar of

this new standard of attractiveness (fig. 3.26). Diana, although only sixteen and not yet

presented to Society, is depicted in the fashion and in the guise of an adult. Her large and

fashionable hat frames her face. Her oval face, straight nose, fair hair, and full mouth

epitomize the form of ideal beauty promulgated by the contemporaneous competition. In

one sense, the question of the ideal female, based solely on the purely visual criterion of

beauty that was facilitated by the increased access to female images at this time, appears to

335 “The “Fair Women” Exhibition,” The Bystander (London, England) March 11, 1908, x.

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have transcended class, assessing female value on the basis of a superficial determination of

beauty that incorporated a prerequisite of youth.

What is meant by this reference to ‘youth’? The term ‘youth’ has had and continues to bear multiple meanings dependent upon and reflecting the cultural context of its use. Griffin notes that the term first arose in the 1880s as part of a combination of different discourses on race, gender, and class and was codified at that time in a two-volume text on adolescence by the American psychologist G. Stanley Hall. Yet the use of the term is variable even within discussion in the same temporal and geographic space depending on the purpose of the discussion. In this regard, a debate on the education of the male, working- class ‘youth’ could refer to a very different age group and context than a contemporaneous reference to a female, middle- or upper-class ‘youth’. Each discussion bears its own tension and resolution between arguments to define the term based on biological determinism or social constructionism.336

For Hall, as for many others, the determination and importance of ‘youth’ as it pertained to the middle- or upper-class girl was directly tied to the female role in procreation. Hall relied upon an evolutionary hierarchy that was based on both gender and class such that men ranked higher on the evolutionary scale than women and the aristocracy higher than the bourgeoisie.337 His focus on the female youth was directly implicated in the discourse on

336 Christine Griffin, Representations of Youth: The Study of Youth and Adolescence in Britain and America (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993), 20. 337 Ibid, 16.

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eugenics, a discussion that, as we have seen, integrated scientific, social, and political

concerns. While I have previously addressed the discourse on eugenics, it is worthwhile to

note how the portrait image of the upper-class female permeated the debate when

translated to visual terms. None of the women participating in the newspaper competition

for the “Fairest of the Fair” are identified as from the upper class (fig. 3.25), but the type of image promoted bears a significant resemblance to the form of ideal woman promoted through the drawings of the Duchess of Rutland and that continued to be associated with the upper-class female through ongoing portrait representations of upper-class female

‘youths’ such as Diana Manners. The features emphasized and possibly exaggerated by the

Duchess in her presentations of young upper-class women continue to echo through these photographic and drawn representations of the ‘ideal beauty’ that is presented on a national and even international forum as representing the hierarchical national ‘type’ ideal for the procreation of future generations. The clothes worn by each of the portrayed females in the competition (drawn or photographed) suggest the fashionable attire of the upper class. In this context, the actual class of the female portrayed is not as important as the visual identifiers of the upper-class woman as the symbolic representation of the national ideal.

The celebritization of the youthful upper-class girl also formed part of the process of commodification that facilitated new markets and new products available in the consumer society of London at the turn of the century. The frequent images and discussion that promoted the upper-class debutante as a model of beauty and facilitated her

259 transformation into a celebrity also rendered her a form of walking advertisement for a changing consumer environment. We should pause for a moment and consider what is meant by a “youth” in the context of the upper-class girl. As previously discussed, in prior periods the upper-class girl was kept figuratively a child until the time of her presentation at

Court. At that time, her obligation was to marry advantageously as soon as possible, and to present her spouse with a requisite number of heirs. Subsequent to this obligation, the aristocratic woman was provided with a degree of freedom to conduct herself as she desired, provided all was done with discretion and within the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Although the presentation at Court may not actually have corresponded with a biological shift from childhood to adulthood, it symbolically represented this translation through public ritual. In the Victorian era, cold baths, lacing, etc. attempted to physically connect the two as well. However, as I have argued, with this generation, the lines between the female child and the female adult became blurred. The social presence of young women like Diana Manners prior to Court presentation in the guise of adulthood contested the role of the Court presentation as a coming of age rite.

Similarly, at this period it was increasingly difficult for many upper-class debutantes to find appropriate spouses for marriage. The reasons for this difficulty were numerous. First, the economic downturn of the fortunes of the upper class based on landed property affected both the financial status of otherwise eligible young men and constricted the dowries available to the corresponding young women. Second, many young noblemen sought marriage partners from the wealthy families of the United States, trading a title for an influx

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of needed funds. However, it was not just the financial position of these young women that

attracted English men. In her reminiscence of her Court presentation, Diana referred to the

frumpy and awkward state of the standard English debutante. In contrast, the American girl

was dressed in the finest Parisian fashions and, not constrained to the privacy of the

nursery for her girlhood, had acquired a polish and a confidence that stood out in

debutante events.

The shortage of eligible men for English debutantes was recognized in numerous columns

and cartoons of the period. On November 23, 1910, the Bystander recognized another

marriage between American heiress and an English peer, noting that during the same week

“The state of affairs, really, is getting serious! Mayfair, as the young woman in Nobody’s

Daughter remarks, is already ‘slopping over with girls.’ The list of next year’s debutantes is a stupendous one, and hardly any of this year’s, not to speak of last are yet disposed of.”338

These factors often resulted in a period in which a young upper-class girl occupied a new status as youth, meaning that period in which she was considered a marriageable young woman instead of a child and extending until the date of her marriage. This period was no longer negligible but could assume a duration of years, in which the female aristocratic

‘youth’ acted as both a new form of consumer and as a model for emulation. Diana

Manners, for example, was a recognized celebrity female from a period preceding her Court debut in 1911, and she did not marry until 1919. Although admittedly the War was a factor in her marital delay, a gap between presence in Society and marriage also existed for her older sister Marjorie, who did not marry until she was almost thirty. In 1914, Diana stated

338 “Marriage in Mayfair,” The Bystander (London, England), November 23, 1910, 374.

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that she intended to follow her sister’s example in delaying marriage, notwithstanding that

as the beautiful daughter of a Duke she didn’t lack for potential spouses.339

In his book on the leisure class as a model for emulation, Theodore Veblen posited that the

upper-class female existed as a symbol of upper-class wealth and lifestyle in a newly forming class society in America at the end of the nineteenth century. Veblen’s model has since been challenged and appropriated by many social historians and theorists. One of these challengers, Leo Lowenthal, noted in his study of celebrity how the veneration of

“idols of production,” meaning people who were celebrities for the things they had accomplished, was replaced from the period 1900 to 1940 by the worship of “idols of consumption.” He translates Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption from a practice designed to maintain class distinction into a commodification of the celebrity based on the image of conspicuous consumption, transforming her into a model of consumption for everyone in a consumer society.340 The rise of these debutante celebrities corresponded to

a parallel rise in availability of products, as new department stores made luxury objects

such as female clothing and accessories accessible and affordable to women in other social

strata. Simultaneously, the entry of numerous young middle-class women into fields of

employment created a new market of consumers with the freedom to expend their

earnings on their own beautification. The existence of the female celebrity debutante,

portrayed in numerous images, provided a model for emulation in the sense posited by

339 “Social Events,” The Daily Picayune (New Orleans, Louisiana), June 5, 1914, 6. 340 Richard Dyer, Stars (London: British Film Institute, 1998), 39.

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Lowenthal: “They may spend more than the average person, but none the less they can be,

on a smaller scale, imitated. Their fashions are to be copied, their fads followed, their sports

pursued, their hobbies taken up.”341 Youthful celebrities such as Diana Manners functioned at the junction of numerous contextual factors, a product of the values and desires of the historical period in which they operated.

The rise of the youthful debutante as a dynamic element of the market forces of the period as well as an exemplar of national beauty can be seen in the illustrated journals of the era.

The debutante became the focus in cartoon and editorial series presenting the world from the eyes of the young upper-class female. For instance, commencing on April 14, 1909, The

Bystander ran a weekly series of cartoons on “The Education of a Debutante,” focused on the attributes required of the successful debutante. A cartoon printed on April 21, 1909 as

“Lesson the Second,” shows the beautiful debutante at the dressmaker (fig. 3.27). She swirls toward the reader, gracefully holding a hand mirror to admire her appearance in the elegant costume. The caption below the drawing, “She pays a visit to the dressmaker, and learns how truly Art is the handmaid of Nature,” mocks the reliance of the fashionable debutante on the accessories of fashion to create the image of a young beauty. It implies that the image of the beautiful debutante was, to some extent, a construction dependent on the acquisition of the material items that formed the fashionable accessories of her identification. The suggested importance of the commodities of fashion in the creation of

341 Ibid, 39.

263 status for the debutante turned her selection of clothing into a model of emulation for young women desiring to create a similar perception of prestige.

The fashions of upper-class women had long been a source of interest for the female reader. I am suggesting that the distinction that occurred in this era was the association of this model of emulation with the young debutante and the corresponding relationship of this association with a shifting concept of beauty that privileged the quality of youth. The images of the debutante operated on different levels to simultaneously acknowledge the performed construction of an image of desirable beauty that was facilitated by the commodities of fashion while at the same time presenting the young girl as the inherent possessor of the natural qualities of youth and the desired Anglo-Saxon features that epitomized the ideal of national beauty. The cartoon printed in The Bystander on May 12,

1909 as part of the “Education of a Debutante series (fig. 3.28) is a double page drawing showing a young woman in a photographer’s studio. She assumes the requisite spiritual pose as her mother and the photographer look on approvingly. The drawing, which includes the photographer, the lights, the backdrop, the props, and the debutante’s mother, attests to the carefully constructed nature of the image. However, the debutante is simply dressed, gazing introspectively into the distance so that the focus is on her ‘English type’ features that identify her as a natural ‘beauty’. The caption under the drawing reads: “She is photographed for the papers, and learns that advertisement is as necessary in the marriage

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market as in any other commercial speculation.”342 The standard of desired beauty as natural and youthful is acknowledged at the same time as the artificiality of the image is exposed by the controlling presence of the mother and photographer and by the costumes and accessories that speak to the construction of the final product. Although this cartoon mocks the marriage market for the aristocracy as motivated by commercial concerns, the issue it identifies was hardly novel. The financial and social aspects of marriage were foundational to the class structure of the upper class. The spotlight that was continually focused on this issue in the journals of the period spoke more to the attention garnered by the youthful debutante and to issues of beauty than to a burning concern over the nature of

the traditional nature of the elite marriage.

The concept of beauty was imbricated in ideas of nationalism and patriotism. In 1906, in an

eight-page article with more than one hundred illustrations, The Strand Magazine traced

the idea of beauty through the nineteenth and early twentieth century. While

acknowledging that the criteria of beauty are culturally and historically variable, the article

claimed that “English beauty is really perennial,” little changed from 1807 to 1907. This

statement participates explicitly in the discourse of national rivalries (and implicitly in that

of racial hierarchy). Setting out portraits of English beauties over the century, the article

directed viewer response by asserting it was the duty of a patriot to admire the images in

defence against the rivalry of other nations.343 The debutante’s life, and her lifestyle,

342 “The Education of the Debutante,” The Bystander (London, England), May 12, 1909, 290- 291. 343 “A Century of Beauty,” The Strand Magazine, vol. 32, 192 (Dec. 1906): 681.

265 anchored by the continual flow of images that presented the debutante as a model of new standards of British beauty, presented the aristocratic young woman as a visual emblem of

Britain. A portrait published in The Tatler on September 15, 1909 depicts a full-page bust image of Miss Ivy Gordon-Lennox, the unmarried daughter of aristocratic parents (fig. 3.29).

If we compare this image both to the portrait drawings by the Duchess of Rutland and to the images of the British “ideal beauty” printed of the national beauties in The Bystander

(figs. 1.3 and 3.25), the use of similar conventions is apparent. Each image emphasizes the classical regularity of the features of the subject. The attire of the subject is simple but suggestive of elegance. However, the focus is on the clean presentation of clear, fair features, light colouring, and youth, thus creating a standardized visual presentation of a national ideal. The translation of the particular into the abstract ideal is facilitated by the caption: “Beautiful Daughter of a Beautiful Race.”

Within the upper class, the emergence of the youthful debutante as a social force created tension and resulted in a negotiation of the terms of female attractiveness within the social environment of that class. As previously noted, the upper-class woman historically assumed the classification of ‘beauty’ as that term referred to sexual attractiveness only subsequent to her marriage and the satisfaction of her duties of procreation. The social Season, excluding the prescribed events of the marriage market for young debutantes, revolved around the intrigues and the entertainment of the more seasoned beauty. It was understood that these women would have romantic interludes and become the romantic ideals for young noblemen eager to become men of the world. The Edwardians, written by

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Vita Sackville-West and set in 1905, narrates the romantic progression of a young nobleman, Sebastian. His first love affair followed the accepted pattern of a romantic liaison with an older married woman, Lady Roehampton. Although old enough to have a marriageable daughter of her own, Lady Roehampton continued to identify herself with her early designation as a professional beauty, seeing herself as a corporeal manifestation of an aristocratic portrait and priding herself on adopting the very latest in fashion and fad.344 She is unable to comprehend Simon’s reasons for ending the relationship. For Simon, the attempt to rely upon the designation of the ‘beauty’ by an older woman only accentuated her inauthenticity, which he saw as a metaphor for the falseness and instability of society itself.345 For him, physical beauty was connected to youth and the externals of appearance, unrelated to the traditional standards and accessories of convention and status.

The transition from this accepted social practice and valuation was indicated in the discourse of the era that challenged the qualities of experience and charm in favour of the new veneration of youth and beauty. The Bystander refers to the more mature beauty in less flattering terms suggesting that “The proper sentiment for the middle-aged ‘good sort’ with whom all the boys want to dance and flirt, may be reverence; but that does not absolve anyone from giving youth its due of admiration.”346 In 1913 the magazine was even more specific about the primacy of youth, stating that “where the very young lead the less young have to follow. For middle-age has been abolished…and unless we are prepared to

344 Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), 140. 345 Ibid, 208. 346 “The “Fair Women” Exhibition,” The Bystander (London, England), March 11, 1908, x.

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become old all at once we are forced to keep on being young.”347 The cartoon printed in

The Tatler on March 25, 1908 encapsulated the changing sentiment (fig. 3.30). In this image,

the female subject is again posed in front of the photographer for a portrait photograph. If

we compare this cartoon to the one of the debutante at the portrait studio (fig. 3.28), we can see that each subject wears a similar gown intended to expose her long neck. Similarly, the hair is upswept and there is nothing to divert the focus of the viewer from the clear depiction of classical features. However, in the latter image, the caption uses a play on the terms of photography to suggest that the somewhat exposed style of the evening wear is no longer desirable—at least for a woman of the sitter’s age.348 This subject fails to project the coveted attributes of youth and beauty. Her chin sags a bit, her nose appears too sharp and lines accentuate her thinning mouth. Her eyes, instead of fresh and dewy, look weary.

Juxtaposed against the numerous portraits of the youthful debutante in similar compositions and costume that permeated the pages of the illustrated journals, the cartoon emphasizes the changes due to age and reinforces the inherent criteria of youth in the visual imagery of beauty.

The public face of the debutante and the celebritization of certain debutantes, such as

Diana Manners, provided a model and a focus for the new fascination with youth and with the cultural concept of female beauty. However, the transition of cultural standards was not

347 “The Doom of Middle-Age,” The Bystander (London, England), January 1, 1913, 18. 348 The caption, suggesting a need for adjustment of the photography process, may also be indirectly referring to the implicit (or explicit) pressure on portrait photographers to frame or edit images to provide a suitably flattering likeness of the subject. See Yevonde, In Camera (London: John Gifford Ltd., 1940), 64.

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easily accepted by many upper-class women. Lady Phyllis, a columnist who published in The

Bystander, suggested that the ideal age of a woman differed depending on the gender of

the person responding. “Almost every man would make his ideal woman young – certainly

in the twenties. I will admit that, perhaps, she is the most outwardly attractive then. There

is something about the springiness, audacity, and freshness of youth, that is hard to resist;

yet it is a very undeveloped thing, and, therefore, has its speedy limitations, I should say

that a woman’s character and powers are finest about forty…A woman has gained

everything at forty, and lost nothing.”349 The distinction drawn by the column between the male and female affirmations of ‘beauty’ speaks indirectly to the reduction or limitation of female power (whether the New Woman’s or the older aristocrat’s) by the creation of new definitions of beauty. Yet it is difficult to see Lady Phyllis’s argument as more than a losing battle and stories of the aging temptress, such as E.F. Benson’s “The Washing of Lady

Graeme’s Face,” depict a pitiful figure, trying to appear youthful through the heavy use of cosmetics and extreme fashion, deluding herself about the worship of young men patently more interested in the charms of young beauties.350 The supposedly humorous and yet

poignant vision of the mature woman described as a form of ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ in

Benson’s story is echoed in the cartoon of the aging matron’s session at the photographic

studio printed five years later in The Tatler (fig. 3.30). These mocking descriptions of the

aging beauty contrast with the nostalgic representation by Sackville-West, suggesting a

society in transition and a shifting valuation of the standard of female beauty.

349 “A Woman’s Note Book,” The Bystander (London, England) November 14, 1906, viii. 350 E.F. Benson, “The Washing of Lady Graeme’s Face,” Onlooker (London, England), December 5, 1903, 199-200.

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As implied by the cartoon series mocking “The Education of the Debutante,” the astute

debutante learned to market herself through portrait images released to the Society

journals that depicted her in a manner that drew upon the developing national ideal of

beauty. In these images, the debutante was able to exercise a level of control over the

finished product, working with the photographer to attire and position herself in the most

flattering and fashionable pose.351 If required, society photographers also freely retouched the portrait, aligning the features of the subject with the required vision. Lallie Charles, a noted photographer of upper-class women, built her reputation on her skill at retouching the photographic negative, making her subjects thinner, reforming the mouth, augmenting eyelashes, reshaping eyebrows, and generally smoothing the image to fit within desired fashion.352 Portrait artists often similarly accommodated the wishes of the client. However,

technological changes in photographic equipment during this period simultaneously

enabled a new form of portrait in the snapshot, an image that purported to portray the

subject caught unawares, in a moment of real time unmediated by subject or photographer.

351 This era marked the professionalization of the beauty industry. Illustrated journals abounded with articles and advertisements for improvement of the appearance, marketing slimming treatments, skin products, and other procedures intended to facilitate an image of youth and beauty. In a 1904 article, Marie Corelli bemoans the lack of natural beauty, identifying the reliance on the rise of beauty specialists and beauty doctors to create a “faking up of beauty” through face painting, hair colour and form-altering fashion. Marie Corelli, “The Palm of Fashion,” The Bystander, July 20, 1904, 381. 352 Yevonde, In Camera (London: The Woman’s Book Club, 1940), 65.

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THE SNAPSHOT PHOTOGRAPH

From the late 1880s through the early 1900s, a series of photographic advances converged.

The development of dry gelatin plates meant that photographers could have a ready supply

of plates on hand and quickly available. By 1878 companies like the Liverpool Dry Plate

Company had started to make these plates commercially available.353 Lenses and shutters started to improve around 1890, resulting in a faster exposure time and the ability to capture a more instantaneous moment. Cameras became less bulky and the availability of folding cameras resulted in equipment that was transportable and quickly readied for a picture. These developments led to the creation of the press photographer who used this new camera technology to capture images of events and people outside of the studio, in the time and space of actual experience.

In the early period from the late 1880s to 1914, press photographers often consisted of freelance professionals and amateurs who competed for access to newsworthy images that they would then sell either directly to a journal or paper or to the photoagencies that quickly developed to collect, sell, and archive these images.354 Photographers who chose to

353 Petr Tausk, A Short History of Press Photography (Prague: The International Organization of Journalists, 1988), 27. 354 In the early twentieth century, a series of books was published to provide advice to the aspiring press photographer, identifying the rapid growth of the profession. These books contained information on the technical aspects of the snapshot as well as practical advice on illustrated journals and rates paid for photographs, permits required for public locations and other practical advice for the full-time or occasional press photographer. For example, Photography for the Press and Photography for Profit which was published in its fourth edition in 1914 (first issued as Photography for the Press in 1901 and extensively rewritten

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specialize in photographs for the society journals were forced to acquire a specialized

knowledge and skill in order to identify marketable celebrities, to obtain access, and to

induce the subject to pause for a favourable shot. Codification of the copyright law in 1911

clarified and confirmed that all rights to the negative and image of a snapshot portrait

belonged to the photographer who was then free to sell the image to journals or papers

without consent of the subject.355 Although consent of the subject was not required for the snapshot, the need to obtain a marketable image remained.

The cameras used by the photographers in this period, albeit smaller and more portable than earlier models, were not invisible. Although small cameras, including the Kodak camera, existed during this period, the quality of their images was generally not distinct enough to provide the clarity of detail and tone necessary for the conversion to the halftone published image. A photograph published in The Tatler on May 31, 1911 (fig. 3.31) shows an image of waiting photographers, poised with their cameras. In a snapshot that reversed the position of photographer and subject, this photo provides an example of the equipment and of the practice of the new profession of press photographer.

in subsequent editions). Illustrated journals solicited amateurs to send photographs of interest. See The Bystander, February 27, 1907, 418 and The Tatler, July 17, 1901, 106. In addition, many journals had photographers on staff or worked with a press agency to commission photographs of specific events. For instance, see the photograph in The Tatler, March 24, 1915 where the caption refers to the image as being commissioned expressly for the journal. 355 Photography for the Press, revised and very largely rewritten by F. J. Mortimer, 4th ed. (London: Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ltd., 1914), 68/69. This right is subject to the restrictions of the law of libel that prohibits exposing the subject to “contempt or ridicule.” The ability to sell or otherwise deal with the negatives of studio portraits where payment is made by the sitter is prohibited without the consent of the sitter.

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The female aristocrat now became the fodder for the ambitious photographer. A cartoon in

The Bystander on July 31, 1912 (fig. 3.32) mocked the fact that the lives of the upper class,

once a matter of mainly private concern, had become the subject of public interest and

photographic documentation. While some welcomed the opportunity to become

recognizable figures, not all upper-class women welcomed the intrusion. A column written

on the occasion of the marriage of Diana’s sister Violet to Lord Charteris in 1911

sympathized with the desire of the participants to avoid photographers but went on to note

that “it is a wise man who knows when he is beaten, and the painful fact remains that if a

snapshotter wants to, he can and will. The net result of attempting to baulk him is that,

instead of good snapshots, he gets bad ones, and faith he’ll print ‘em.”356 The control over

their public image exercised by these women through the careful dissemination of posed

photographic portraits was challenged by the public snapshot. The interest and tenacity of

photographers meant that every entry into the public sphere was potentially subject to

photographic recording and their power to control or to restrict the practice of press

photographers was limited. This loss of privacy was difficult for many to accept and upper- class women used their influence to ban photographers from certain event spaces.357 An article in The Tatler on April 5, 1911 notes how the Duchess of Roxburghe, who loathed being photographed, successfully urged the Jockey Club to bar photographers from all

356 “Advice to Brides,” The Bystander (London, England), February 8, 1911, 262. 357 For instance, cameras were forbidden in the Royal Enclosure at Ascot, requiring snapshot photographers to seize opportunities as the upper class visited the paddocks or other public areas. The Tatler, no. 51, June 18, 1902, 452.

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meetings.358 Small wins such as this, however, did not protect them from being

photographed as they moved through public spaces. Although the term ‘paparazzi’ was not

coined until the 1960 Fellini film La Dolce Vita, these women were some of the first

individuals who, without assuming public status as officials or public entertainers, had to

negotiate the infringement of their private life by reporters and photographers who

recognized their marketable status to a public eager to treat them as celebrities.

In his history of press photography, Petr Tausk notes that professional photoreporters were

ill-regarded from the beginning, selected for their aggression and for their ability to tote

heavy camera equipment rather than for their ability or tact.359 However, the status of the photographer and the relationship between photographer and subject was not always clear.

Many of the snapshots of upper-class women that appeared in the illustrated journals were sent by amateurs, in the sense that they were not on the staff of the journal. While the opportunity for profit meant that these “amateurs” were often indistinguishable from the truly professional photoreporter, the idea of the amateur portrait photographer also drew on a long-standing association with the upper class.360 Numerous articles and images described or presented the upper-class woman recording her peers with her Brownie camera in a private space or event and journals solicited these women to request

358 “An Anti-photographer,” The Tatler (London, England), April 5, 1911, 3. 359 Ibid, 113. 360 Queen Victoria was an enthusiastic photographer and took numerous portraits of the royal children. “The Queen as Photographer,” The Woman at Home, vol. X, October 1900 to March 1901 (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1901), 525.

274 publication rights to the images.361 The snap portrait taken by a peer offered a middle ground to the constructed persona of the studio portrait and the uncontrolled image of the public snap. The combined publication of studio photographs, approved photos and unsolicited snapshots provided a constant and diverse range of images that made a variety of statements on the meaning of the photographic portrait.

I discussed in Chapter Two how the studio portrait increasingly shifted from the model of the formal status portrait, where indications of class were presented by conventions of pose, background, and props, toward a more natural image that purported to present access to the “real” individual subject. This movement toward naturalness and its claim to truth was accelerated by the introduction of the published snapshot. In the theories of photography developed by Barthes and Bazin, the snapshot, by its immediacy and informality, claims to be an unmediated image where the portrait is truly tied to its referent without interposition of the photographer.362 I further suggest that the idea of capturing the

361 For instance, a letter dated June 29, 1904 was sent by the society journal, The Onlooker, to the Duchess of Rutland, requesting snapshots taken at an event at Belvoir Castle and offering payment for the images. Archives Belvoir Castle. There was no evidence confirming whether she accepted the offer in this instance; however, the tone of her correspondence with her husband suggests that this was not an isolated or novel request. While it is impossible to quantify the volume of images submitted to journals by the professional photographer, the amateur non-aristocratic photographer, and the aristocratic photographer taking images of family and acquaintances, images taken in more private locations not generally open to the public suggests that the latter group did submit photographs on a regular basis. 362 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010), 5-6; Andre Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image,” What is Cinema (vol. 1), trans. by Hugh Gray (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), 12.

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subject unaware speaks to the concepts of absorption as explored by Michael Fried.363 I suggest that the implied unself-conscious spontaneity of the snapped portrait can be correlated to the idea of absorption posited by Fried as a guarantee to the truthfulness of the representation. The image is de-theatricalized and reads as a representation of the referent rather than a presentation of the intersubjective act of portrayal, meaning that the active construction of the form of the image as something negotiated between the photographer and the subject has apparently been eliminated.364 Consider for example, a snapshot of a bevy of young, well-dressed women trying to clamber over a fence at a hunting meet (fig. 3.33), which captures a bevy of young well-dressed women trying to clamber over a fence at a hunting meet. The awkward composition of the photograph and the unflattering positions of the subjects assert an aura of genuineness, a lack of planned involvement by either photographer or subjects and the caption below the image emphasizes the idea of absorption, explicitly characterizing the image as an “‘unawares’

snapshot.”365 As the snapshot intruded into the previously private spaces of the upper-class,

363 Michael Fried, Absorption and Theatricality: Painting and Beholder in the Age of Diderot (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), chapter one. 364 A similar sentiment to the ideas of Michael Fried is expressed by Harry Berger Jr. in his discussion of early modern portraiture. Relying on Fried, Berger translates Fried’s concept of absorption to the idea of the “voyeuristic fiction of candor” of the candid camera before distinguishing Fried’s arguments for certain poses in painted portraiture. Harry Berger, Jr., “Fictions of the Pose: Facing the Gaze of Early Modern Portraiture,” Representations, 46 (Spring, 1994): 102. 365 The caption in full reads: “Rough Going for the Ladies. An ‘unawares’ snapshot of ladies ‘taking a fence’ in fine style.” The image without the caption provides limited information. We can see a group of young women, respectably dressed, clambering over a rough fence in a rural location. The presence of the Hunt is suggested by the background figures wearing traditional hunting garb. In the terms of Roland Barthes, the caption serves to “anchor the text.” By this he means that the textual information of the caption directs the viewer toward a certain interpretation of the otherwise polysemous image. Roland Barthes, “The

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the uncontrolled image became part of the composite visual portrait of the upper-class

woman in Society.

The new breed of celebrity debutante exemplified by Diana Manners was, by the circumstance of their relationship with the camera and resulting public persona from birth, best equipped to adapt to this altered state of public exposure. In his book on Celebrity,

Chris Rojek posits celebrity status as inherently incorporating a split between a private veridical self and a public self. The acceptance of a celebrity status necessarily requires the sacrifice of a certain degree of privacy, of exposure of the veridical self to the public image.366 Although the women of the upper class had always possessed a form of public

celebrity or notoriety based on their lineage and class status, there was a strict delineation

between the public performance of status and the private life of the individual. It was an

unwritten but fundamental code of the upper class that private events, transgressions, and

interactions were never to be a matter of public knowledge or dissemination but were to be

retained within the parameters of the class. Any breach of this code resulted in the social

Rhetoric of the Image,” Image, Music, Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977 ), 39. In this situation, the visual evidence of the Hunt together with the phrasing of the caption and, in particular, the parentheses around the phrase “taking the fence,” a common hunting reference, suggest a humorous pun, equating the women climbing the fence with the fillies who must also jump or “take the fences” in fine style in order to catch the fox. While this is likely the extent of the message intended for the viewer, additional subtexts exist in the associative potential of the comparison of the young women to the fillies at the Hunt. On one level, the purpose of the Hunt, to catch the elusive fox, could suggest the competition of the debutante Season. A second level of meaning could further translate the allusive reference to fillies into concepts of breeding and eugenics that governed the world of horses and hunting and that responded to the ongoing discourse over the eugenic future of Britain. 366 Chris Rojek, Celebrity (London: Reaktion Ltd., 2001), 11.

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ostracism of the perpetrator. The advent of the encroaching and ever-present Society

journalist and photographer threatened the inviolability of this code and left many upper-

class women struggling with the transition.367 For many, this anxiety was focused on the

unplanned snapshot where the aristocratic female was vulnerable to the competing vision

of the press as to the formation of her public self. As discussed in Chapter Two, the Duchess

of Sutherland was a woman who had grasped and utilized the potential of the image to

further her ambitions through public celebrity, but she still resisted snapshot images,

attempting to retain the separation between veridical and public self.368 The invitation to

intimacy suggested by her portrait images were invitations to a constructed persona, not

intended as access to her private actions or emotions.

In contrast, the generation of upper-class females like Diana Manners, who became

recognized public figures from birth, had matured in a context in which they were always

367 The loss of privacy that was the daily experience of a class whose lives were entirely dependent on the labour of the lower class that acted as servants in their houses was, I contend, of a very different nature than that posed by a new era of publicity. The relationship between the upper class and the servant class was a complex and somewhat inconsistent interaction between two concepts. On one hand, the upper class ignored the existence of the servant class, requiring them to keep out of sight as much as possible. As a footman noted about his employer, “he always spoke to the servants with his back to them. It was almost as if we were some strange creatures that he couldn’t bear to look at.” An article in The Fortnightly Review in 1888 recounted that “Life above-stairs is as entirely severed from life below-stairs as is the life of one house from another.” On the other hand, servants were perceived on a self-reflexive basis to be extensions of the family (rendering them insiders in a sense), and as such presumed to share the values of loyalty to the family. In each of these theoretical manifestations, the servant was not an ‘outsider’ who would constrain the behaviour of the family within its environment. S. Burrows, “The Place of a Servant in the Scale,” Nineteenth-Century Literature 63.1 (2008), 79 and 87. 368 The Bystander, January 11, 1911, 60.

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the subject of public interest and publicly disseminated images. Although I am not

suggesting that all upper-class females of Diana’s generation had the same desire for

publicity or celebrity, I am suggesting that the cultural environment in which they were

raised rendered the public exposure of a certain degree of veridical self more acceptable. In

his article “The Quest for Fame,” David Giles considers the motivation behind the individual

desire to be famous and asserts that for most famous people the desire is something that

starts quite young. Giles reviews a number of prevalent theories without necessarily

advocating for the correctness of any of them. What he does seem to identify is that the

desire for fame is a combination of both individual and cultural factors.369 I am suggesting that during the period of 1890 to 1914, the social and cultural conditions of the upper class, including the proliferation of images and resulting public celebrity of the upper-class female, resulted in a loosening of the division between public and private so that the debutante of the beginning of the twentieth century was predisposed to see celebrity as a status to be sought rather than avoided. Her exposure to the public from infancy made the public interest in her life seem ordinary rather than an unprecedented encroachment on her privacy.

Florence Hfwa Williams recounts an incident when she encountered the Duchess of Rutland with her daughter Diana in Venice in 1912. The men accompanying them were horrified at the way the crowd was staring at Diana and wanted to rush out to disperse the gawping admirers. Williams relates that “neither Violet nor I would let him. ‘Never mind,’ said the

369 David Giles, “The Quest for Fame,” Celebrity Reader, 471.

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Duchess, ‘Diana is quite accustomed to this sort of thing and no amount of admiration is

going to turn her head.’”370 For young upper-class women like Diana, who incorporated the opportunities and private inclination for celebrity, public intrusion that would have been considered untenable to an earlier generation had become commonplace. George W. E.

Russell acknowledged this shift in his 1902 article, “Some Social Changes Which I Have

Seen.” He bemoans the erosion of the delineation between public and private life:

Now we worship publicity as the chief enjoyment of human life. We send lists of our

shooting parties to the Society journals. We welcome the interviewer. We

contribute personal paragraphs to “Classy Cuttings.” We admit the photographer to

our bedrooms and give our portraits to illustrated papers. We take our exercise

when we have the best chance of being seen and noticed and we never eat our

dinner with such keen appetites as amid the half-world of a Piccadilly restaurant.371

His lament makes clear that the erosion of private life is not solely an unavoidable evil

suffered by the upper class as an ancillary by-product of celebrity; the private pleasures and

private spaces of the upper class are also freely offered to the public to attract the spotlight

of publicity and celebrity, which offered members of the upper class a powerful form of

‘enjoyment.’.

The ubiquitous snapshot presented upper-class women with a new approach to public

performance. Although, to some extent, a public activity was always a form of performance,

370 Florence Hfwa Williams, It Was Such Fun (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1935), 144. 371 George W. E. Russell, “Some Social Changes Which I have Seen,” The Tatler (London, England), no. 37, March 12, 1902, 450.

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requiring the appropriate dress, accessories, and behaviour, the possibility of having any

moment immortalized through public image required a renegotiated level of awareness of position and expression at all times. As part of a photospread in The Tatler entitled

“Prominent Personalities ‘Snapped’ on the Concluding Day of the Army Pageant,” Lady

Londonderry is shown forcefully striding along with her escort trailing in her wake (fig.

3.34). Her features, caught in repose, show no sense of the beauty and charm attributed to her in flattering society descriptions. In contrast, Diana Manners, snapped leaving the Royal

Academy on the private preview day, is caught in perfect motion (fig. 3.35). Her unfortunate escort may have chosen that moment to blow his nose, but Diana affects unawareness of the nearby photographer, erect and elegantly displaying her fashionable attire. The visual contrast of these images of Lady Londonderry and Diana Manners, taken within months of each other, also perhaps suggest how the visual comparisons available through the plethora of images affected the valuation of youth and beauty.

The snapshot was presented to the public as if the subject were caught in an unguarded moment. However, it was not the goal of the Society journal to publish unflattering stories or images of their upper-class celebrities. There remained a symbiotic connection between the journal and the celebrity subject, an unspoken agreement that in exchange for the suppression of any potentially scandalous exposé, the Society subject would provide the journal with an ongoing flow of images and harmless gossip. The images that were published suggest that, at least for aristocratic celebrity photos, the line between the posed portrait and the snapshot was often nominal. Upper-class women were confronted with the

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dilemma posited at the time of the wedding of Violet Manners, either to comply with the

demand for a photo or to risk the publication of an unflattering image. The need to learn

how to be prepared for the photograph is the subject of one cartoon (fig. 3.36) that

cautions young women to “Be Graceful at all Times,” a reminder that the idea of the private

had eroded such that the figure of the celebrity could become a matter of public regard at

any time. Young celebrity debutantes like Diana Manners, accustomed to constant

photography, quickly learned techniques for the semi-posed snapshot. The fashion for

photography within the upper class as identified with Queen Victoria only increased after

the development of the Kodak camera at the end of the 1880s, which meant that many of these girls were also the subject from birth of numerous private, family snapshots.

Photographs taken by family members (figs. 3.37 and 3.38) show how Diana experimented with positions and attitudes, aiming always toward a graceful and arresting photographic presence. Rebecca Schneider suggests the female body as a form of “stage, canvas or screen across which social agendas of privilege and disprivilege have been enacted.”372

Schneider is focused more on the female body as an object, as a site for discourse that is perhaps even removed from the female body in question. However, she also contemplates the concept of agency in performance, the manipulation of the body by the subject in order to assert a position. In this context, I suggest a similar conscious positioning of the body by

Diana, intended to respond to a blurring of private and public where every action is performed for a potential audience. Being the subject of constant images, these girls, more than any generation before them, learned to respond to the sight of the camera lens by

372 Schneider, Explicit Body in Performance, 20.

282 assuming a flattering pose. Perhaps even without a direct demand for a photo, Diana appeared to have a level of awareness of the presence of the camera and images of Diana indicate how she was able to instantaneously react.

The photograph of Diana in her costume as “Infanta” by Velasquez, taken for the Great

Savoy Ball in 1911, is a studio portrait (fig. 3.39). Diana strikes a memorable pose. She stands fully erect, chin up, and with her shoulders lowered to further lengthen her neck.

She turns her head to a flattering three-quarter pose and her eyes appear to look through the viewer. The image of Diana at a charity event in 1910 is also posed but clearly taken contemporaneously at the event with less opportunity to construct or influence the nature of the image (fig. 3.40). We can see Diana on the far left of the lower group picture. She stands in a similar peculiar posture, erect and chin up, with her shoulders lowered in order to lengthen the appearance of her neck. Her head is tilted away from a full face and the expression of her mouth and eyes again provide an almost eerie, unseeing quality to her expression, a sort of blindness. In the image snapped of Diana and her family at a formal inspection of a local battalion it is unclear whether they are aware of the camera at the moment of the photograph (fig. 3.41). However, if we examine the image of Diana standing on the top step of the car as she descends to the field, we can once again see her assume her classic pose. She stands oddly straight for someone stepping down from a car. Consider, for contrast, the much more natural pose of her sister Marjorie on the running board beside her. Although Diana’s foot has left the platform to drop to the ground, she does not look down. Instead she turns her hear to a three-quarter profile tilts her head back and stares

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blindly into the far distance. Was she aware of the image being taken? Or was she just

aware of the presence of the cameraman and the possibility of a photograph? Or was she

oblivious to both? I am suggesting that the ubiquity of photography, or more accurately, the

ubiquity of the possibility of being photographed, altered her division between veridical and

public self. Instead of her veridical self being exposed to the public eye, her public pose was

integrated into and became fundamental to her private persona. Even without necessarily

being consciously aware of being the immediate subject of a photographic portrait, she

unconsciously recognized ‘snappable’ moments and posed accordingly. In her biographical

recounting of Diana, Judith Mackrell suggests that her opaque gaze was actually the result

of short-sightedness. However, the contemporary response to Diana’s ‘look’ was intense,

and Mackrell recounts that when the writer Enid Bagnold first encountered Diana

“descending a flight of stairs and sweeping the room with her ‘blind blue stare’ she recalled

being ‘shocked – in the sense of electricity’.”373

This type of presence has been identified by Sharon Marcus as a form of exteriority effect, meaning an identifiable or hallmark pose or gesture that became associated with the celebrity and created a physical response in the viewer. In opposition to celebrity studies that cast the female star as a spectacle, a passive object subject to the view of the many,

373 Judith Mackrell, Six Women of a Dangerous Generation (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), 27. Similarly, Cynthia Asquith describes how she was struck on her first meeting with the fifteen-year old Diana, “literally making me jump by the astonishing quality of her fairness…Even at that age Diana’s beauty already had that festal quality...’Lights Up’ was the stage direction at her entry, and when she left the room brightness fell from the air.” Cynthia Asquith, Remember and Be Glad, 90.

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Marcus argues for the active and conscious manipulation by the star of her corporeal presence, intended to create a physical force that could mesmerise her audience.374 Like

Sarah Bernhardt, the celebrity considered by Marcus in her study, Diana used her powers of

“exteriorization” to differentiate herself as the idea of the remote special or unique personage that characterizes celebrity while simultaneously engendering a bond of intimacy in the physical exchange generated in the viewer by this bolt of electricity her look inspired.

CONCLUSION

In summary, this chapter has considered the effect of the technological and cultural changes that created an environment of wide and constant dissemination of portrait images of Society girls and women in the period 1890 to 1914. Diana Manners has been the focus of the discussion as a representative of a specific cadre of upper-class girls who became public figures during infancy, growing up in the public eye to an extent that was unprecedented and directly contrary to the upper-class tradition of sequestering young girls prior to their official Court Presentation. I have suggested that the basis for this change was the confluence of personal, cultural, and technological factors the engendered the climate for a new form of celebrity. These children, ultimately becoming celebrity debutantes, were the visual site for discourse over issues of national genetic hierarchy, the role of women in a national program of regeneration, the expansion of the upper class to acknowledge the

374 Sharon Marcus, “Sarah Bernhardt’s Exteriority Effects,” Modern Drama, vol. 60, 3 (Fall 2017): 312.

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presence of a new form of economic aristocrat, the shift to a youth-based visual definition

of female beauty, and a new emphasis on the upper-class woman as a symbol and model

for an expanding commodity culture. Finally, I have discussed how this celebrity culture

required the upper-class woman to negotiate new levels of encroachment on personal privacy and on the division between the veridical and public self, adapting to the loss of

control over her image, and developing new techniques to respond to the possibility of

unplanned photographic exposure. I have implicitly suggested that these techniques

required a shift from a primarily static form of image production, where the portrait was

carefully posed and controlled, to a more performance-based concept, where the subject in

public developed heightened levels of awareness of the snappable pose or expression. This

shift to a performance methodology leads to the next chapter, which more specifically

investigates the intense interest of the upper-class woman in acquiring and exercising these

performative skills.

Chapter Four – The Act of Portrayal

In this chapter I consider the interaction, integration, and conflation of the upper-class woman and the actress through the mediums of fashion and theatre. I focus on three specific figures: Mrs. Willie James, a member of the aristocracy surrounding King Edward

VII; Lucile, a fashionable dress designer renowned for her influence in both upper-class and theatrical costume; and Zena Dare, a popular musical-comedy actress during the first decade of the twentieth century. While the areas of theatre, fashion, and Society during this time period have been considered as separate phenomenon or in specific combinations, I use the experience of the three women to consider the interconnectedness of the matrix created by these three areas of focus and its web of connection. I extend the idea of the ongoing performance of portraiture suggested in Chapter Three to examine the integration of theatre and self-creation into the daily reality of the upper-class woman. I argue that the participation of the aristocratic woman in the forums of fashion and theatre acted as a positive agent in the adaptation and re-interpretation of the upper-class woman in modern society, allowing her to simultaneously remain a symbol of a stable and traditional past while also participating in the conflation of upper-class woman and actress in the perception of the public to become a celebrity figure and fashion leader.

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FASHION AND MRS. WILLIE JAMES

Mrs. Willie James was born in 1867 as Evelyn Forbes, the eldest daughter of a Scottish baronet, Sir Charles Forbes, 4th Baronet of Newe, and the niece of the Countess of Dudley.

Her family estate was adjacent to Balmoral Castle and her friendship with the Prince of

Wales (later King Edward VII) dated from an early age. In 1889, at the age of twenty-two, she married William Dodge James, who was the youngest of three sons of an American millionaire. Although born and raised in England, the involvement of the James family in trade and their American heritage would normally have excluded them from the highest echelons of Society. In a reversal of the more common marital alliance of American heiress with English peer, the marriage of the upper-class woman to a suitor with the very recent taint of American trade would have been considered a misalliance only a few years earlier, transporting the couple to the margins of Society. However, the continuing economic and social pressure on the upper-class to accommodate the entry of the new rich into its ranks combined with the personal characteristics of this couple and the more catholic social tendencies of the Prince of Wales served to catapult Mr. and Mrs. James to the forefront of fashionable Society.

In 1891, the couple purchased West Dean, an 8,000 acre estate near to Goodwood and

Cowes, where the Goodwood races and the Cowes yachting were held, both prominent fixtures of the Season. The house itself, a baronial castle style, was extensively renovated upon purchase to incorporate all the modern conveniences and to adjust to contemporary

288 style. However, the Jameses were careful to retain the atmosphere of “Merrie England,” even purchasing assorted Old Master artworks to hang on panelled walls to provide an aura of authenticity. The house became a metaphor for the couple itself: an integration of the visual appearance of established aristocracy with an underlying substructure of new money and modern taste. The Prince of Wales, both before and after his Coronation as King

Edward VII, included Mr. and Mrs. Willie James within his intimate circle and was a frequent visitor to West Dean, as attested to by numerous references in the journals and papers, often accompanied by posed group photographs of the house party (fig. 4.1). In this awkwardly constructed image of the West Dean Park House Party published in The

Bystander on October 27, 1909, the King stands in a relaxed and comfortable pose, casually resting against a pillar of the hunting lodge, his legs crossed and cigarette held loosely in his fingers. The image suggests a level of intimacy that is supported by the way in which Mrs.

James turns toward him. While the other participants in the photograph stare out toward the camera, she is tilted toward the King, hovering solicitously. References to these house parties indicate the effort she expended to amuse the King, entertaining him with shooting parties, luxurious comfort, amateur theatricals, and even facilitating his flirtations by invitations to women who would not otherwise form part of the upper-class social circle.375

Mrs. James’s status as one of the King’s favourite hostesses facilitated her public identification as a society leader and she was publicly ‘known’ for a combination of beauty,

375 Clive Aslet, An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams: The Americans Who Revived the Country House in Britain (London: Aurum Press Ltd., 2013), 60.

289 as manifested through fashion, and wit, expressed through her talented amateur theatricals.

Mrs. Willie James intersected with the fashion designer Lucile in 1895 in the amateur production of Diplomacy.376 The production was organized by the Earl of Rosslyn and consisted of a grand evening performance in Dysart, another evening drama in Kirckcaldy, and two matinees at the Empire Palace Theatre in Edinburgh, with proceeds donated to various Scottish charities. The Royal Patronage of the event and the upper-class cast guaranteed a robust audience, many of whom would be drawn from the echelons of nobility and gentry, as confirmed by the report in Hearth and Home on November 7, 1895 which listed the illustrious theatregoers. This made the event an ideal location for Lucile, then Mrs. James Wallace, to further establish her new dress-making enterprise in the correct social circle. Lucile, who was divorced from her husband in 1888, was forced into the trade of dress-making after being left penniless and with a child to raise. In 1894, she rented a shop and workshop location in the West End of London, and in 1895 her sister, Mrs.

Clayton Glyn, who had married a minor nobleman, arranged for her to provide the costumes for herself and for the young Mrs. Willie James in the production of Diplomacy.

For Lucile, the important part of the Hearth and Home notice was the paragraph that

376 Diplomacy is the English and American adaptation of the play Dora, written by Victorien Sardou in 1877. It was first performed in England at the Prince of Wales Theatre on January 12, 1878. Carolyn W. de la Oulton, Brenda Ayres, Karen Yuen, Alexandra Warwick, New Women Fiction, 1881-1899, Part I, Volume 1 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), 368, note 27. It was not a common choice for an amateur performance but was performed professionally in London during the early twentieth century, for example the 1913 production at Wyndham Theatre. The Bystander, April 23, 1913, 195.

290 described the costumes of Mrs. Willie James and Mrs. Glyn in flattering detail.377 In her memoirs, Lucile described how the dresses she designed for the two women created a sensation in both London and Edinburgh. The continued patronage by fashionable society women like Mrs. Willie James led quickly to the success of the burgeoning business, and

Hanover Square, on which her premises were located, “would be lined with carriages every morning and afternoon, while in the discreet little fitting-rooms would be women of all ages waiting to consult me.”378

FASHION AND LUCILE

Initially Lucile’s business employed conventional methods for attracting upper-class trade.

Her location was strategic and without overt signage. Fashion sketches were prepared after consultation with the client, and fittings were performed in the ‘discreet little fitting-rooms’.

Direct advertisement was limited and in 1895 was primarily limited to indirect and oblique testimonials, depending primarily on the word of mouth or insider knowledge that associated her dresses with the constant references to the fashionable attire of clients like

377 “Scottish Society,” Hearth and Home (London, England) Thursday, November 7, 1895, 940. 378 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions (New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1932), 65. “The Hanover Square location, situated in the golden rectangle between Regent Street, Piccadilly, Oxford Street and Park Lane, where the elite dressmakers and couture houses were concentrated, signified a superior status appealing to Lucile Ltd’s aristocratic clientele.” Samantha Erin Safer, “Designing Lucile Ltd.: Couture and the Modern Interior 1900—1920s,” Performance, Fashion and the Modern Interior, Fiona Fisher, Patricia Lara-Betancourt, Trevor Keeble and Brenda Martin eds. (Oxford: Berg, 2011), 102.

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Mrs. Willie James in society columns, or the portrait images of Mrs. Willie James and others in the illustrated journals. In the full-page portrait of Mrs. Willie James printed in The

Bystander on June 13, 1904, it is the clothing, likely by Lucile, that assumes precedence (fig.

4.2). While Mrs. James’s face is half in shadow, blending with the tinted backdrop, the light-

coloured dress shines in contrast. The light reflects off the tulle of the bodice and cape and

shimmers against the satiny material covering her thighs. The elaborate style and

glamourous cape suggest the theatricality for which Lucile was famed. Although the caption

below the text refers to Mrs. James’s connection with the Prince and Princess of Wales and

praises her ability as an amateur actress, Mrs. Willie James was equally noted as a fashion

leader in her attention to dress.379 According to one often repeated anecdote, on deciding

to take one of her three daughters with her to church, she directed that the selection

between them be made based on whichever child best suited her blue dress.380

During the 1890s and even into the early 1900s it was the upper-class woman who led

fashion through her style selections, and images that depicted or symbolized the upper-

class woman became the fodder for fashion columns. In addition to specific portrait

photographs of elite females, early fashion drawings of this period also could refer to a

named aristocratic patron. In a World of Dress issue from 1900 (fig. 4.3) the four dresses

379 “The Searchlight in Society,” The Tatler (London, England) November 18, 1908, 174. Mrs. Willie James became one of Lucile’s most important clients. “She was at that time generally acknowledged to be the leader of fashion in London in an era when fashions were still set by a dozen or so women.” Meredith Etherington-Smith and Jeremy Pilcher, The “IT” Girls (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1986), 55. 380 Aslet, An Exuberant Catalogue of Dreams, 63.

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depicted are attributed to the specific elite wearer of the gown. The use of the standard

anonymous form of fashion drawing, with its impossibly tiny waist, full bust, and refined

features assumes something of the nature of portraiture when associated with a named

individual. If not a portrait of the individual named, it correlates the “ideal figure” of the

fashion drawing with the upper-class female, personalizing an otherwise impersonal form.

This type of association was augmented by the occasional use of model photographs, rather

than drawings in this early period. In The Bystander in 1904, the model in the elaborate

dress assumes a common upper-class pose against a backdrop the makes reference to

conventions of the status or swagger portrait (fig. 4.4). Positioned on the step of an

elaborate balustrade, she gazes haughtily down her nose at the viewer, one arm languidly

resting in a pose that implies ownership and confidence.

Lucile’s gowns were distinguished for their theatricality, with the use of colour, frothy

fabric, and lace designed to allure.381 Adding to the theatricality of the design, Lucile often

assigned names to her gowns, claiming to match the emotional aura of the gown with the

appropriate client.382 Lucile emphasized the symbolic nature of clothing that enabled the

381 I use the term “theatricality” as defined by Michael Fried: the “attempt to impress the beholder and solicit his applause.” As Davis and Postlewait note, this one of many definitions of the term, which must be considered in its historical context. Davis and Postlewait, Theatricality, 22. In the case of Lucile, the theatricality of her dresses could be quite literal as Lucile designs when they were used in theatrical productions; in whatever forum they were worn, however, Lucile’s dresses were made consciously with the intention of attracting notice. 382 Lucile’s introduction of “gowns of emotion” corresponded with the emergence of the new science of psychology. Caroline Evans, The Mechanical Smile: Modernism and the First Fashion Shows in France and America, 1900—1929 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), 15. For instance, Sigmund Freud’s theories of the 1890s posited the individual

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wearer to project an emotion or personality of choice as the frothy and colorful fabrics of a

Lucile dress swirled about her. She branded or identified her gowns with the concept of the

‘emotional gown’. The concept of ‘emotion’ suggests a transitory and even a consciously

constructed emotional message communicated through fashion. Claims by Lucile to match

the gown with the wearer should perhaps more accurately be perceived as the match of the

gown with the aura or emotion the client wished to project. For example, the supposed

debutante in the ongoing column “The Letters of a Debutante” published in successive

issues of The Tatler, noted that she was “rather surprised to find that clothes do more than

make a difference to your looks; they seem to alter the way you feel.”383 In this approach, the emphasis is on the free will or choice of the client and her conscious selection of the persona she wishes to suggest. In this sense, Lucile identified the reciprocal agency of gown and wearer. While the gown was intended to respond to the aura of the woman, it independently proclaimed a certain emotion that required a consistent demeanour and behaviour from its owner. In an interview with Hearth and Home, Lucile expressly identified fashion as a symbolic form of identification, stating that, “[a] dress can suggest anything.

Dresses are symbols. You can make a great impression on people by dress.” In her statement, Lucile implicitly recognized the performative aspect of the emotional gown. The

unconscious as a source for the development and performance of behaviour and personality. John C. Malone, Psychology: Pythagoras to Present (Cambridge Mass: The MIT Press, 2009), 361. 383 “The Letters of a Debutante,” The Tatler (London), April 14, 1911, vi. The idea of “perform” could therefore incorporate a conscious recognition of the expectations of the gown or an indirect change in behaviour resulting from an alteration in the mood of the wearer.

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emotion and allure of the creation required the wearer to properly perform the gown,

highlighting the need for an appropriate setting and movement.

In her review of Lucile’s fashion approach, the Hearth and Home interviewer identified the

sensory importance of the performed nature of the gown in her description of a chameleon

shot taffeta dress in shades of petunia and green. “As the model moved across the room,

the colour caught the lights, and new combinations formed at every step. The artist who

created this gown and named it ‘The Wine of Life’ has perfectly realised all that it

suggests.”384 This description highlights the importance of the movement of the fabric, the

tactile flux of the textile, and the integration of the new technology of electric light.385

Implicit in this description is a contextual context that privileged the idea of bodies in motion, an idea derived from the confluence of changing technology, new forms of media that focused on movement, feelings of political and social instability, and scientific and philosophical ideas that questioned previous assumptions of a fixed and stable world. A

1912 Punch cartoon satirizing the spectacular nature of the fashion show provides an idea of the presentation of the Lucile gowns to prospective customers, emphasizing the movement, materiality and embodied effect of the garment (fig. 4.5). In this cartoon, we can see the integration of the materiality of the dress with the exaggerated poses and

384 “Creations of Madame Lucile,” Hearth and Home (London, England) November 28, 1912, 237. 385 In this period, costumes and movements were designed with the effect of the electric lighting in mind. The importance of the interaction of movement, light and costume had become familiar through artists such as Loïe Fuller, who performed frequently in London, including a production of her famous Serpentine Dances at the Shaftesbury Theatre in 1901.

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movements of the models who emphasize the need for the gown to be performed in a

theatrical sense, as if the wearer were in a stage production. The ideology of Lucile’s gowns

integrated the idea of the body in motion to emphasize the importance of movement, the performance of the gown by the wearer, and the transitionary and constructed nature of the symbolic communication intended to be conveyed by the gown, highlighting the agency of the women who wore these gowns and their ability to utilize fashion in the projection of a selected image of identity.

FASHION AND THE BODY IN MOTION

Ideas of motion and change were often presented as a form of evolution or progress. The philosophy of Henri Bergson is a case in point. Bergson began publishing his theories on duration and consciousness in the later 1880s, and by the 1900s his ideas had percolated to a broader readership. His understanding of time as a subjective response to the process of living rather than a linear, stable clock time, seemed to represent a freedom from Victorian rationality in favour of the assertion of creativity and free will. However, in the responses to the theories of Bergson and to the rapidly changing nature of the urban landscape, it is necessary to identify the societal anxiety that simultaneously adapted to the new while clinging to traditional ideas and forms of experience, seeking stability in the midst of flux.

An English book on Bergson’s philosophy, published in 1911, identified this paradox within

English society. The author, Joseph Solomon, explicitly accepts the concepts of Bergson, agreeing that “the world, whether as a whole or in its parts, is in constant change.

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Conscious beings feel the contents of their consciousness to be ever changing; living things

are ever growing or decaying or both at once; even the inanimate world is constantly

undergoing alteration or at least movement.”386 However, he also identifies an essential

paradox. “This change that we are always trying to make or apprehend we insist shall be no

change. Reason and logic seem to drive us to insist with Bishop Butler that ‘things are what

they are,’ and that the seeming new must be at bottom identical with the old.”387 I suggest that it is this paradox that created the essential role for the upper-class woman. As symbols

of both a stable, unchanging past and of ideas of change and movement, they became a

Janus-faced emblem, linking past and future. In their status as members of the upper class

they represented the long-standing hierarchical class structure of English society, reinforced

by status portraits that commemorated the past. However, in their associative relation with

fashion, images of women like Mrs. Willie James became a site for the exploration of ideas

of modernity, creating a dialectic between the conventional association of the aristocracy

with the past and a new vision of upper-class women as symbols of the future.

One of the difficulties faced by Lucile was to find a way to effectively display her gowns to

their best advantage. The drawings that Lucile prepared for prospective clients were limited

by the inherently static nature of the drawing medium. For example, in the drawing of an

outfit which Lucile designed in 1913 and entitled “A Song Unsung,” the model is depicted in

a naturalistic pose, twisted as though conversing with someone to her left (fig. 4.6). Lucile

386 Joseph Solomon, Bergson (London: Constable, 1911), 9. 387 Ibid, 12.

297 has adorned the drawn figure with becoming accessories and has noted a suggested colour and material. However, notwithstanding Lucile’s attempt to provide animation to the image, it remains a frozen fashion drawing requiring the potential client to not only insert herself into the place of the model but also to imagine the effect of setting, movement, and light.

Painted portraits of upper-class women wearing Lucile’s clothing were a more effective form of advertising. Although Mrs. Willie James appears to have had very few painted portraits commissioned, Philip de Laszlo portrayed the Duchess of Portland in a Lucile gown

(fig. 4.7). Influenced by the Impressionists, de Laszlo aimed to suggest an instantaneous moment and movement. Although the face of the Duchess is centred and precise, the background appears to swirl behind her. Even her shadow is animated by broad curved brushstrokes, suggesting that she has only just turned her head. Adding to this idea, her body faces in a slightly different direction. However, most relevant, Lucile’s dress is a shimmering, vibrant creation, full of animation and colour. It dominates the otherwise bland palette of the work and seems vested with an energy and resonance. A similar approach was taken by other society portrait painters. In the portrait by J.S. Sargent of

Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland, the initial impression of the image is focused on the dress rather than the Duchess (fig. 4.8). While the auburn shades of her hair and the rosy tones of her small face blend into the surrounding foliage, the daring, highly coloured dress assumes precedence. Sargent, known for his skill at representing fashion, has animated the dress. It appears to vibrate around the still figure of its wearer. While there is no evidence that the

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dress is a Lucile creation, the brightly hued and filmy material of the costume corresponds

to Lucile’s signature style. More important, the treatment of the material by Sargent

suggests a general concern with the effect of the dress in movement. The short

impressionistic brushstrokes in shifting tones of green suggest fluttering material caught in

the light. The visual impact of shimmering fluctuation is emphasized by little dabs of white,

creating an almost metallic reflection that draws the eye of the viewer to the drama of the

gown. Light appears to be part of the material, shimmering and luminescent. The light-filled

feathery brushstrokes of the material contrast with the much more finished treatment of

the face and the darker value of the background, vying with the subject for the focus of the

painting. As noted in an essay considering the Impressionists and fashion, “Fashion was no

frivolous concern for the nineteenth-century woman; it was a vital part of her identity – and

painters and the press treated it as such.”388 The portrait subject was conveyed not only by her corporeal features but equally by the dress selected for the image.

A new dress was almost always required for a society portrait and Lucile was often consulted on the appropriate gown required to convey the desired image. In 1904, the journal Smart Set published a lengthy article that purported to provide Lucile’s advice on

“The New Art of Woman: Being The Expression of Personality in Curves and Colours.” Lucile, likely the progenitor of the article, then published it as a pamphlet with accompanying

388 Justine de Young, “Fashion and the Press,” Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity, ed. Gloria Groom, 232-243 (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2012), 243.

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images of models posing in her gowns. The writer of the article described the process in

terms that laud Lucile as a collaborative artist in the portrait process:

I was invited to see an unfinished portrait that one of our most distinguished London

artists is painting of a famous beauty. The work is to be exhibited next year at the

Academy, and will undoubtedly make an artistic sensation that will be admired by all

England. It had been decided that the lady should pose in a different gown in order

that the great picture might be an adequately novel embodiment which would

without peradventure produce the striking effects desired upon all beholders.389

The writer was then taken to the fashion house of Lucile, the designer charged with creating

the gown that was to be this visual centrepiece of the portrait. Lucile is described as a

brilliant artist and philosopher.390 She is presented as an equal participant in the composition of the spectacle of the portrait, not a mere craftsman fulfilling the orders of the painter or the subject.

Although the name of the couturier would not be expressly proclaimed when the finished portrait was ultimately exhibited, there is no reason to doubt that the word-of-mouth

389 The Smart Set, (London, England), May 1904. Published as a pamphlet by Lucile Ltd., (1904), 9. 390 The idea of the designer as artist, distinguishing him or her from a mere dressmaker, was initiated in the second half of the nineteenth century by Charles Worth. Through marketing and quality of product he positioned himself as an artist using the prominence of his status to create a quality of mystique and authority that translated to his fashions. For instance, he initiated the practice of marketing his gowns with all necessary accessories, selling a look rather than a single item. He commissioned exclusive fabrics, developing a signature look that was distinct and recognizable to the fashionable. Valerie D. Mendes and Amy de la Haye, The House of Worth: Portrait of an Archive (London: V&A Publishing, 2014), 14.

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generated through the display was an effective form of marketing for Lucile. In the portrait

image, the talents of Lucile were an integral part of the desire to produce a “striking effect.”

Symbiotically, the skill of the painter and the status of the sitter combined to portray the

gown in its most favourable aspect. In this era where the motion picture was only in its

infancy, the painted portrait of the society woman encapsulated the idea of the upper-class

woman in her multi-layered role as individual, as a symbol of the traditional elite depicted

for posterity in a status image, and as a symbol of movement, light, and modernity.

Even for the upper-class female, though, formal portraits by renowned artists were limited

in frequency. Far more ubiquitous were the photographs of the elite woman that flooded

the illustrated journals. Photographs of actual upper-class women wearing the Lucile gowns

facilitated the process of the prospective purchaser, permitting her to assume the place of

the subject depicted. However, portrait photographs such as the one of Mrs. Willie James that appeared on the cover of Country Life on December 3, 1904, single images trapped in a frozen moment in time, were also limited in their ability to convey movement and effect

(fig. 4.9). In this image, Mrs. Willie James is posed in front of a background intended to suggest a grand aristocratic space. She somewhat improbably sits in the middle of this space on a throne-like chair in a flowing dress, perhaps even a Lucile creation, artistically fanned across the floor.391 In an attempt to convey the idea of the spontaneous, she glances up to the right of the photographer, as if surprised by a sudden visitor. Disturbed in her reading,

391 While there is no specific reference to the dressmaker for the gown worn in this image, Mrs. Willie James was a prominent client of Lucile and the elegant frothiness of the dress is consistent with the style of garment made by Lucile at this time.

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she places her book on her lap. Her right hand rests on the arm of the chair offering the

possibility of impending movement: this could be the moment before she rises from her

chair. Although the photographic image provides detail enabling the viewer to construct a

narrative that suggests movement, the image itself is passive. It is the moment before or

after any imagined action. Alternatively, a snapshot, such as an image of Mrs. Willie James

walking outside in country clothes, facilitates the impression of movement (fig. 4.10). In this

photo, Mrs. Willie James is in the process of completing a step. Her right foot does not yet

touch the ground and her arms swing across her body in the process of the action.

However, as previously discussed in regard to Diana Manners, the ability to assume a

graceful pose at all times in anticipation of a snapshot was a skill that was only being

acquired in this period. Certainly, in this photo Mrs. Willie James appears somewhat stolid,

in contrast to descriptions that assert her energy and charm.392

A drawing by the architect Edward Luytens, of Mr. and Mrs. Willie James, whom he met during the remodel of their estate of West Dean, provides a very different vision (fig. 4.11).

Luytens has used a sketchy, disjointed line that suggests spontaneity and movement.

However, the relative dynamism of the two subjects depicted transforms Mr. Willie James into a static pillar in comparison to his whirling, energetic spouse. The more connected lines, the heavier shading, and the solid vertical composition give the figure of Mr. Willie

392 The snapshot of Mrs. Willie James shares the page with three other snapshots of notable people caught unawares while walking in the city streets. The caption “Potted Personalities” was intended to suggest this idea of the snapshot, playing on the meaning of “potted” as succinct or brief. A “personality” suggested a person of note.

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James a stability that is enhanced by the contrasting picture of his wife with time and action

collapsed into disjointed swirling scribbles. The flowing skirts and romantic hat with feather

can just be discerned in the sketch, referred to by Luytens as “lots of clothes.” The focus is

more than just Mrs. Willie James; it is a sketch of the interaction of Mrs. Willie James and

her outfit in the process of movement. While this drawing perhaps does a more effective

job of conveying Mrs. Willie James and her fashion in motion, it would certainly fail to

suffice for the purposes of a couturier such as Lucile trying to market actual outfits.

THE FASHION SHOW

Faced with the limitations of fashion drawing and still photography, Lucile was one of the

first designers to turn to the idea of the fashion show. In her memoirs, Lucile describes how

she conceived of the concept of “a mannequin parade, which would be as entertaining to

watch as a play.” She transformed the salon of her Hanover Street location, laying a soft rich

carpet, hanging beautiful gray brocade curtains and establishing a stage at one end of the

room, “all hung with misty olive chiffon curtains, as the background, which created the

atmosphere I wanted. Then I sent out the invitations on dainty little cards, keeping the

illusion that I was inviting my friends to some afternoon party than to a place of

business.”393 She carefully selected six models from the east end of London who were chosen for their suitability for displaying the types of gowns Lucile designed. These young women were raw material that Lucile diligently moulded to her desired image. The girls

393 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 70.

303 were sent to the hairdresser and the manicurist. They were taught to walk, to gesture, and to compose their facial expressions, copying the peeresses and famous actresses “until it became second nature to them to look and behave like women whose existence had been unknown to them a few short weeks before.”394

In a sense, the models were intended to represent an idealized version of the upper-class clientele to whom they catered. Publicity photos arranged by Lucile depict her models carefully arranged in a tableaux vivant of upper-class lifestyle (fig. 4.12). Elegantly attired in

Lucile’s famous gowns in an intimate and luxuriously appointed space, this image depicts the idea of the upper-class woman in the intimacy of her private life. The clothes, the hair, the accessories, and the setting communicate class identification. We can also note the deliberate pose of the young woman pouring the tea. Her erect bearing, her graceful stance with one silken slipper peeking from beneath her robe, and her elegant bare arm extending from the fur cuff in a graceful soft line to pour the tea conform to the idea if not the actuality of the upper-class woman.395 If we consider the experience of the aristocratic woman attending one of Lucile’s shows, the concept expressly sought by Lucile was that the client was paying an afternoon visit within her own social circle. Surrounded by her peers,

394 Ibid, 71. 395 As Caroline Evans notes, Lucile sold a ‘lifestyle’ identified with the new consumerist chic of the upper class. Caroline Evans, The Mechanical Smile, 55. A similar point is made by Valerie Mendes and Amy de la Haye who note that Lucile’s designs paid meticulous attention to accessories in order to create a ‘look’ and not just an outfit. Like Worth, Lucile presented herself as an artist. Also like Worth, she effectively marketed herself and her designs to create a branded image. Valerie D. Mendes and Amy de la Haye, Lucile Ltd.: Paris, New York and Chicago 1890s—1930s (London: V&A Publishing, 2009), chapter 3.

304 she both chatted and watched as the models, groomed to blend with the conventional mannerisms and deportment of the upper class, moved amongst the assembled clients while displaying to best effect the emotional dresses designed by Lucile. Examining a photograph of the stage at Lucile’s salon, we can see that the arrangement is intimate (fig.

4.13). As the model moved down the stairs and onto the level of the clients, she would move into their social and personal space. Although I am not suggesting that the models interacted with the clients on a personal level, the experience of the female client must have been akin to being in a social environment, close enough to activate her tactile and olfactory as well as visual senses. Without actual social interaction, she notices the dress, the woman wearing it, and the effect of the accessorized costume in a social setting.

Similarly, photographs of later shows held in the gardens of Hanover Square depict a visual integration between model and client (fig. 4.14). The modeIs wearing Lucile’s creations performed the upper-class woman in a stage setting that re-created the environment of the upper-class client. The spatial distance of a theatrical performance was reduced as the models moved in close proximity to the clients, in a manner that suggested the contact that would occur in less intimate social settings, facilitating the imaginative leap necessary for the client to see herself in the performing model.396

396 The reference to ideas of theatre and performance are used here in more than a metaphorical or allegorical sense. The fashion show in many ways acted as a form of informal theatre with a fourth wall between clients and performers. However, the physical breach of this fourth wall with the corporeal integration of audience and actor was a novel form of stagecraft that was not implemented in the formal theatre until later in the century.

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Joel Kaplan and Sheila Stowell have suggested that Lucile’s fashion shows “used the

paraphernalia of stage representation – ramp, curtains, wings, limelight, and music – to

establish a voyeuristic bond between mannequin and spectator.”397 Lucile dressed her

models with gloves, shoes, jewels to complete the costume and used theatrical lighting to

add sparkle to the dresses and to present the idea of a woman as a flickering image.398 As the models examined the attending women for mannerisms and gestures to mimic, the customers examined the models, projecting themselves into the idealized version presented. The carefully lighted movement accentuated the beautiful fabrics as they swayed around the models, creating a haptic attraction for the viewer where the eyes assumed the sense of touch.399 The element of imagination required of the customer had

been altered. No longer required to animate a two-dimensional sketch or photograph, the

client was merely required to imagine herself as transformed into the model, a process

facilitated by the theatrical atmosphere of the event. Lucile understood this imaginative

process to be a constant one:

All women make pictures for themselves, they go to the theatre and see themselves

as the heroine of the play, they watch Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo acting for

them at the cinema, but it is themselves they are watching really, and when the

lights are lowered to a rosy glow, and soft music is played and the mannequins

parade, there is not a woman in the audience, though she may be fat and middle-

397 Joel H. Kaplan and Sheila Stowell, Theatre and Fashion: Oscar Wilde to the Suffragettes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 119. 398 Alistair O’Neil, London – After a Fashion (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 2007), 56. 399 Caroline Evans, The Mechanical Smile, 178.

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aged, who is not seeing herself looking at how those slim, beautiful girls look in the

clothes they are offering her.400

The process of imaginative identification, one that Lucile suggest every woman I fully aware of (she “see’[s] herself looking”), offers the powerful lure of fusion with not only the desirable image but also with the self as spectacle, seeing oneself “as the heroine of the play.”

The effectiveness of Lucile’s approach was attested to by the cartoon published in The

Bystander on August 9, 1911. In the upper-left corner of the page, two portly older women gaze admiringly at the statuesque beauty wearing a skimpy outfit. Nodding to each other the one affirms, “Yes I certainly would have that if I were you” (fig. 4.15). Although the use of the word “have” could imply a number of meanings, in the context the cartoon appears to conflate the personal attributes of the model with the outfit that she wears, suggesting that the purchase of the latter will bestow the former on the fortunate purchaser. In dismissing the implausibility of this form of transformation, the upper-class client implicitly both acceded to the vision constructed for her by designers like Lucile and creatively reimagined herself as transformed by fashion into the vision before her. Rebecca Schneider identifies the turn of the century as the period in which the viewer’s gaze shifted from detached perspectivalism into a more embodied, subjective experience. She suggests that vision was in this period an unstable construct, processed through the viewer’s desires and

400 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 78.

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social context.401 In the context of the Lucile fashion show, this concept perhaps helps to explain how the viewer simultaneously occupied the distance of the viewer and, through

her imaginative projection, the corporeal presence of the model. While the objectivity of

distance acknowledged the physical differentiation between her body and the model, the

imaginative fantasy encouraged by the theatrical spectacle allowed her to override this

reality and to imagine herself transformed by the gown into the graceful figure swirling

down the runway.

FASHION AND SELF-PRESENTATION

This concept of imaginative projection relied upon the inherent interaction and integration

of fantasy and reality that was facilitated by the visual absorption of the spectacle. In the

absence of physical resemblance, how did designers anticipate that female customers

would be able to see themselves in the lithe young models sporting the elegant fashions?

Experience allowed them to expertly negotiate the separation between an internalized

desired or imagined appearance and the reality of the exterior self as presented to others.

In her book on the cultural meaning of clothing, Anne Hollander considers the idea of this

separation of interior identification and external construction, asserting that the mirror is

“the personal link between the human subject and its representation.”402 She further argues that the mirror, although claiming the authenticity of objectivity, is more often a

401 Rebecca Schneider, The Explicit Body in Performance (London: Routledge, 1997), 70. 402 Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 391.

308 constructed picture of the self, edited and tailored to create the perception of an image that speaks more to desire or even deception than to accuracy.403 Through the creation of a performed fantasy in a plausible and familiar stage setting, Lucile provided a kind of mirror for the upper-class woman, facilitating identification with the model as a form of constructed external self-image.

I am also suggesting a somewhat circular form of adjustment of self-identification that occurred through the process of the fashion show. The upper-class woman as the model for emulation became the subject of study and mimicry. The model assumed the physical appearance and mannerisms that characterized the upper-class woman, adding to these characteristics the benefits of a physique and face specifically chosen to complement the fashion. Through the interaction of the client and the model in both the physical space of the fashion house and the imagined space of the image, the idea of the upper-class woman became the standard of beauty and elegance propagated in images distributed by the illustrated press. Simultaneously, the professional model shifted the standard of the appearance of the ideal upper-class woman, offering a version that altered the manner in which the public imagined the upper-class woman and the ways in which the elite female presented herself. The image of Viscountess Helmsley printed in The Tatler on June 23,

1909 perhaps exemplifies this reciprocity of perception. The Viscountess, elegantly holding her parasol, stands with poise, as do Lucile’s models in her garden fashion show several years later (fig. 4.16). The idea of the upper-class woman as model is augmented by the

403 Ibid, 393.

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inset photograph that portrays the reverse side of the outfit, providing this image with the

duality of celebrity portrait and fashion photo.404

For those upper-class women who were able to display the fashions to advantage, the elision of the two roles of celebrity and fashion model assured them of a highly visible position as celebrity style-leader. The public interest in fashion attested to by the plethora of journal columns and magazines dedicated to the subject assured the upper-class female style icon, and by extension the class of elite women, a continuing role in society. Neither the moral exemplar of the public philanthropist nor the model mother for a eugenic future discussed in previous chapters, the elite woman as style icon forged another validating path for women of her class. The fashionable aristocratic woman became, like the aristocratic girls who grew up in the public eye, an object of desire, through with less promise of public intimacy. Although the fashion worn by the upper-class woman might be accessible or replicable, the life style and status promised by photographs was out of reach for most people. The public perception of the aristocratic woman of style, the product of her fashionable image, was the result of a collaborative vision, constructed through the interaction of the couturier, the model, and the client.

404 The fashion photograph or drawing that showed both the front and the back of the outfit was part of the traditional visual language of the fashion plate. I am not suggesting that there was any confusion between the upper-class woman and the model in images such as this photograph of the Viscountess Helmsley but rather that she drew from the performance of the model to assume a flattering pose. Any more direct conflation of the model and the aristocratic woman at this time would have risked the potential for class discomfort.

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In her book, Fashioning Faces, Elizabeth Fay broadens the concept of portraiture to consider

a range of ‘portraitive practices’ that extend the idea of the painted or photographed image

to incorporate other means of constructing an externalized presentation of self. She

identifies the complexity of the process when placed in the context of a society where social

character is identified by externals.405 Although Fay focuses on the era of the early nineteenth century, I suggest that the concept of performance as a portraitive practice assumed new relevance in the period from 1890 to 1914. I have referred to the interaction and the integration of the idea of the upper-class woman as idealized and presented by the fashion model, emphasizing the motivation and effect dependent on the idea of fashion in movement. Although captured in two-dimensional still images, the full effect of the performance of fashion required the observation of movement in context. In this brief period before the dominance of the cinema and the development of the film star, I have suggested that media such as the fashion show were used to present and represent female upper-class identity.406

Although the fashion model and the upper-class woman may have collaborated in the

projection of image, however, there was very little personal interaction between them

beyond the environs of the fashion house. The models, drawn from the poorer parts of

405 Elizabeth A. Fay, Fashioning Faces: The Portraitive Mode in British Romanticism (Durham, New Hampshire: University of New Hampshire Press, 2010), introduction. 406 After 1914 a number of upper-class women joined actresses and models in making the transition to the cinema. Diana Manners (later Lady Duff Cooper and the subject of Chapter 3 of this paper) for instance starred in two British films of the early 1920s, The Glorious Adventure and The Virgin Queen.

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London only achieved the level of celebrity status that brought them into social contact

with the aristocracy after World War I. In contrast, for the actress of the Society stage plays

of the era, the literal movement of the fashion show was combined with a shift in class

status, as an unprecedented number of inter-class marriages between peers and stage

actresses transformed performance into reality. This phenomenon was activated by a

triangular interaction of theatre, fashion and the upper-class woman.

FASHION, THEATRE, AND THE UPPER CLASS

Although Lucile started her business discreetly catering to the upper class, she quickly

recognized the potential for performative display through theatre. In 1897, she made her

first costumes for the professional theatre in the play The Liars, and continued a dual

career, simultaneously catering to both the upper-class woman and the professional

actress. Through this duality of clientele, Lucile was an active participant in the integration

of the actress and aristocratic female in a new classification of style celebrity who

shimmered before the public, paradoxically appearing as both a unique and also potentially

attainable image. In this, I do not assert that these women set the fashion style for all walks

of society. Joanne Entwhistle effectively discounts Veblen’s claim for the role of the upper-

class as a symbol for emulation, where upper-class fashion in effect trickled down to the lower classes. She suggests that the role of fashion is much more complex, where sub-

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groups use fashion as a means of identity to differentiate as well as emulate.407 What I am

suggesting is not that this class of celebrity style leaders set the fashion for all women, any

more than the current models of a fashion magazine like Vogue portray a style or fashion

most women of today are likely to emulate. In line with the premise identified by

Entwhistle, this new sub-group or class of women cooperated to set the standard for

glamour and elegance, using the performance of fashion to create a form of style celebrity

that prefigured the subsequent rise in status of the model and the film star.408

The transformation of London theatre during the last quarter of the nineteenth century has

been traced in numerous accounts. Arguably commencing with the interest shown in the

theatre by the Prince of Wales, theatre owners began to shift their target markets, aiming

to attract a more respectable and even upper-class clientele to performances.409 As part of this change, theatre owners like George Edwardes of the Gaiety Theatre and Henry Irving of the Lyceum changed the content and presentation of the performances, simultaneously

407 Joanne Entwhistle, The Fashioned Body: Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000), 118. 408 Although certain actresses, aristocratic women, and courtesans had previously been recognized as fashion icons, I suggest that the conflation of the actress and the fashionable upper-class woman into a sub-group of style celebrity on a broader basis only occurred with the advent of mass publication of images in this period. 409 Alan Hyman, The Gaiety Years (London: Cassell, 1975), 48. In addition, Tracy Davis identifies the rise in prestige of the West End theatres of London following the offer of a knighthood to Henry Irving in 1883 and his ultimate acceptance of the honour in 1895. A number of similar honours to male West End actor managers followed at the end of the century and in the period from 1900 to 1914, providing the West End theatre with the acknowledgement of respectability accorded to other professions. Tracy C. Davis, Actresses as Working Women: Their social identity in Victorian culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1991), 4.

313 altering the theatre facilities to accord with the requirements of a higher class of patron.

Where Irving concentrated on the more serious or ‘legitimate’ production, Edwardes focused on the musical stage, transforming the prior burlesque aspect of the performances into a format appealing to both men and ‘respectable’ women. Previously, the primary attraction was the chorus of girls, drawn from the lower class of London, dressed in scanty tights, and posed along the stage with no purpose other than to stand about looking lovely.410 Presented like commodities in a shop window, the gentlemen of the audience were able to indulge in scopophilic excess and then subsequently wait by the stage door to transform visual consumption into a more intimate experience. Cartoons such as the one published in Sketch in 1880 show crowds of aristocratic gentlemen waiting anxiously by the stage door for the chorus beauty to emerge and make her selection (fig. 4.17). Edwardes is credited with transforming this burlesque spectacle into something ‘smart’ and charming, translating the theatre into a destination appealing to both middle and upper-class women.

If we consider the means Edwardes employed to effect this change, there appear to be two primary alterations to the performances offered by the musical theatre. The first innovation was to banish the tights and inappropriate costume, and dress the actresses in the latest fashion, designed by the same establishments that catered to the upper-class woman. The purpose of this elevation in style was to transform the stage into a form of fashion show. By the 1900s the idea of the play as fashion forum was so well established that The Bystander could note the prevalence of the idea that theatrical dress led fashion, with aristocratic and

410 Hyman, The Gaiety Years, 8.

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middle-class women treating the occasion of a new play as a form of advance showing of

the next season of style.411 Ancillary to this purpose was the alteration of the status of the actress herself and the nature of her commodification. In the caption to a photograph of the actress Dorothy Hanbury, shown in the costume and stage set of the production The Catch of the Season (fig. 4.18), George Edwardes is quoted as saying, “Girls on my stages wear frocks, not tights.” He is further quoted as saying that the change “has caused the erstwhile stage-door ‘masher’ to disappear, and devote himself to more serious pursuits.” The second concept was to change the nature of the plays themselves, and in the 1890s the Gaiety

Theatre and many of its competitors started producing a series of Society plays that claimed to represent the upper-class lifestyle and experience.412 Joel Kaplan and Sheila Stowell have

identified the effect of these Society plays, when written by an insider like Oscar Wilde, as

like a glass held up to Society: “The image of smart society catching its likeness in Wilde’s

carefully set mirrors would itself be entertainment for pit and gallery patrons, able to watch

with voyeuristic relish an intimacy between stage and stalls.”413 However, unlike Wilde,

411 The Bystander (London, England) February 17, 1904, 876. The musical comedy theatre also attracted an audience from the lower-middle class, who worked as clerks or behind the counter. As Peter Bailey notes, “It was indeed a bourgeois construct, but one whose middlebrow formula spoke to a new mass market.” The naturalized stage settings collapsed the allure of the spectacular and inaccessible into a stylized version of everyday life, “encouraging hopes of access in its mix of the fantastic and the mundane.” Peter Bailey, “’Naughty but Nice’: Musical Comedy and the Rhetoric of the Girl, 1892—1914,” 54. 412 Theatrical precedent for plays focused on the lives of the upper class can be found in the plays of Thomas William Robertson performed at the Prince of Wales Theatre in the West End of London during the 1860s. However, these plays were intended as a form of realism dealing with substantive problems and issues of society in a thoughtful manner. The farcical and satirical aspect of the plays emerging in the 1890s differentiate them from this genre. Sharon Epplett, “The Waterloo Summer of the Prince of Wales’s Theatre: New Writing, Old Friends, and Early Realism in the Victorian Theatre,” Theatre History Studies, 36 (2017): 166. 413 Kaplan and Stowell, Theatre and Fashion, 13.

315 most of these Society plays, particularly those produced in the form of musical comedy favoured by theatres like the Gaiety, were written by authors who had little connection or experience with the upper class. Instead of a mirror held to Society, these plays became a way for the middle class to show the upper class how they appeared, and a means of expressing envy or desire of the aristocratic lifestyle while simultaneously mocking or criticizing its perceived failings.

THE CATCH OF THE SEASON

I propose to examine this phenomenon through a detailed examination of the play The

Catch of the Season, produced in London at the Vaudeville Theatre in 1904. The star of this performance was the actress Zena Dare, and the costumes provided for the elaborate fashions paraded through the production were by the designer Lucile. I suggest that the performance of Society plays like The Catch of the Season facilitated the adaptation of the upper class on both a perceived and an experienced level through the conflation of the theatrical presentation of the upper-class woman with the realization of the transformation of actress into peeress. From the period 1890 to 1914, approximately twenty London actresses married into the peerage or near-peerage and many more into the untitled upper class.414 In 1904, The Sketch published a cartoon of upper-class men hovering hopefully by the stage door with large bouquets of flowers held in readiness for the emerging actresses

414 Horace Wyndham, Chorus to Coronet (London: British Technical and General Press, 1951), Appendix.

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(fig. 4.19), much like the 1880 cartoon from The Sketch. However, in the context of the new

century it is tempting to see a distinct difference in the character of these waiting men and

to perceive them as suitors rather than ‘mashers.’ An article in The Tatler dated October 23,

1901 notes the beginning of the actress-peer marriage trend: “musical-comedy plots to the

contrary – only three actresses are at the present moment the wives of peers, although

several are the wives of younger sons.”415 By 1906, however, the fad had become so

prevalent that The Bystander wrote both a column and a satirical sketch on the prevalence

of these mésalliances, the rise of which was rendering “really ordinary engagements

between people of the same social position … quite dull.”416 The spate of aristocratic–stage

alliances continued unabated until the War, and they became so common that a nuptial

clause was ultimately inserted into the contracts of these budding actresses. In his book on

stage-peer marriages, Horace Wyndham refers to these new entrants into the peerage as

the ‘actressocracy,’ noting that “since the first stage-peerage was chronicled, nearly fifty

others have followed it. For reasons that are quite adequate the largest contingent has

come from the musical-comedy world, for its members exercise more ‘appeal to the

susceptible than do those connected with other forms of drama.’”417 How did the performance of being an upper-class woman allow actresses to become an upper-class woman? How did this occurrence affect the perception and performance of being an upper- class woman?

415 “English Actresses who have Married Peers,” The Tatler (London) October 23, 1901, 178. 416 “Engagements of Interest,” The Bystander (London) February 28, 1906, 418. 417 Wyndham, Chorus to Coronet, 138.

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The Catch of the Season is a musical comedy based on the story of Cinderella, adapted to

the modern life of Mayfair. As described in The Play, a theatrical pictorial journal, Angela

(the updated Cinderella) is the poor step-daughter of the social matron, Lady Crystal.

Relegated to the kitchen during Lady Crystal’s ‘At home’ at the height of the London Season,

she is spotted through the window by one of Lady Angela’s most coveted guests, the Duke

of St. Jermyns, a matrimonial prize Lady Crystal hoped to secure for one of her own

unmarried daughters. It is love at first sight for Angela. That evening, left behind when Lady

Crystal and her daughters set off for the Coming of Age Ball held in honour of the Duke,

there is a knock at the door. In bursts Angela’s aunt with an array of “costumiers,

shoemakers, etc.” who transform Angela through fashion into an unrecognizable Society

debutante. At the ball, she naturally dazzles the Duke and their engagement and marriage

soon follows. Through fashion and beauty, Angela secures the “Catch of the Season.”418

The leading role of Angela was played by the musical comedy actress, Zena Dare. Zena Dare was born in 1887 as Florence Hariette Zena Dones, the daughter of a middle-class divorce clerk and his wife. Zena Dare’s route into the theatre was through her younger sister, Phyllis

Dare, who was spotted at a young age as a candidate to be groomed for the re- conceptualized, more respectable London theatre in the 1890s. These sisters were part of the transition to respectability initiated by Edwardes and his fellow theatre managers. In his book on the Gaiety Theatre, Hyman notes that musical comedies resulted in a completely

418 “The Catch of the Season,” The Play (London) Vol. 1, No. 6 (September 1904), 138-139.

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different type of girl going into the theatre, many drawn from middle-class families.419 Both sisters made their start performing in regional pantomimes, but Zena’s transition into musical-comedy star occurred when she was chosen to play the role of Angela in Seymour

Hicks’s 1904 production of The Catch of the Season. The enormous success of the production positioned her as one of the leading musical-comedy actresses of the era and she performed almost continually thereafter in similar types of productions until her marriage in 1911.

The setting and the costumes were crucial to the performance. Hicks ensured that the settings mimicked the furnishings and the accoutrements that defined the upper class using a visual vocabulary inspired by the photographs of the interiors as set out in the illustrated

Society journals. If we consider the 1906 photographs in The Bystander of the production of

His House in Order, playing at the St. James Theatre with the photographs of the interior drawing room and dining room of Lady Wimbourne’s London House appearing only four pages later in the same journal (figs. 4.20 and 4.21), the level of verisimilitude in the reproduction of the upper-class setting becomes apparent. Except that the stage set is perhaps less crowded to facilitate the movement of the play, the two sets of photographs appear to be variations of upper-class interior design. The elaborate carpet and painted panelling of Lady Wimbourne’s dining room are similar to the carpet and panelling of the

419 Hyman, The Gaiety Years, 97. Michael Booth also identifies the shift near the end of the nineteenth century when educated middle-class girls started entering the acting profession, aided by the need of the theatre to find actresses for drawing room dramas. Michael Booth, Theatre in the Victorian Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 113.

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theatrical drawing room. Elegant and delicate French furniture appear in each set of images,

as does an elaborate crystal chandelier. The lower photograph of the stage set, although

not replicated in the London townhouse draws on the idea of the English country house

with its references to a colonial England as represented in the spears and Chinoiserie; to a

Jacobean or Elizabethan past as represented in the dark turned furniture and spare woven

rugs; and to an aristocratic dwelling as represented in the stag head and the aristocratic

portraits. Images such as these permeated the pages of illustrated journals such as Country

Life. The juxtaposition of images of the London townhouse and the theatrical set in close

proximity in the journal, with equal prominence given to each set of images, suggests an

interchangeability, again serving to blend the real with the fictional and reinforcing the

purported authenticity of the Society play, its ability to reveal an accurate glimpse into the

lifestyle of the aristocracy.420

Hicks retained Lucile to provide the costumes for the fashionable upper-class female characters.421 Lucile used the production of the The Catch of the Season as another version

420 Christopher Breward identifies that the promotion of realism in settings, costumes, and décor was part of a desire for productions to give symbolic expression to the class and circumstances of the characters inhabiting the theatrical space that characterized Edwardian theatre. Christopher Breward, “‘At home’ at the St James’s: dress, décor and the problem of fashion in Edwardian theatre,” Performance, Fashion and the Modern Interior, 95. 421 In total, Lucile Ltd. provided the costumes for over a hundred West End plays. She was also so recognized as a designer for the theatre that several revues satirized her as part of the play. Randy Bryan Bigham, Lucile: Her Life By Design (San Francisco: MacEvie Press Group, 2010), 132. Lucile also dressed many theatre productions in the United States where the commodity tie in between the fashion industry and the theatre was even more pronounced. See Marlis Schweitzer, When Broadway was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009).

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of the fashion show. The enactment in the play of the lives of upper-class women provided

an optimal opportunity for the idealization of the upper-class woman that Lucile used to

market to her aristocratic clientele. For the upper-class woman attending the production, to

watch the actress move through the activities of the ‘At home’, the refashioning by the dressmaker, the attendance at the Ball, and the ultimate wedding scene was a chance to re-

envision herself in these familiar environments. The actress in her finery became an

idealized mirror, a construction of possibility to be achieved through fashion.

Lucile augmented the connection between the play and the fashion show by holding a

private fashion event at her Hanover Street location five days before the first night of the

production of The Catch of the Season. Those invited were granted a preview of the

performance as filtered through the lens of the fashion to be worn. The show was

structured to mimic the action of the play, showing the costumes in the context of their theatrical setting and identifying the Lucile models displaying the gowns in terms of the

upper-class character that they were intended to represent in the play, as the program

designed for the event makes clear (fig. 4.22). The preceding page of the program, connecting these roles with the actresses who would perform them (fig. 4.23), completed the circle by merging the upper-class woman with the actress and the model through the link of Lucile and her fashion. The fusion between the spectacle of the stage and the experience of the upper-class woman was consolidated through the purchase and performance of fashion. In her memoirs, Lucile recounted how she replicated the design of

the dress worn by Zena Dare in The Catch of the Season for the debutante daughter of Lady

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Somers. As successful in life as it was in the play, Lucile claimed credit for the dress in securing the debutante’s engagement and asserted that this resulted in a flood of commissions for other anxious debutantes.422

For the broader range of theatre-goers who were not included in Lucile’s private event, the

program of the play clearly identified the designer of the gowns displayed on stage.423 For those who did not attend the play, the extensive images and information about the play printed in numerous journals allowed them to recreate the visual experience of the performance. The issue of The Play which reported on The Catch of the Season included a photographic spread of almost twenty pages, leading the reader through the performance on a scene by scene basis, complete with dialogue (figs. 4.24, 4.25, and 4.26). The images, read as a series, created the illusion of sequential movement like the illustrations of a children’s storybook, allowing the viewer to use their experience of the live performance of the theatre to imaginatively translate still image to mobile presence. As we can see from the three pages, these photographs were not taken contemporaneously at the production of the play. The lack of setting and the somewhat artificial poses of the characters suggest that these photographs were separately constructed for the purposes of the creation of the storybook effect with the continuity of the background serving to facilitate the feeling of

422 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 93. 423 The program acted as a form of commodity tie in. The practice of couturiers collaborating in the presentation of plays, recognizing these as ideal opportunities to parade their collections in a spectacular context, gained in momentum in the second decade of 1900. Nancy J. Troy, Couture Culture: A Study in Modern Art and Fashion (Cambridge Mass: The MIT Press, 2002), 83.

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smooth movement through the action. In contrast, journals like The Bystander, which

printed photographs of the production, did not attempt to recreate the entire drama.

Instead they focused on a few seminal moments that visually captured the confluence of narrative and fashion.

I contend that Society plays such as The Catch of the Season acted, through performance and through the images of performance, as a form of etiquette manual, providing the socially aspiring and the merely curious with an opportunity to examine and acquire the appearances, mannerisms, and gestures that served to identify the upper class in the period. The dialogue, as evidenced in the feature in The Play, suggests that these plays also provided the audience with an aural exemplar of upper-class accent, vocabulary, and fashionable phrases. In response to the Duke’s fashionable expletive, “what the devil,” the servant counters with a phrase, “Arf a mo’” that equally identifies his lower-class status (fig.

4.25). The exchange between the Duke and Angela’s sisters resounds with the rhythm and tone of the upper-class discourse (fig. 4.26). The Duke’s statement, “Dear ladies, this is not the abode of love,” elicits the following response: “We’re agreeably disappointed in you.”

Hyman recounts that Gaiety Girls hired by George Edwardes were groomed thoroughly before taking their place on the stage.424 Provided with lessons in elocution, singing,

dancing, and fencing, the idea was to create a plausible veneer of upper-class style. Lucile

recounts that in The Merry Widow performed in 1907, she not only made the costumes for

the female lead, Lily Elsie, but also extensively coached her on the walk and gestures

424 Hyman, The Gaiety Years, 136.

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necessary to convey the appropriate aura of class: “There was not a movement across the

stage, not a single gesture of her part in The Merry Widow that we did not go through

together.”425 In her memoir, Phyllis Dare, Zena’s younger sister, confirms receiving similar

lessons in movement and performance.426 While this moulding of the actress in the form of

the upper-class woman is reminiscent of the process discussed with respect to Lucile’s

models, it is important to note that the performance of the actress required a significantly

greater degree of assimilation. Where the model was required to walk only for a brief

period across a stage and about a floor, an effective performance by the actress demanded

that she acquire the movements, the gestures, the speech patterns, and the manners of her

upper-class model.

The training of actors to perform the upper class and the use of décor in stage settings that

drew on the aesthetics of upper-class taste provided a level of plausibility for the dramatic

performance in which each gesture or visual accessory operated as part of an ensemble that

reinforced the illusion of verisimilitude.427 However, on a deeper register it also fed the public desire to look behind the public façade of the upper class and to establish an intimacy or familiarity with the aristocratic mannerisms and lifestyle. This desire drew from, paralleled, and was nourished by the avidity with which the public absorbed the new forms

425 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 110. 426 Phyllis Dare, From School to Stage (London: Collier & Co., 1907) 50. 427 Theories of theatre semiotics “agree that meaning is located not only in the playwright’s text but also in the complete register of signs in each performance (including gestures, facial expressions, make-up, costume, set design, stage properties, actor’s bodies, and movement patterns).” Davis and Postlewait, Theatricality, 23.

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of images of the upper-class woman becoming available in the illustrated journals that

emerged during the late nineteenth century. I suggest that this was more than an avid

curiosity or desire to mock. The interest in these upper-class society plays also provided a

new dimension of access to the manners and habits of the upper class that facilitated the

acquisition of these personal qualities by the socially ambitious viewer.

In the terms described by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, the upper class is defined by a

common habitus, that is, a similar position in social space that predisposes them to share a

common taste in symbolic goods and practices. This taste, being the combination of learned and inherent discretion, is a form of cultural capital acquired by the upper-class through its

position. The commonality of taste manifests itself in a shared embodied state through

common knowledge and, perhaps more relevantly, in norms of mores, manners, gestures, language, and movement. It is also reflected in objectified cultural capital in the form of

fashion, houses, furnishings, and other possessions that serve to identify social status.

Finally, cultural capital is reflected in an institutionalized form, for instance in the guise of

titles of nobility. The possession of cultural capital operates as a form of exchange, entitling

the holder to certain privileges or economic benefits. Bourdieu therefore notes that cultural

capital is a structural basis for the enforcement of inequality and social divisions.428

428 Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge, 1984), 15.

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If we consider this theory in the context of the Society play, I suggest that these

performances provided, more extensively and intensely than traditional etiquette manuals,

the educational means for the viewer to acquire the performative aspects of embodied

cultural capital and to identify key components of objective cultural capital. In her etiquette

book, Lady Colin Campbell notes that “a true lady can be discovered by her manner of

walking.” She goes to on to advise the young woman of the 1890s that to be seen as a true

lady, “let her step be firm and her gait steady, let her not walk in too great a hurry, nor yet

drag slowly along. Let her arms move with the natural motion of the body; they must

neither swing to and fro nor dangle by the side. ‘Grace was in all her steps, In every gesture

dignity.’” She admonishes the young lady to sit still gracefully, to occupy or hold her hands at rest so that they do not fidget, and on the arts of genteel conversation.429 These somewhat general and contradictory instructions must have seemed puzzling without visual example. In contrast, the production of the Society play provided a moving portrait of the upper-class woman in her elite habitat, albeit in a manner designed to exaggerate for comic effect.

In the exchange between the Duchess of St. Jermyn and Mr. Higham Montague in The Catch of the Season as captured in the text and image published in The Bystander, we see the

Duchess interrogating Mr. Montague to ascertain his social status while condescendingly examining him through her raised lorgnette (fig. 4.24). The image and the text satirized the

429 Lady Colin Campbell, Etiquette of Good Society (London: Cassell and Company Limited, 1893), 44.

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pretensions of the upper class but, in doing so, also implicitly claimed to provide a glimpse

into the habitus of the class, a more detailed view of upper-class concerns and gestures

than could be found in etiquette manuals. A further image published in The Bystander

shows the arrival of Angela’s aunt with a myriad of dressmakers and associated trades (fig.

4.27). In contrast to the stylized images published in The Play, The Bystander photographs

appear to be images of the live performance of the play, providing a trace of the experience

of the event. Here fashion and setting take precedence. The furnishings of the room and the

beautiful clothes displayed by the dressmaker for the gaze of Angela and the female

audience provide an inventory of objects that add to the cultural capital of the aristocratic woman. The second image from The Bystander is set at the Ball held in honour of the Duke

(fig. 4.28). In the photograph, we can see Lucile’s creations depicted in a simulacrum of the

Society event. The socially aspiring viewer could examine at leisure the aristocratic behaviour, the latest fashion, and the objects of luxury in the upper-class habitus that

would otherwise be only rarely observable. These two images, frozen in time, only hint at

the impact of the live performance, particularly if we consider that this was only one of

numerous Society plays that flooded the theatres from the 1890s to 1914. The vision of the

upper-class woman presented by the actress in these productions was reinforced again and

again in the ongoing productions and in the traces of these performances left in the

photographic images of the journals.

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THE ACTRESS AND THE UPPER-CLASS WOMAN

The theatre was only one venue in which the actress performed the role of aristocratic female. James Jupp, the doorman at the Gaiety Theatre, recalled the extravagance of the clothing of actresses in their personal lives in his anecdote of the newcomer who asked about the elegantly clad lady watching the rehearsal in the stalls only to be told that the

“lady” was another showgirl.430 Lucile dressed actresses for their private lives as well as for their stage performances and her studio became another space of physical intersection.431

Actresses performing the idea of the upper-class woman also started to invade the public spaces and activities of the aristocratic female. Actresses mimicked the form of charitable bazaars that had become a mainstay in the social Season of the upper class. The Tatler in

1910 printed yet another image of a Society bazaar (fig. 4.29). Following the pattern of numerous other bazaar photospreads, the images of the charitable fair depicted on the page pose ‘prominent stallholders,’ publicly proclaiming the connection between the upper- class woman and her philanthropic leadership. Below the images, the caption sets out the name of the most eminent of participants, using aristocratic names to add the lustre of prestige to the event. However, in the bottom row of three images, the two bookend photographs of well-dressed young women captured on the amusement rides of the fair feature Miss Margaret Cooper, a professional stage singer, and Miss Phyllis Monkman, a well-known actress. The photographs of these two performers are integrated into the

430 James Jupp, The Gaiety Stage Door: Thirty Years’ Reminiscences of the Theatre (London: Jonathan Cape, 1923), 175. 431 Lucile Duff-Gordon, Discretions and Indiscretions, 110.

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image arrangement, visually implying an interchangeability of the two categories of women

in terms of public interest and perception and consolidating both the aristocratic woman

and the actress within the forum of aristocratic philanthropy. This interchangeability is

facilitated by the clothing worn by each. The elegant costume worn by Miss Phyllis

Monkman appears no more theatrical than the dress worn by Lady Maitland in the adjacent

panel. Similarly, the more conservative attire of Miss Margaret Cooper echoes the walking

suit of Mrs. Albu at the far right of the central group photograph. To the extent that fashion

is a form of cultural communication, the fashion as frozen in these images serves to conflate

rather than differentiate the upper-class woman from the actress in the real public space of the charity event and the virtual public forum of the illustrated journal.432

A similar claim can be made in respect of newly established exclusive restaurants such as

the Savoy, where the aristocratic woman mingled and visually competed with the

fashionable actress. A further interesting site of intersection was the Olympia Rink, where the new fad of roller skating attracted both groups of women. Although roller skating had enjoyed sporadic popularity in the nineteenth century, it became fashionable from about

1907 until the War. More than 500 roller skating rinks were quickly opened throughout

England in this period, and they catered to a range of social classes. The private Olympia

432 This conflation is reinforced by the title to the page, “Society Supports the Dumb Friends’ Fair,” which directs the viewer to accept the actresses portrayed as part of ‘Society.’ Only by carefully reading the caption below the images would a reader familiar with the social shading of these events have recognized that the pictured actresses formed part of the “well-known people” attending the event and not part of the aristocratic cadre of female organizers.

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Skating Club was established in about 1910 by Lord Crichton, its president, and its members were limited to approved ‘fashionable’ social groups who were entitled to participate in the

Club’s Sunday afternoon skating activity. Members of the Club were attracted to the novelty of the movement of the roller skating, initially just mastering the necessary skills and then incorporating dance steps like the waltz, the two-step, and even the new rag time into their skating performance.433 In the overview of the skaters located in the centre of the two-page photographic spread published in The Tatler on December 14, 1910 depicting the Olympia

Skating Club on one of its Sunday afternoon events, most of the participants appear to promenade around the exterior of the rink (fig. 4.30). In the middle of the photograph there are one or two pairings of the more adventurous, including one couple at the centre of the image, with the woman’s lifted back leg suggesting that they are attempting a dance manoeuver. Roller skating became another means of demonstrating fashion in motion, where the grace and gesture of movement formed an integral part of the portraitive practice of the feminine exhibitor and images such as this photograph attempted to capture this sense of fashion in motion.

The women participating in the activity and belonging to the Club were primarily drawn from the upper class and from the acting profession, rendering membership in the Club itself an active element in the integration of these two groups. The double-page photospread was in fact titled “Wheels Within Wheels – Where Stageland and Society

433 “Our London Letter,” The Lichfield Mercury (Lichfield, England), Friday January 10, 1913, 3.

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Meet.” In the central overview image of the skaters, there is no apparent distinction

between participants based on class. In similar costumes, the women skate singly or in

pairs, with other women or with a young man. The groupings appear to be spontaneous and

suggest a fluidity of interaction as couplings form and separate. The interest and ability to skate was a focus for publicity, and the individual photographs of the participants focus on the notable names, mingling stage actresses with upper-class women, both being of

equivalent interest and celebrity. Miss Phyllis Dare, the sister of Zena, is one of the celebrities ‘snapped’ at Olympia. In her individual ‘snapshot’ Phyllis, clearly aware of the camera, stands in a passively elegant pose. In her fashionable dress and fur muff, smiling demurely for the camera, she is indistinguishable from the snapshot of the Hon. Alexandra

Vivian directly above. This aristocratic young woman stands in a slightly more casual pose, her coat draped slightly open, but her gloved hands are similarly tucked into her fur muff.

She is perhaps not as accustomed to being photographed or is distracted by a competing photographer, and her eyes and smile are focused to the left of the viewer. However, in their individual variations, each young woman adheres to a similar convention of pose, communicating a similar message of fashionable modernity as roller skaters.

We can perhaps contrast this image with the staged publicity photograph of Phyllis and her sister Zena Dare at the same roller rink (fig. 4.31). The emptiness of the rink behind the women suggests a more constructed photographic enterprise. In this photograph, published on February 23, 1910, Zena and her sister, accustomed to assuming a pleasing pose through many years of publicity photographs, position themselves to best display their luxurious

331 clothing and their widely admired beauty. The shining expanse of teeth and the dramatic way in which Zena tilts her neck identify her profession, suggesting a conscious theatricality that highlights the artificiality of her integration with the aristocratic women also frequenting the arena. However, I suggest that, outside of specific photographs taken for dramatic publicity of specific roles or for novelty postcard issuances, the Society play actress in her public life began to mimic the forms of presentation of the upper-class woman, restraining the theatricality of the pose to present, in her private guise, a more plausible imitation of the aristocratic women she portrayed in theatre. Zena Dare was particularly identified through her broad smile and extensive show of teeth. However, by 1908 we can see evidence of the process to remodel her trademark identity in a manner that aligned her more closely with the poses affected by the aristocratic woman. In a page of photographic portraits of musical comedy actresses, Zena Dare is portrayed with a serious soulful expression (fig. 4.32). Her depiction as a proper and elegant young woman is reinforced by her hair, which is neatly pulled back and by her high-necked lace blouse and demure pearl earrings. The underlying caption, criticizing the overly theatrical smile, points the way to a redefined image of the actress in its praise of “serious photographs.” In an image published in The Tatler in 1910, the wattage of the trademark smile has been dimmed, I suggest, in order to visually identify her with the more restrained portrait presentations of the upper- class debutante (fig. 4.33). However, a more representative example may be her sister

Phyllis. We have already considered the more restrained presentation Phyllis offered in her

‘snapshot’. In the publicity image of Phyllis skating with Zena (fig. 4.31), although she assumes a complicated pose that implies a studied restraint, the elegance of her bodily

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stance, combined with the pensive three-quarter profile she presents to the camera, draws

on the form of soulful upper-class aesthetic exemplified in the series of portrait images of

aristocratic women as drawn by the Duchess of Rutland.434

I suggest that through the influence of portraits and portraiture practices, the images of the

society play actress and the aristocratic society woman began to converge such that the

division between the authentic and theatrical upper-class environments became blurred,

opening a portal that facilitated the access of many of these actresses into the upper

echelons of society.435 In his book Simulacra and Simulation Jean Baudrillard contemplates a scenario in which the image begins to assume its own reality. In this context, I suggest that the image of the actress as an upper-class woman was poised on the liminal threshold of fiction and fact. The viewer’s knowledge of the factual life of the actress was eroded by images and performances that elided the actress with the upper-class woman.436 The “real person” of the actress became bifurcated in the perception of the viewer. Without any actual intimacy between public and actress, images of the actress in the visual persona of the aristocratic woman held equal currency with factual descriptions and images of the

434 The extent to which this visual mimicry represented an internal integration of upper- class values and outlook would have varied with the individual. Many of the actresses who married into the peerage appear to have adopted the pastimes and interests of the upper class. I note however that Zena Dare returned to acting in 1926. 435 The idea of the convergence of authentic experience and simulated experience through the mass public exposure of the visual image is an idea that has been addressed in numerous sociological theories. For instance, Daniel Boorstin, The Image: A Guide To Pseudo-Events in America (New York: Vintage Books, 2012), 189. 436 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, trans. Sheila Faria Glaser (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 2.

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actress as an actual person. Both were simulated experiences of access to the actress and

resonated with equal emotional significance.

In his treatise The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, Erving Goffman disputes the idea of the self as an immutable, fixed personality and instead argues that ‘self’ is a result or product of the performance of self and the extent to which such performance is either credited or discredited by the audience. Goffman extends the metaphor of the stage beyond the physical space of the theatre, interpreting the everyday experience of existence through the terminology of performance theory.437 As the actress began to ‘act’ the

aristocratic society woman in her private life, she extended the stage performance to the

exterior environment. These points of intersection become the ‘front’, described by

Goffman as a form of stage set in which the performance of upper-class identity is played by

the actress in the outside environment.438 The audience included the upper-class men and

women with whom they interacted or intermingled and, equally important, the imagery

that presented the actress to the public in her assumed role. The attention to the emulation

of fashion, activity, movement, and stance created a pattern of performance that

corresponded with the signifiers used within the upper class for group identification. For the

actress playing the role of upper-class woman in both her professional and publicly

apparent personal life, I suggest that the constant role-play rendered posing for the camera

increasingly an unconscious performance, adding to its plausibility, as the manner of

437 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York: Anchor Books, 1959), 15. 438 Ibid, 23.

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conduct and deportment became internalized. Goffman posits that status should be

considered as a process rather than a fixed and stable construct. The internalization and external manifestation of a certain role or mask ultimately results in the mask becoming the truer version of the self. The performance of status is for all individuals the performance of a role, whether inherited or learned. As Goffman put it, “[it] is in these roles that we know each other; it is in these roles that we know ourselves.”439

Without speculating on the inner psychology of Zena Dare or any other actress of the

period, I suggest that the process of portraiture practices facilitated the ambiguation of the

social status and potential elevation of the Society play actress. The plausibility and

consistency of the performance assisted in translating the upper-class perception of these

women from little more than prostitutes to young women who were seen by numbers of

young men as marriageable partners. More important, the inter-class marriage of the

actress with the peer did not banish the couple from Society, and these new peeresses were

accommodated to some degree within the parameters of their new class based on the

acknowledgement and inclusion of the aristocratic women controlling the social process.

The negotiation between acceptance and resistance evidenced by the reactions of upper-

class women when faced by a burgeoning onslaught of actress peeresses served as a

microcosm or situs for the expression of the need for adaptation of the upper class and the

reimagining of the parameters and presentation of the class. We have seen that images of

upper-class women like Mrs. Willie James presented them both as symbols of a traditional

439 Ibid, 19.

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and long-standing ruling class and as icons of modern fashion and style. Actresses who

became peeresses modelled for the upper-class woman her uncertain status and need to adapt to a modern world. The qualified acceptance of the actress thus balanced competing objectives: the maintenance of exclusivity integral to the desirability of the upper class as an aspirational and inspirational classification, and the need to satisfy democratic pressures by offering the possibility of social mobility.

ACCESS TO THE UPPER CLASS

In her book The Best Circles, Leonore Davidoff argued that, as the political and economic influence of the upper-class male declined at the end of the nineteenth century, the importance of the upper-class female in regulating the admission of new groups of participants into the upper class assumed even greater importance in defining the role and meaning of the class in society. It was the aristocratic female who determined the rules and activities that governed upper-class identification, inclusion, and exclusion.440 These rules were not static and the women who regulated them were not explicitly defined but were determined through a complex and unarticulated process. While much of this process was implemented through a system of invitations, social acknowledgements, and the subtle shading of gossip, gesture, and etiquette, a small portion of the negotiation of shifting

440 Leonore Davidoff, The Best Circles: Society Etiquette and the Season (London: The Cresset Library, 1973), 14.

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standards was expressed in writing, hinting at the anxiety and tension that remained

publicly unexpressed.

A satirical sketch in The Bystander in 1906 has upper-class women bemoaning yet another

stage-peer marriage. The women ‘speaking’ in the sketch note the seriousness of the

situation, irately asserting that “class should marry into class,” and characterizing the

actresses entering into these alliances as exchangeable commodities without any

discernable talent. “They do dress their windows well at these musical theatres. I suppose

someone gets a commission on every sale – I mean match.”441 The women mourn that they can no longer comfort themselves with the idea that actresses are “frightfully immoral, sinful, attractive things with horrid pasts” and must accept that upper-class girls are simply duller. The theatricalization of the lives of the upper class through Society plays, with their cutting-edge fashion and high drama, has rendered the reality a pale replica in comparison.

In a short story appearing in The Tatler in 1908, the author premises the tale on the idea of a country house party held by an actress recently married into the peerage where the party consists only of young peers who have recently espoused young ladies of the theatre, together with the déclassé parents of these new aristocrats. The story mocks the thinness of the veneer of gentility as upper-class accents slip and upper-class values and gestures are

441 “The Peerage and the Stage,” The Bystander (London, England) February 28, 1906, 408. In this anecdote, the speakers implicitly acknowledge the similar commodification of the debutante searching for a husband. Although the Married Women’s Property Act 1882 granted married women some rights over property, women were not considered equal to men under many statutes and provisions of common law and it was common for the debutante to move directly from the control of her father to the control of her husband.

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misapplied. However, the story ends with a peer acknowledging that the integration of new

entrants into the upper class is consistent with the historical tradition, “If you and I could be

here, my dear Eleanor, a hundred years hence we should see the Sherringham of that time

a fine healthy fellow, doing well by the country and his name. That is our only comfort.

History repeats itself. Only 300 years ago an ancestress of mine was a bedmaker in a low

drinking house. She revived the race.” 442 The idea of the revitalization of the class through this form of inter-marriage was more expressly accepted by progressive members of the upper class. For Lady Dorothy Nevill the ubiquity of peer/actress marriages rendered them unexceptional. Not altogether a bad thing, in her opinion, as many of the girls had a good deal of sense and are healthy young women likely to breed healthy offspring: “Many an old family has gained fresh vigour from an infusion of fresh blood.”443

The acceptance of females originally from the stage into the ranks of the upper class was part of a continuing process of adaptation in the later nineteenth century, as the upper class swallowed group after group of plutocrats and American heiresses. In a reciprocal process of translation, as each group adopted the mores, values and lifestyle of the upper- class they had entered, the class identification was itself altered and reconstituted by the values and perspective of the new entrants. The process of translation and adaptation was the plot line in many of the society plays of the era. In Catch of the Season, the poor relation is taken from the kitchen and transformed through fashion. Only then is she accepted into

442 Cosmo Hamilton, “The Stately Homes of England: A Christmas Idyl in Two Acts,” The Tatler (London) no. 388, December 2, 1908, xvii. 443 Lady Dorothy Nevill, My Own Times (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1912), 229.

338 the ranks of the fashionable at the ball for the Duke of Jermyn. On a more thoughtful level,

Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion, which debuted in London in 1913, focused on this process of ‘civilization’, meaning the acquisition through study and application of the appearance, mannerisms, and speech patterns of the upper class. Although originally a thoughtless wager, the creator is himself ultimately convinced of the plausibility of the transformation of his creation. As Eliza Doolittle acquires the veneer of a higher class, she becomes increasingly attractive to him and to others of aristocratic society. Her lower-class origins are ultimately excused as adding vigour and novelty to a perhaps jaded Society. Shaw’s play emphasizes the idea of the performance of identity and the integration of exterior performance with lived reality.444 As Eliza Doolittle learns how to appear as an upper-class woman she internalizes her education. Learning the language and ways of the upper class renders her unable to return to her own station of birth. As she tells Higgins and Pickering,

“I am a child in your country. I have forgotten my own language and can speak nothing but yours.”445 The portraitive practices that transformed the flower girl into an acceptable marriage partner for a peer were a carefully constructed collaboration. In the same way that Lucile collaborated with artist and subject on the aesthetic projection of the painted portrait, the status performance was a form of communication of class, in which the

444 Although the play focuses on the acquisition of speech, the transformation of gesture and appearance are arguably equally important. For instance, when Eliza attends Mrs. Higgins’s At Home, her exquisite dress “produces an impression of such remarkable distinction and beauty as she enters that they all rise, quite flustered. Guided by Higgins’s signals, she comes to Mrs. Higgins with studied grace.” It is her performance that establishes her pedigree as part of the aristocracy. George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion (New York: Black & White Classics, 1912), 249. 445 Ibid, 59.

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message was created by a complex integration of appearance, movement, gesture, attitude,

and speech. As Henry Higgins notes, his final creation “shall marry an ambassador. You shall

marry the Governor General of India or the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, or somebody who wants a deputy queen.” Eliza is now too good to be thrown away on a suitor of questionable pedigree and status like Freddy Eynsford-Hill.446

Although we know that actresses underwent a similar process of re-education, we cannot

recreate the full experience of the transformation. As members of the middle class, in

contrast to the lower-class status of Eliza Doolittle, we assume that the process was less

drastic. However, images evidence the shifts in presentation of identity performed by these

actresses as they prepared for and entered the upper-class ranks through marriage. In 1907,

perhaps as a form of publicity, The Bystander published a photograph of Zena Dare in her

theatrical pose and costume for The Gay Gordons (fig. 4.34). We can note in this image the

similarity in pose to Zena’s stance in the skating rink photograph with her sister Phyllis (fig.

4.31). In both she seems to sway backward, accentuating her off-balance stance by tilting

her neck even further back so that her head is slanted. It is a dynamic pose, full of diagonal

lines and energy, designed to dramatically convey a sense of the vivacity confirmed by her

wide smile. The caption above and below the photograph hint at a possible engagement to

a peer, although without any of the specific information that usually accompanied such an

announcement. The distinction between the publicity announcement and the ‘reality’ can

446 Ibid, 65. Freddy Eynsford-Hills is from a family on the fringes between the upper class and the upper middle class and therefore without the pedigree of birth; the uncertainty of his own class status is an index of the class uncertainty and instability of the period.

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be seen in the photograph published approximately three years later, in which Zena Dare’s

engagement to Captain the Hon. Maurice Brett, M.V.O., Coldstream Guards, second son of

Lord Esher, was officially proclaimed (fig. 4.35). In this later portrait photograph, taken at

the studio of Rita Martin, a noted Society photographer, all traces of theatricality have been

erased. Zena stares demurely and soulfully into the camera. Her famous smile is contained,

her lips just slightly parted. Her hair is conservatively dressed and the small pearl earrings

and necklace suggest purity. In contrast to her grand dramatic pose in 1907, Zena sits

passively and upright, her appearance indistinguishable from the multitudes of debutante

portraits filling the pages of illustrated journals. The textual report accompanying the image

suggests that the marriage of “one of the most charming of musical–comedy and variety-

stage actresses” to “the son of a grave and earnest Victorian peer whose title to rigid

respectability not even the rabidest of peer-baiters has ever questioned” had “everyone or

nearly everyone” delighted.447 It is tempting to infer some family resistance to the proposed

engagement, particularly in view of the report on February 8, 1911 of the marriage,

describing it as coming off “with a quite appalling suddenness and in perfect secrecy at the

Harrow Road registrar’s office within a few days of the announcement of the

engagement.”448

Although it is reasonable to assume that there was significant family and societal reluctance to quickly or fully accept these newcomers into the upper class, this reluctance was

447 “Stage and Stalls Again,” The Tatler (London) no. 500, January 25, 1911, 81. 448 “The Dare-Brett Alliance,” The Tatler (London) no. 502, February 8, 1911, 137.

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concealed from the public within the unspoken collaboration of class discretion. The report

of the marriage confirmed that the new Mrs. Brett would be taking up residence with Lord

and lady Esher at the family estate in the Windsor district and mingling with the Royalty and

exclusive families populating the area. On January 25, 1911, The Tatler also published a double page spread with large photographic portraits of the three most interesting brides- to be (fig. 4.36). The largest and central image depicted Lady Violet Manners, daughter of the Duchess of Rutland, recently engaged to Lord Elcho. To the right was a smaller portrait of the Hon. Sylvia Brett, daughter of Lord Esher, in recognition of her impending marriage to

Mr. C. Vyner Brooke. On the left was a portrait Sylvia Brett’s future sister-in-law, Zena Dare, following the announcement of her engagement to Mr. Maurice Brett. Lady Violet is portrayed in evening dress. In contrast, the two flanking portraits portray the subjects in outerwear. The portraits of Sylvia Brett and Zena Dare relate aesthetically, with each young woman draped in fur, her hands tucked into a luxurious fur muff. Both are presented in three-quarter profile with their faces turned toward the central image, drawing the eye of the viewer into the page frame. Although Zena smiles (a legacy of theatrical publicity photographs), in contrast to the upper-class convention of affected unawareness of the camera lens, if we compare the smile and pose in this photograph to her visual legacy of publicity images her smile has been toned to a shy and more decorous level. Zena Dare was

one of the most widely photographed women of her era. Her image had graced picture

postcards, chocolate boxes and the pages of illustrated journals from the beginning of the

century. Images of Zena almost invariably depicted her in a theatrical pose with a toothy

smile (figs. 4.37, 4.38, and 4.39). To viewers who identified Zena Dare through these

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ubiquitous and unceasing images, many of which pictured her in elaborate and often vulgar

costumes, the transition to the pose and demeanour of her engagement photograph was a

dramatic alteration in image. It attested to her Pygmalion-like transformation from musical

actress to upper-class woman, as did her picture appearing alongside those of Violet

Manners and Sylvia Brett.

The transformation through images continued after marriage. An image of Zena Dare as the

Hon. Mrs. Maurice Brett, posed with her young daughter formed part of a compilation of mother and child Society images printed in The Tatler in 1914 (fig. 4.40). In this portrait,

Zena sits in profile her face partially concealed, as she tilts her head to kiss her daughter’s hair. She appears unaware of the camera, slightly slumped as she curves her body around

her child. Zena wears a concealing white dress that blends into the background. Her hairstyle is simple and she wears no apparent jewellery. Her daughter, innocently bare, sits on her lap staring toward the camera and trustingly clasping her mother’s hand. The image appears reminiscent of a similar pose affected earlier by the Duchess of Rutland with her daughter Diana (fig. 3.2). In both images the intention was to present the idea of motherhood. In the case of the Duchess of Rutland, I argued that an ancillary effect of this form of pose was to associate the upper-class woman with the idea of motherhood, reaffirming the role of the upper-class woman as progenitor for the future of England. In the other photograph, taken almost fifteen years later, the pose served to strengthen the visual adaptation and performance of Zena Dare as Society woman. Drawing on the portraiture conventions established by the upper-class woman, the visual congruity of the

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image with its predecessors further legitimized the plausibility of Zena Dare’s ongoing

performance of class. In addition, the discourse of class revitalization that served to

rationalize the benefits of class adaptation through acceptance of the Society play actress is

here translated into reality, the image of the Society actress as Society mother.449

The use of images to meld the society actress into upper-class woman took a variety of

forms. A portrait painted by Ellis Roberts of the Countess of Clonmell reproduced in The

Bystander in 1907, for example, depicts the former actress through the conventions of the

swagger portrait (fig. 4.41). The Countess stands elegantly dressed and stares confidently

out of the image, in command of herself and her surroundings. The subject is posed

improbably along the banks of a river. The canopy of trees to the left of the image anchors

the composition while still suggesting movement through their rustling branches. The

expansive landscape in the background refers both to the land ownership of the upper class

and the abstractions of temporal and spatial expanse and duration that speak to the

stability of the upper class. Snapshots printed in The Tatler in 1910 and 1911 offer examples

of the numerous images of ex-actresses who integrated themselves with the local notaries

through participation in elite rural activities like hunting (figs. 4.42 and 4.43). The 1910

photograph of Lord and Lady Orkney with their daughter at a spring horse meet portrays

the former actress in tailored hunting clothes, her riding crop held casually by her side as

449 The title of the page, “Proud and Prominent Parents: Three Lucky Little People Who One Day will Loom Large on the Social Horizon,” seems to promise that having a mother from the stage will not compromise the social status of Miss Angela Brett, who will take her place among her cadre of debutantes.

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she strides along, perfectly at ease in her aristocratic transformation. In the 1911

photograph, Lady Poulett, formerly a minor star as Sylvia Storey, sits confidently on her

hunter, an echo of the Hon. Lilah White in the adjacent photograph. These images suggest a

level of acceptance and assimilation in the replication of the visual symbols through which

the public identified the upper class. By the next generation, the children of these unions

will have assumed the habitus of their class through upbringing rather than conscious

adoption, completing the adaptation process. A studio portrait of “A Pretty Debutante”

printed in The Tatler presents Lady Beryl Le Poer Trench, the daughter of Lady Clancarty

(the Countess of Clomnell portrayed by Ellis Roberts), her ex-actress mother only a footnote

to her upper-class status (fig. 4.44). In a foreshadowing of the conditions identified by Guy

Debord in his Society of the Spectacle, the performance of class identity became a spectacle

in the sense of a social relationship between people mediated by images.450 The images translating the society play actress into the role she had performed on stage turned the possibility of social mobility into a spectacle to be followed by the viewer in a series of evolving portraits.

It is possible to see this incorporation of the stage actress into the ranks of the upper class as a form of conflict resolution based on the model proposed by Richard Schechner in his book Performance Theory. Schechner considers the ethnological purpose of the type of farce that characterized the Society musical comedies that showcased these young women.

Based on the idea of the “joke-work” as analyzed by Freud, Schechner suggests that the

450 Guy Debord, Society of the Spectacle (Detroit: Black & Red, 1983), Thesis 4.

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farce, as a series of jokes, is a way to criticize or rebel against authority. This motivation is

often accompanied by a form of dream-work, an expression of underlying desires or

fantasies. Both are premised on the idea of the outsider expressing his or her exclusion from the insider group and the play operates as a socially acceptable way to express an underlying political conflict.451 Applying this idea to the ubiquitous Society comedies it is not difficult to perceive the presentation of the haughty or vapid stock upper class figure as the presentation of a joke-work, expressing the societal tension over the relevance of the class system. Equally, in the inevitable resolution that incorporates the hero or heroine into that class through hidden identity or marriage, the fantasy dream-work characterizes an underlying longing to belong. For instance, The Catch of the Season, as the classic Cinderella story, mocks the upper class in its portrayal of the vulgar stepmother and vain, empty- headed stepsisters but ultimately celebrates Angela’s entry into the upper class with the fanfare of an elaborate wedding. Schechner suggests a conflict resolution system that resolves the tension by widening the circle of insiders. In The Catch of the Season this widening is achieved by the recognition of Angela’s new status through the wedding, characterized by Schechner as a theatrical reduction-transformation resolution of the conflict. Pursuant to this theory, the slew of marriages between society play actresses and peers or other upper-class men became a translation of this process into life experience where the inclusion of these women into the upper class was a way to resolve or diffuse class tension that could otherwise take a more drastic form.

451 Richard Schechner, Performance Theory (London and New York: Routledge, 1988), 282.

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The conflict resolution effected by the widening of the upper class through assimilation of actress brides into the ranks of the upper class was facilitated through the operation of the celebrity status of the actress. In Chapter Three I considered how portrait images of the upper-class woman facilitated her transformation into a form of media celebrity, ensuring her ongoing role in the public imagination. The assimilation of the Society-play actress into the echelons of the upper class and the conflation through fashion and pose of the images of the two groups of women reinforced this celebrity status of the elite woman, supplementing the public fascination with the upper class through an equal or even stronger interest in the life of the actress. As David Marshall has noted, the idea of celebrity as it developed in the late nineteenth century was closely implicated in the rise of democracy. He suggests that there was a shift from the idea of the hereditary or politically derived fame to a more attainable form of public authority derived directly from the masses: “The celebrity embodied that contradiction of being individually elevated and thus relatively unique, but dependent on a new system of ‘democratically inspired’ values that was derived from popular audiences.”452 The ability to follow the progress of the Society- play actress from undistinguished beginnings to the adulation attendant on being a theatre star and then ultimately into the Cinderella or Pygmalion ending of entry into the upper class offered a tangible and visual affirmation of the possibility of social mobility. The actress served as a model, breaking down the process of social assimilation into the aristocracy into feasible components. This possibility, regardless of practical probability, was

452 P. David Marshall, “Intimately Intertwined in the Most Public Way: Celebrity and Journalism,” The Celebrity Culture Reader, ed. by P. David Marshall (New York: Routledge, 2006), 317.

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sufficient to effect a change in the perspective of many viewers on the upper class,

translating envy into a potentially realizable desire. The interest in and desirability of the life

of the upper-class woman was enhanced by the illusion of accessibility and reinforced by the outflow of images that created a simulacrum of contact, feeding the desire of the public

necessary to maintain the status of celebrity.

MUTUAL ADAPTATION

As the upper class accommodated the entry of plutocrats, American heiresses, and finally

the actress, these new entrants conformed to the standards and behaviour of the class.

However, the adaptation process was reciprocal and the assimilation of new members also

effected a responding change in the presentation of being upper class for the aristocratic

woman. Leonore Davidoff has spoken of the theatricalization of the upper class during this

period. With the loss of political and economic power and prestige, the upper-class female correspondingly intensified the public display of being upper class, playing to the public to an unprecedented extent. The idea of public performance ranged from the ritual enactment of Coronations, Jubilees, and Royal funerals to the public spectacles of pageants and theatricals.453 Faced with the loss of suitable mates to “peer-snatching” actresses, The

Bystander suggested that the dull debutante should “do something in the competitive line?

Why not learn to smile, aux dents of course, or dance, or sing?”454 In this context, the

453 These events that are essentially a form of formal theatre translated to unconventional venues. 454 “The Snatchers,” The Tatler (London) no. 500, January 25, 1911, 81.

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journal article suggests a much broader concept of theatrical performance, translating the

concepts of the theatre to the everyday performance of identity by the upper-class woman.

I suggested earlier that the assimilation of entrants to the upper-class was, to some extent,

a reciprocal process of adaptation. I have considered the effect of the Society play on the socially ambitious viewer and on the performing actresses. However, these productions, which attracted a substantive attendance from the ranks of the upper class, presented a view of the upper class that arguably affected their own perception of themselves. As noted by Kaplan and Stowell, these Society plays showed the aristocracy “how they appeared to a representative English mind that was not natively aristocratic in its outlook.”455 A performance of a Society play blurred the division between stage and gallery with the audience divided as to the focus of attention. The cartoon published in The Tatler in 1908 depicts the upper-class audience pre-occupied with their own interaction (fig. 4.45). The producer waits in the wings, peeking out around the curtain, while the performance occurs off-stage. Stage and gallery have been reversed and the members of the elite audience have become the performers. Many of the theatre reviews published in the Society journals gave more attention to the aristocratic attendees than to the merits of the performance. One review of a Barrie play focused on the presence of Diana Manners with her sister and mother, “Lady Diana doing an extremely effective turn with an enormous feather fan that greatly interested the house.”456 The Bystander similarly noted that the popular judgment

455 Kaplan and Stowell, Theatre and Fashion, 35. 456“Rose Du Barri(e),” The Tatler (London) March 31, 1915, 440.

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of the performance was based on attendance: “If the house is filled with well known ‘smart’ people wearing tiaras and jewels all is well.”457

In a Society play the integration between audience and stage created a competitive doubling, with each vying to present the more engaging representation of upper-class life.

In The Edwardians, Vita Sackville-West’s description of the middle-class Teresa attending

the opera emphasizes the equal or even primary prominence of the upper-class audience as

the focus of the theatrical event, “on show like regal animals or plumaged birds, well-

accustomed and seemingly indifferent to excited gaze.”458 Identifying aristocratic personages through the numerous photographs she has cut from the illustrated magazines, she is excited beyond measure at the knowledge that they are within reach.459 She can hardly wait for the lights to be raised so that she can soak in the spectacle of tier upon tier of boxes full of “the queens of fashion and beauty – or so thought Teresa, undiscriminating between the rightful holder and the parvenue – dazzling in their tiaras and rivières, resplendent in their satins and décolletés.”460 The fashion and the gestures of the upper- class woman, gently waving her fan or allowing her eyes to acknowledge a friend, constituted a performance of identity that absorbed Teresa’s attention, acting as a competing theatrical spectacle to the activity on the stage.

457 “Tiaras or Music,” The Bystander (London) August 3, 1910, 214. 458 Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians (London: The Hogarth Press, 1978), 179. 459 This incident showcases the relationship between representation and presence described by Sharon Marcus, the former creating a longing or desire for the latter. Sharon Marcus, “Celebrity 2.0: The Case of Marina Abramovic,” Public Culture, vol. 27, 1 (2015): 29. 460 Vita Sackville-West, The Edwardians, 181.

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Another facet of the competitive doubling that occurred in this period was the popularity of

upper-class acting. The subjects of and audience to the representations of Society by

professional actors and actresses also sometimes moved from the gallery to the stage, often

performing on stage a version of upper-class drama as envisioned by a non-aristocratic

writer. The interest of the upper class in costume dress and in amateur theatricals was not

new.461 If in Jane Austen’s novel Mansfield Park, published in 1814, the amateur theatricals

proposed by the younger set of family and close neighbours were considered scandalous

activity encouraging impropriety, notwithstanding the private nature of the performance,

that was not the case at the end of the century.462 By the turn of the twentieth century, the upper class participated in an exceptional number of theatrical performances that were increasingly professional in quality and public in nature. Stowell and Kaplan attribute part of the upper-class interest in attending the professional theatre to their identification with the role of the actors and actresses, suggesting that “Society…enjoyed rubbing shoulders with its surrogates, seeing them as fellow players whose professional activities were echoed in their own private theatricals, pageants, and tableaux vivants.”463 Captions appeared below

Society portraits of Mrs. Willie James and other upper-class women lauding their prowess

as amateur actresses as fashionable talents.

461 The practice of upper-class theatricals of the upper class long predated the nineteenth century: the performance of Milton’s Masque at Ludlow Castle in the sixteenth century, for instance, is an early modern precedent. 462 Jane Austen, Mansfield Park: a novel, 2ed., vol. II (London: J. Murray, 1816), 29. 463 Kaplan and Stowell, Theatre and Fashion, 84.

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I have suggested that Society plays perhaps inspired a form of competition for the performance of the upper-class environment, a feeling that the elite amateur could compete with the professional through personal identification with the habitus of the characters depicted. I further suggest that underlying this motive was an implicit concern over the fraudulent performance of class and anxiety over the ability to discern the true from the assumed. In considering the drawn portrait images of the Duchess of Rutland, I traced ideas linking the portrait visage to concepts of underlying character or personal qualities of the subject depicted. The idea of qualities of nationality and class defined by exterior appearance also permeated discourse on genetic breeding and ideas of female beauty. While physiognomy can be logically distinguished from external makeovers focused on fashion or pose, we have seen that images of the ideal refer to the overall impression or impact, only part of which deals with the physical structure of the face. The ability of the actress to acquire and to perform qualities of class and beauty by refashioning her exterior presentation through fashion, speech, and movement threatened the idea of correlation between appearance and the identification of inherent worth. Not only were these actresses able to plausibly perform class, they were able to translate the stage performance into a continuing presentation of upper class outside the theatre and, in so doing, be legitimized and authenticated in this role through their social mobility through the class structure.

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DECIPHERING STATUS

The concern over the ability to ‘place’ or ‘identify’ people through exterior appearance was augmented by the increased availability of the clothes and accessories worn by the upper- class woman, or less expensive renditions of these items available in the rapidly expanding department stores. The ability to study and to mimic the “upper-class look” was facilitated by the plethora of Society plays allowing for examination and comparison of the performances of stage and gallery. Within the upper class, the expansion from a tightly knit family group to the inclusion of a diverse range of Americans, plutocrats, and other entrants that had occurred during the last quarter of the century meant that not all members of the class were known to each other. The ability to “pass off” as upper class raised concerns of fraud and deception on a superficial level, requiring a much stricter vetting of aristocratic events such as the Royal Enclosure at Ascot and Court Presentations. However, on a deeper level, the inability to tell genuine from artificial raised questions as to the existence of any essentialized or inherent qualities that served to justify the continuing hierarchy of the class system.

This concern over the potential for fraudulent appearance or obfuscated reality was not restricted to the upper class, and there was a general pre-occupation with the ability to discern the truth through the close examination of exterior clues. The end of the century was a period identified by a rise in puzzles and games incorporated into newspapers and journals, and in the genre of the problem picture, which became ubiquitous after 1895. In

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her discussion of the problem picture, Pamela Fletcher acknowledges that the problem picture is best identified as a process or social practice like going to the theatre or reading

fiction, in which viewers are invited to identify the characters and the issues through visual

recognition of “the web of social conventions that represented and reproduced Edwardian

culture and society.”464 The need for the viewer to act as a form of decoder mimicked the

rise of the detective story and, in particular, the scientific empiricism asserted by Sherlock

Holmes and others of his genre. Sherlock Holmes, a fictional creation of Sir Arthur Conan

Doyle, made his first appearance in 1887 but became the subject of wide-spread popularity

in the 1890s when his stories began to be published in The Strand Magazine. Sherlock

Holmes became famous for his exceptional powers of deduction and, specifically, his ability

to observe exterior characteristics of a subject that permitted him to deduce the

background, status, and habits of the person examined. Although from a literary

perspective there is some debate over whether this reliance on scientific method and

empiricism was validated by the substance of the narrative, there is acknowledgement of

the “actually occurring characteristic of the texts: the rhetorical and narrative insistence

upon the clues’ being decodable.”465 For instance, in A Case of Identity, Holmes instructs

Watson on the deductions to be made upon meeting their young female client, Miss Mary

Sutherland. When Watson superficially identifies the woman by her clothing as “being fairly

well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way,” Holmes reminds him to “never trust to

464 Pamela Fletcher, Narrating Modernity: The British Problem Picture 1895-1914 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003), 7. 465 Ben Parker, “The Method Effect: Empiricism and Form in Sherlock Holmes,” Novel 49:3 (November 2016): 449–466, 450.

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general impressions…but concentrate yourself upon details.” Holmes’s intensive

observation identified the discrepancies in this performance of class and position that

enabled him to draw deductions as to her personal circumstances and activities.466

The fear of imposters was augmented by new theories of vision that questioned the

conventional assumption of a fixed, objective appearance of matter. In his book

Suspensions of Perception, Jonathon Crary has identified the nineteenth century as a period

of re-examination of the relationship between the individual and his or her sensory

perception of the exterior world. In particular, Crary ties changing discoveries at the end of

the nineteenth century to changing ideas of how the synthesis of perception occurs. Instead

of an instantaneous intake of a fixed and stable image, vision was identified as a synthesis

of a complex aggregate of processes of eye movement filtered through subjective

experience to form an image that conformed to a world view.467 The idea that perception was partially subjective and in flux contributed to doubts about the accepted understanding of the stability of the subject and the consequent ability to accept things at face value based on a superficial visual impression.

I am suggesting a transition in the way viewers approached the activity of viewing a portrait or a portraitive practice. Portraits of upper-class women were now exposed to the public in

466 Arthur Conan Doyle, A Case of Identity, https://sherlock-holm.es/stories/pdf/a4/1- sided/iden.pdf, 5. 467 Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle, and Modern Culture (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 1999), 319.

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images that incorporated a variety of poses and contexts. Where previously the aristocratic female was depicted through a limited number of controlled portraits with limited public access, the changes in portraitive practices during the period from 1890 to 1914 meant that, in addition to these curated images, these women were being publicly depicted in images that claimed spontaneity, images where they wore the formal costume and accessories of upper-class ritual, and images of amateur theatricals or costume events that openly acknowledged the performative aspect of the portrait. The idea of seeing the upper-class woman in her real environment was confused and complicated by the intermingling of images of these women performing and images where the act of being upper class was itself a costumed performance. I suggest that these images destabilized the idea of the image as depicting the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ subject in a manner that corresponded with the discourse on the process of vision as described by Crary.

The portrait or performance in this period, instead of being adopted as an authentic valuation of the merit of the subject, had the potential to be perceived with the emotional distance of viewing a spectacle where the merit lay in the quality and consistency of the image. I posit that the fascination of the upper class with the idea of performance, costume and fashion arose out of an underlying anxiety, and that the increased interest in activities that focused on public theatrical displays provided a means of expressing or exploring ideas of appearance and performance.468 Although many of these more public spectacles served

468 In this sense of performance, the theatrical term is metaphorically extrapolated into everyday life. It does not assume a conscious or rehearsed set of actions or speech.

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the purpose of re-establishing or emphasizing the past grandeur of the aristocracy, culling

from the past to construct images of splendour and power, other performances were

unrelated to any broader purpose, acting to probe, participate, or celebrate the freedom of

assuming new identities.

FANCY DRESS PARTY

The trend of upper-class fancy dress parties at the end of the nineteenth century arguably

began with the ball held by the Duchess of Warwick in 1895. However, the Fancy Dress Ball

held at the London residence of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire during the Jubilee

celebrations in 1897 was the Society event of the decade. Invitations were highly coveted

and identified the participant as part of the fashionable subset of the aristocracy.469 Reports and photographs of the Ball were published in numerous papers and journals, making this one of the first private Society events to be so publicly exposed, and blurring the division between private and public activities of the upper class. The invitations to the Ball required the guests to attend in “allegorical or historical costume before 1815,” and the memoirs of

Florence Williams recount how “Neither expense nor ingenuity was spared in devising and carrying out the most beautiful costumes. Old books and pictures were consulted to make

469 Sophia Murphy, The Duchess of Devonshire’s Ball (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1984), 54. There is little written on the fancy-dress ball, but see Kate Strasdin, Inside the Royal Wardrobe: A Dress History of Queen Alexandra (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017) for an analysis of Queen Alexandra’s approach to costumes at fancy-dress balls and Cynthia Cooper, Magnificent Entertainments: Fancy Dress Balls of Canada’s Governor General, 1876- 1898 (Fredericton, N.B.: Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1997) for a discussion on similar Canadian events.

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sure that the historical figures were accurate in every detail, and in many cases those taking

part assumed the characters of famous ancestors.”470

Photographers from Lafayette & Co., a prominent photographic studio of the era, were present at the Ball, requesting each guest to pose for a memorial photograph, and a photograph of Mrs. Willie James was captured at the Ball, posed in her costume (fig. 4.46).

However, many guests also had their portraits taken prior to the event, using their preferred society photographer to ensure a flattering image. The image of Mrs. Willie James taken prior to the Ball by Alice Hughes portrays Mrs. James in her elaborate costume representing the Archduchess Elizabeth of Austria, sixth child of Maria Theresa, Holy Roman

Empress and Francis of Lorraine (fig. 4.47). The dress was described in reports as “a picture done in Dresden china, with her little pink and gold frock adorned with hundreds of tiniest pink roses (handmade) of chiffon, with leaves of narrow green ribbon.”471 The dress, a

creation of Lucile, once again suggests the fluidity between fashion and costume, theatre

and reality. Like the elaborate emotional dresses designed by Lucile to present her clients in

a particular aspect, this costume for Mrs. Willie James emphasized the extravagance, luxury,

and discernment of the Hapsburg Empire conflated with the cultural status of the English

aristocracy. A portrait of the Archduchess in her youth shows how Lucile and Mrs. Willie

James adapted the neck chokers habitually worn by the Archduchess, using strings of pearls

470 Florence Hfwa Williams, It was Such Fun, 75. A costume based on a painting of a famous ancestor had the additional benefit of publicly asserting the longevity of the wearer’s claim to upper-class status, differentiating them from any of the more recent entrants to the class. 471 “Impressions of the 1897 Season,” Daily Mail (London) issue 326, May 18, 1897, 4.

358 fashionable in the nineteenth century rather than the tighter dog collar of the image or the bows depicted in other representations of the Archduchess (fig. 4.48). The hairstyle of Mrs.

Willie James correspondingly nods to the elaborate creations of the earlier century while remaining flattering within contemporary styles. Similarly, the ruffled flowing sleeves and floral themes of the eighteenth-century fashion are integrated but not slavishly copied, allowing for the chiffon and delicate floral appliques that identified the creation as a Lucile dress. This fusion of past and present rendered the costume worn by Mrs. Willie James a constructed version of history adapted for the purposes of the late nineteenth century, blending the authority of an aristocratic past with the fashionable trends of the late

Victorian era. Through costume Mrs. Willie James and her fellow upper-class women explored strategies for translating the past meaning of the upper class into a form of symbolic significance that would resonate in the modern world.

A similar analysis can be made of the costume worn by Violet, the Duchess of Rutland (fig.

4.49), which was based on a 1791 portrait image by Richard Cosway of Mary Isabella,

Duchess of Rutland, who was noted for her beauty, elegance and good taste (fig. 4.50). A comparison of the two images suggests that the later costume was inspired by rather than a copy of the earlier portrait. Violet’s photographic portrait was taken in a studio before the event, and depicts the Duchess wearing a vaguely eighteenth-century ruffled bodice and elaborate head-piece. However, the flowing robes and the headdress (an accessory often worn by Violet) adopted in the costume speak more to the fashion style invariably adopted by Violet than they do to the Cosway portrait of her ancestor. I suggest that, again, the

359 concept was to blend the idea of a constructed historic past, in which the upper class was accepted without question as the class of power, wealth, and culture, and fuse it with the reality of the upper class of the late nineteenth century through the blending of the fashion and style of past and present.

Many of the guests coordinated their costumes into specific periods, collaborating to form a cohesive court. Mrs. Willie James, for instance, formed part of the Austrian Court of Maria

Theresa, with Lady Londonderry assuming the role of the Holy Roman Empress. In her book on the Devonshire Fancy Dress Ball, Sophia Murphy describes how the evening started with the formal progression of the courts through the rooms opened for the Ball. She describes the progression of Lady Londonderry as Maria Theresa: “She was accompanied by the

Marchioness of Landsowne as Lady Keith, a friend of the Empress, and the Marquis of

Lansdowne as Prince Kaunitz, Chamberlain to Her Majesty. Five Archdukes and

Archduchesses, all in white and silver with powdered hair, attended her, followed by various Austrian princes and princesses, and a Coldstreamer in Vienna, played by Lord

Winchester. Led by Lady Londonderry, the members of the court walked one by one to the foot of the dais, and curtseyed or bowed to the royal party before passing on to the ballroom.”472 Murphy notes that in addition to allowing everyone to both show off their own costumes and view the costumes of others, the processions organized the ball into a form of historical narrative. This sentiment was echoed in a passage of a novel published in

1899 where the narrator, supposedly present at the Ball, suddenly realizes that “Now the

472 Sophia Murphy, The Duchess of Devonshire’s Ball, 135.

360 whole inner meaning of it is clear. It is the pageant of the Bosses of recorded time. All who have held the world in the hollow of the hand in all that the world most prizes – acres, wealth, and power – have come to keep Walpurgis revel with those who hold it now.”473

In addition, notwithstanding the stillness of the portrait images, this was a performance of portraiture. The costumes, like the one worn by Mrs. Willie James, were best seen to advantage in movement. The successful performance of the status represented by the costumes required the stately movement and mannerisms that translated the event from fancy dress into a statement of privilege and leadership. This aspect of performance can be detected in the poses adopted by certain of the female guests. In the image of the Princess of Pless costumed as Cleopatra, she has adorned herself with an exotic fan and headdress worn over an anachronistically elaborate silk dress bedazzled with shimmering decoration

(fig. 4.51). Her nineteenth-century adaptation of costume is complemented in the photograph taken at the event by her performed adaptation of the eroticism with which the

Egyptian Queen was identified. Daisy, Princess of Pless, stretches out along the step, leaning back languorously with one arm outstretched invitingly. Although she arguably appears incredibly stiff and uncomfortable, her head held at an awkward angle and her right arm struggling to hold the heavy fan in position, it is apparent that she is attempting to embody her character through performance.

473 Richard Whiting, No. 5 John Street (London: Grant Richards, 1899), 300.

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The performance of status and power manifested in the holding of and attendance at the

Ball was novel in its permitting of public exposure, albeit controlled. While the event was

strictly limited to fashionable invitees, the photographs taken at the event, or provided by

those participants who chose to have portraits made by favoured photographers, were

disseminated to journals for publication and further compiled into a book that was

published in 1899. Certainly, these two forms of compiled and disseminated images had

very different intended audiences. The book was created as a form of memorialization of

the event, intended as a gift for the Duchess of Devonshire, and limited in its distribution.

The action of creating and publishing a book indicated a recognition of the event as unusual,

a seminal occasion, ascribing a significance to the evening. However, the memorial volume

also contemplated the possibility of the exposure of the images to a wider public once

images were removed from private control in the form of a published volume. The more

direct public release of photographs and descriptions of the event allowed the papers and

journals to provide a glimpse of upper-class pageantry to the reading public, connecting the textual descriptions of the processions and costumes with the photographic images. The

Sketch provided a full page of description and devoted four full pages to photographs of the

costumed guests. In one page consisting of four photographs, the performance aspect of

the event is apparent (fig. 4.52). These images are more than fashion shots of costume. In

one, a Louis XV courtier flirtatiously addresses his consort; in another, Diana, the Goddess

of the Chase, has just released her bow; and in the remaining two photographs Daisy,

Princess of Pless, as the Queen of Sheba, seductively competes for attention with another

exotic Oriental Queen.

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The reaction of the public was varied. In Richard Whiteing’s book, No. 5 John Street, the

narrator describes the endless row of carriages approaching the Ball: “It seemed to

dislocate the whole traffic of town. Our pace was funereal. The populace stared at us with

only less interest than they stare at convoys of the dead. We, with affected detachment

from mundane interests, stared at the new moon.” In a manner similar to the interaction of

the massed public with the debutantes on their way to a Court Presentation, the crowd

noted the famous and made suggestive comments about the beautiful. Whiteing’s narrator

describes how inside the portals, the city becomes a distant bass, with “crowd, carriages,

and police – subdued to harmony as a beat of sullen waves.”474 The tone of the description

suggests the obliviousness of the aristocratic attendees of the event to any rumblings of the

populace. Whiteing is writing a social commentary that is intended to extol the true virtue

of the lower classes and his view of the impending end of the dominance of the upper class

is clearly shown in his narrator’s summation of the Ball: “It soothes with a sense of the

permanence of things, and of the vanity of the stock warning about the crusts of

volcanoes.”475 However, the Daily Mail perhaps took a more objective view, and purported to highlight the opinion of many, that the “elaborate and costly preparations for the

Devonshire House ball should be made to serve some practical purpose, as well as making very brilliant just that one historical party.” The paper balanced this criticism by noting the trade generated by the gala but agreed with the complaint that this form of spectacle

474 Whiteing, 5 John Street, 297. 475 Ibid, 303.

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should be performed in public rather than behind private lines: “If those who were at the

ball consented to appear in tableaux at some public place – the Imperial Institute, for

instance – there is no doubt that a very large sum of money indeed would be collected for

the Prince of Wales’s Fund, and dresses which were seen by a few only once, and at a

disadvantage in the crowd, could be admired by every one at leisure.”476 The resistance

highlighted by the Daily Mail was not focused on the elimination of the upper class but on

the demand for greater access, the demand for the upper class to publicly perform being

upper class in a manner that provided benefit to the remaining population.

This suggestion was adopted by the upper class, and during the following years until the

War, the public fancy dress party for charity, either initiated or supported by the upper

class, became an increasingly frequent feature of the Season. In 1906, The Bystander

chastised the aristocracy for not providing sufficient presence at public balls like the Fancy

Dress Ball at Covent Garden.477 However, by 1911, there was a plethora of Fancy Dress Balls in which the upper class mixed with the socially aspiring at various public locations. The

Bystander report of one such event described “Royalties, musical-comedy actresses, the

Imperial Russian dancers from the Palace (who gave us a turn before supper), a very fair sprinkling of Society, lots of Americans, and the usual generous supply of the London financial fraternity in the sacred cause of charity all hobnobbed positively with abandon.”478

476 “Impressions of the 1897 Season,” Daily Mail (London) issue 326, May 18, 1897, 4. 477 The Bystander, (London) May 4, 1910, 214. 478 The Bystander, (London) May 24, 1911, 378.

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Many of these Society events were organised by upper-class women to convey a narrative of historical eras of a stable class system. In a spread in The Tatler, Mrs. Willie James can be spotted in the upper-right group portrait of “Prominent Personalities at the Shakespere

Ball,” held at the Albert Hall in 1911 (fig. 4.53). The description of the Versailles Fête also held at Albert Hall in June of 1913 indicates that the essential structure of the Fancy Dress ball established at the Devonshire event in 1897 was transported into these public forums and performed for a broader audience. Dressed in flattering fashions hinting at the era of

Louis XIV, the upper class divided itself into various Courts, with each Court proceeding through the Ball in a performance that hearkened back to an era of absolutism. The images framing the text show a variety of aristocratic women, posed as if caught in the act of performance. The image of Lady Diana Manners, part of the Court of France, is particularly striking (fig. 4.54). Dressed in a flattering embroidered gown she leans forward as she looks to the camera, as if caught in the process of movement. In addition to her gown and jewels she has added a black page dressed in animal skins, who diligently follows behind her, concentrating on keeping the parasol properly angled above her head. The page acts as an accessory to the portrait image she creates through her performance, drawing on the artistic convention of portraying aristocratic women with African attendants as a sign of status and wealth. The pose assumed by Diana for the photograph mimics a similar composition used by Sir Anthony van Dyck in his portrait of the Marchesa Elena Grimaldi

Cattaneo painted in 1623 where van Dyck also depicted a page hold a parasol over the head of his upper-class mistress (fig. 4.55). However, the inclusion of the black child servant in formal status portraiture was a common feature from the seventeenth to the nineteenth

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century, not limited to this reference. Pages held the trains of the costumes worn by

portrait subjects, fed them fruit, and stood nearby awaiting instructions. In adopting a

similar convention Diana utilized a reference that would be understood by other members

of the upper class, familiar with the status portraits of a prior age, and also with the prerogatives of the aristocracy in the context of modern empire and its racial politics. Here, though, we are not dealing with a static status portrait. Diana translated the still and frozen image of the portrait into a living portraitive act as she paraded through the assembly.

These processions dominated the Ball, taking almost two hours to complete and, to a large

extent, transformed the Ball into an upper-class performance of historical authority and

privilege. The Bystander noted that “To make these functions a success you must attract the

rich and elegant, and to do this apparently, you must graciously permit them to spend

anything from twenty-five to a hundred pounds on their costumes. Having won this

privilege they naturally want to make the most of it and to show their friends, admirers, and

rivals what good taste they have and how nice they would look if they did not happen to

live in the twentieth century.”479

However, not all Society Fancy Dress Balls were intended to convey such a direct class message. Particularly in the period just prior to the War, the thematic focus of many events broadened, encouraging a greater sense of inter-class integration and experimentation. The

Grand Réveillon and Masked Ball at the Savoy Hotel, organised for charity by Mrs. Hfwa

Williams, required each guest to wear a mask, with a prize offered for the most beautiful

479 “The Versailles Fête: Some Costumes -,” The Bystander (London) June 11, 1913, 540.

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woman to unmask after supper.480 Images of the prominent persons attending display a range of costumes (fig. 4.56). In this page of images, Miss Fanny Ward, an American actress, dramatically displays her “Eastern” costume and expensive jewels. Beside her, another juxtaposition of the actress with the society woman, is a photograph of Miss Violet Lewers, a relative of the Baron of Belhaven and Stenton, assuming a tough pose in her costume of a male Apache dancer. The term “Apache” was coined by the Parisian press at the beginning of the twentieth century to refer to the violent street gangs of the time. In 1908, a dance

was created based on the stylization of a violent confrontation between a male Apache and

his consort. In her costume, the debutante therefore assumes not only the costume but the

iconic pose of a lower-class male. She is unmasked and her identity is prominently stated

below her image, rendering her performance a public statement of experimentation.

However, the caption under the images suggests that many of the guests chose to remain

masked, using the anonymity of the occasion to similarly transgress boundaries of gender

and class through costume.

The costume or masked ball became a form of Society event that served several purposes.

Used to reaffirm class hierarchy through the re-imagination of prior eras of class stability, to

create events in which the aristocratic woman was further associated with the celebrity of

the actress, and to express ideas of instability of appearance through the experimentation

with dress associated with class and gender, the Fancy Dress Balls shared the common

480 The Bystander (London) January 8, 1913, 58.

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characteristic of performance. In these events, the upper class not only modeled the

costume but performed their interpretation of alternate identities.

AMATEUR THEATRICALS

The concept of performance that permeated the Fancy Dress Ball was addressed more

directly in the rise of aristocratic amateur theatricals that became increasingly prevalent

and public during the period from 1890 to 1914. In the previously referenced satirical sketch

complaining about the “peer-snatching” of the society play actress, even as the aristocratic

female denounces the moral depravity of acting she reminds her companion of the need to

arrange the theatricals for the charity bazaar.481 In a manner that mimicked the exercise of

female political power considered in Chapter Two, the upper class used the prophylactic of

philanthropy to protect their ‘amateur’ acting from public and inter-class censure. In a 1908

article, The Tatler noted the growth of the aristocratic “West End” amateur production: “No

better expedient for promoting charity’s cause could be devised than the representation of

a high-class play by well-known people who in themselves constitute an attraction behind

the footlights.”482 The repertoire of plays selected by these groups for performance were based primarily on the range of Society plays flooding the theatres of London, resulting in a doubling effect of watching the aristocracy perform a version of upper-class life that was often constructed through the perceptions of a middle-class author. The costumes worn by

481 “The Peerage and the Stage,” The Bystander (London) February 28, 1906, 408. 482 “Private v. Amateur Theatricals,” The Tatler (London) April 22, 1908, 85.

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the actors were the fashions created by design houses to be ‘previewed’ by the actress on

stage for consumption by the watching upper-class public. The translation of the life of the

upper class into a spectacle for enjoyment provided a new foundation or purpose for the

upper class in the social system even while the acknowledgment of class as a performance

destabilized the immutable claims of privilege. As the upper class experimented with

adaptations of behaviour required to meet the expectations of the public through these

performances, the division between stage and audience eroded and provided a permeable

border for the renegotiation of societal definitions.

The roots of the aristocratic amateur play lay in the country house entertainment. As suggested in the earlier discussion of Mansfield Park, in the earlier nineteenth century these entertainments were confined to the privacy of the household, public performances being considered inappropriate for the retention of modesty and decorum expected of the upper- class woman. At the end of the century, many of these theatrical events continued in the country house setting. However, these events now assumed a far more professional aspect and the performances broadened to include a public audience, providing an additional dimension of access to the private spaces of the upper class. As a prominent example, the theatricals at Chatsworth, the country estate of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, were a highlight of the annual visit of King Edward VII. The Duchess of Devonshire credited herself with the discovery of budding amateur actresses, including Mrs. Willie James, and Mrs.

James was a recurring participant in these productions from the late 1890s.483 In 1904 Mrs.

483 “The Late Duchess of Devonshire,” The Bystander (London) July 19, 1911, 114.

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Willie James assumed the role of Cinderella in the production of the play at Chatsworth. An

image taken by Alice Hughes depicts Mrs. James in her costume, her face dramatically and

becomingly framed in a frothy ruffled hood (fig. 4.57). While we do not know the dressmaker, the use of tulle and shimmering material is consistent with the materials favoured by Lucile.484 The accompanying text identified Mrs. Willie James as “the most popular and charming of our amateur actresses…Known to our Queen from childhood, she has long been among the most intimate of Her Majesty’s younger friends, and she has had the signal honour of entertaining the King and Queen at her beautiful home, near

Goodwood, on more than one occasion.”485 The ability to perform in theatricals became a

quality of the fashionable upper-class woman, facilitated by the association with and

approbation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra.

Although public photographs of the performances were not published, each year the papers

and journals provided lengthy descriptions of the King’s visit to Chatsworth over the winter

holiday and the theatricals performed during the event. The journal Onlooker reported on

the King’s visit, announcing that “The days will be taken up with shooting and sightseeing,

while two evenings are to be devoted to theatricals, the first night being a private

performance and the second the annual charity function, at which it is quite possible their

Majesties will also be present.” The main attraction of the theatricals was the performance

484 Although this does not confirm that the garment was a Lucile creation, Mrs. Willie James did patronize Lucile as a dressmaker and in 1904 Lucile’s prominence was still developing so that imitators were less common. 485 “A Leading Amateur Actress,” The Bystander (London) January 6, 1904, 325.

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of the pantomime of Cinderella, at which the costumes (even of the ugly step-sisters) were

expected to be “perfectly sumptuous.”486 The Derby Daily Telegraph reported that the

audience for the Thursday night private performance, located in the theatre attached to

Chatsworth House, included the King and Queen and Princess Victoria. In addition to the

house party staying at Chatsworth, there were 125 specially invited guests representative of

the county gentry.487 The Friday night performance in contrast was aimed at a broader public, with charges for admission of half a guinea downwards.488 The effect of this performance needs to be contextualized within the setting of the estate. Passing through the gates of the Park, the entrant would proceed down the long drive, faced with the grand house that was itself staged, “illuminated on an imposing scale.” The scheme for illumination included the “outlining of the house with thousands of fairy lamps and various searchlight effects.”489 The play, a variation on the theme of Cinderella, was a musical comedy bordering on farce and described in detail by The Sheffield Daily Press. Unlike The

Catch of the Season, which emphasized the transformation of the Cinderella figure by costume into a marriageable debutante, this version was a complicated mocking of the

Society plays and other representations that claimed to depict the upper class. The two ugly stepsisters were depicted from the beginning as fashion icons, explicitly referring to the

Society play as fashion show. Cinderella is herself a pre-debutante straining to escape the

486 Onlooker (London) January 9, 1904, 344. 487 “The King and Queen at Chatsworth,” Derby Daily Telegraph, (Derby) issue 7522, Friday, January 8, 1904, 2. 488 “The King and Queen at Chatsworth,” Derby Daily Telegraph, (Derby) issue 7520, Wednesday, January 6, 1904, 2. 489 “The Visit of the King and Queen to Chatsworth,” Derby Daily Telegraph, (Derby) issue 7517, Saturday, January 2, 1904, 2.

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restrictions of the young girl and make her appearance in public. Instead of transforming

herself into an elegant debutante, she appears at the meeting of the local Guild, gathered

“for the purpose of education and pleasure,” and proceeds to perform a somewhat outré

dance as “Miss Novelli” in skimpy costume. Her wishes include a motor-car with chauffeur,

which she uses to transport herself to the Guild Hall.490 In viewing this play, the audience is treated to an inner glimpse of the upper-class reaction to the public perception and representation of class. The mocking and farcical tone of the play suggests resistance, even while the humorous and light-hearted performance infers an acceptance and even an embrace of the characterization of the upper-class girl as fashion leader in both the narrow sense of clothing and appearance and in the broader conception of the term, as a leader in embracing the modernity of movement and new standards of conduct for the modern woman.

Upper-class amateur theatricals did not remain confined to the country house. Under the guise of charity, public performances of the upper class, particularly the upper-class woman, became so common that “one could pass the livelong day in going to concerts or amateur theatricals, which are generally organised for the glorification of some well-known amateur or other.”491 Mrs. Willie James both performed in theatricals and organised them,

becoming a semi-professional producer and director. A group photograph published in The

Tatler in 1910 shows Mrs. Willie James standing in front of the door of a public community

490 “The Royal Visit to Chatsworth,” The Sheffield Daily Telegraph, issue 15130, Friday, January 8, 1904, 7. 491 “A Public Nuisance,” The Bystander (London, England) November 24, 1909, 363.

372 venue surrounded by her company of amateur performers (fig. 4.58). In the image, Mrs.

James and her troupe stand in relaxed positions. This is not a status image. It is a group of actors comfortable in front of the camera. The plays arranged by Mrs. Willie James were performed at a semi-professional standard, and often encompassed more than one performance and more than one location. Papers covered the theatrical tours of Mrs. James and her cast as she moved from small town to small town performing in aid of local charities. Although primarily composed of amateurs, the casts of these productions also included professionals, providing another site of intersection between the aristocratic woman and the acting profession. Although not garnering the same photographic publicity as the professional theatre, reviews and images were increasingly presented in a manner that was consistent with the professional performance. A cartoon depicts one of Mrs. Willie

James’s productions in Chichester, setting out the characters of the play through a series of drawn portraits depicting the actors in their character roles (fig. 4.59). Similar forms of images were routinely provided for the professional Society play. Comparing the James cartoon with the cartoon of the Zena Dare production of The Catch of the Season (fig. 4.60), we can see that a similar style of sketch is used in each, implying that the visage of the performers in the amateur production would be sufficiently well known to require a speaking likeness. The professionalization of the amateur theatre of the upper class and the convergence of the media treatment of the amateur and professional facilitated the continuing conflation of the aristocratic woman with the actress in a new form of celebrity.

The prestige of the amateur provided legitimacy to the professional, assisting in the

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transition of social status of the actress. Simultaneously, the widespread celebrity of the

actress added to the glamour and interest in the amateur production.

Although Mrs. Willie James skirted the edge between the professional and the amateur,

there were upper-class girls and women who crossed the threshold to become professional

stage actresses. For some, their engagement was of a limited nature, an interlude or a

pause in the activities of the debutante. There are numerous reports of debutantes

appearing in professional productions, generally as members of the chorus. The Bystander

devoted a page to discussion of the phenomenon, asserting that “there are many more

aristocratic dames and damsels ‘walking on’ at the West End theatres than is generally

known.” Where a disaffected young aristocratic woman used to go in for hospital nursing or

district visiting, now “she goes on the stage, and preferably into the chorus of musical

comedy.”492 As women assumed the guise of the Society play actress, they also adopted the more theatrical conventions of the actress portrait. Lady Constance Annesley writes in her memoirs how she and her sister attended classes in acting and in art during their period as debutantes. This foray into the arts was by this time an accepted pastime for the young upper-class girl while she waited to marry. Constance recounts how her mother’s consent to her attendance at theatre school was premised on the assumption that Constance would

“look in there for an hour or two every morning and perhaps again every afternoon.”493 A

portrait of Lady Constance published in The Tatler in 1910 when Constance was 15 presents

492 “Stage Struck Society,” The Bystander (London, England), December 6, 1911, 529. 493 Constance Malleson (Colette O’Neil), After Ten Years: A Personal Record (London: Jonathan Cape, 1931), 73.

374 her as a schoolgirl with her hair down and wearing a demure ruffled top pinned with a brooch or cameo at the throat (fig. 4.61). Her portrait taken five years later depicts a dramatically different image (fig. 4.62). Much to her mother’s dismay, she had abandoned her amateur status to become a professional actress. Lady Constance poses as if in mid- performance with her arm melodramatically raised for effect. Her costume is glamourous and attention-seeking, the gold lamé shimmering in the carefully placed lighting. Her hair is now coiffed in a chic modern style and her features accented with cosmetics. In a continuing interchange of portrait conventions, the upper-class woman and the actress oscillated between forms of image, confusing and conflating the signifiers of identity. For a society focused on discerning identity through visual clues, the shifting and merging of visual identifiers between actress and upper-class woman facilitated the acceptance of the shifting roles of upper-class woman and actress. The convergence of these two groups of women created a new class of celebrity noted for the performance of fashion and glamour.

Upper-class women used this celebrity as a platform to expand the social effect of their influence and agency in order to negotiate the changing landscape of the twentieth century.

CONCLUSION

This chapter has focused on the image conflation of the upper-class woman, the actress, and, to a more limited extent, the model, and considered how these images participated in the adaptation of the upper class to the changing circumstances of the early twentieth century. These images acted as a situs for the development of the idea of movement,

375 visually addressing underlying changes in daily life and, in the process, broadening the concept of the portrait to incorporate performance, creating a disturbing doubling of and oscillation between spectacle and life experience. Through this process, upper-class women of fashion became a part of a new subset of theatricalized celebrity that was established as taste leader and, as such, ensured their continued importance in the commodity culture and new dynamics of society. Their adaptation into this new configuration served as a visual symbol of the possibility of social accessibility and class mobility, rendering them an object of emulation and adulation that reinforced the perpetuation of a class-based hierarchy.

Conclusion: Fashioning the Future

In concluding, I want to refer to one more image: a fashion drawing printed in The

Bystander on December 27, 1911 (fig. 5.1). In the accompanying text, the fashion column

recommends a fancy-dress costume intended to represent the “Spirit of Speed.” The drawn

image depicts a young woman in flowing robes caught in the snapshot moment of the

process of movement. The hem of the garment is embroidered with successive images of a

train and a car that endlessly circle the circumference of the skirt, and racing cars and

horses speed up the neckline of the bodice. Her airplane hair clip is poised in arrested

motion in the curls of her hair. This idea of speed as integrated with movement and

animated with the embodied performance of the drawn figure encapsulates many of the

ideas that underlay the female portrait images of the era. We can note how the woman’s

arms and body become subsumed by the robe-like garment even while her physical

presence unlocks the meaning of the garment by putting it into motion. The symbolic

nature of the fashion and the corporeal presence of the woman merge, and the drawn

portrait image becomes the iconic reference of the female as embodying the spirit of the

future.494

If we look beyond the fashion to the female portrayed, we can identify another exemplar of the idea of the national beauty. The young, fair female has the fine, sharp features we have

494 I refer here again to Lynda Nead. In her book The Haunted Gallery, she carefully works through the interrelation of movement, speed, and media. I am suggesting here another manifestation of the connectivity of these concepts with the idea of the body in motion.

376 377 seen reiterated and repeated in the drawn portraits of the Duchess of Rutland and in the ubiquitous photographic depictions of British beauty that flooded the illustrated journals of the pre-War period. Her youth and the vibrant spirit suggested by her animated body contain an implied promise of fecundity; in the context of the discourse of degeneration and eugenics, she is the model of the biological future of the nation.

The composition of the image and the details of the accessories are redolent with echoes of the classical past and with the status portraits of the time. The timeless robe and the wings of Hermes attached to ankles and shoulders are explicit in their mythological reference to the gods of the classical era and implicit in their more contemporary association with the upper-class female image. The figure is the link that translates the authority of the Classical past with the promise of the greatness of the future in a modern technological Britain. Her placement, so that she appears to look down at the viewer, reinforces this layered association. She is a classical statue poised to flee from the top of a marble plinth and a portrait of the female aristocrat staring down from her position on the walls of the Royal

Academy. At the same time, the visible symbols of motion and technology that chase each other around the hem and neckline of the dress emphasize the connection to the technological potential of the new century. In this way, the figure, like the upper-class woman herself, is a Janus-faced emblem, drawing on the nostalgia of a past of social stability and cultured elitism while presenting herself as the model of the modern future.

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The significance of the drawing lies in its context. The figure, presented as an idealized

exemplar, was an emblem of the imagined fantasy-land of the upper-class woman, an

encapsulation of the endless journal images of debutantes and young society matrons at

the fancy-dress ball or charitable event. The ideal, perhaps, was personified for the reader

in the celebrity, sparking associative references to similar types of images of Diana Manners

and her peers. However, it is presented in the fashion section of the journal as a suggestion

for fancy dress with detailed instructions on its assembly and production. “This can be you,”

the article suggests. With the introduction of department store replicas of elite couture, the transformative nature of fashion was available to many, promising the illusion of democratic access to the elite world of the upper-class female, a world that was increasingly constructed and portrayed to the public through the portrait images and the theatrical performance of upper-class identity both on and off the conventional stage.

I do not suggest that this layering of meaning was consciously considered in the fashion drawing of the costume. I am suggesting, however, that the drawing implicitly reflected and resonated with the practices of portrait portrayal of the upper-class woman of the era, portraits that flooded the media of the time and that formed part of the changing landscape of the public perception of class and gender in the pre-War period. Audiences were accustomed to identifying the character and social status of the subject on the basis of external clues provided in the portrait image, as in a Sherlock Holmes story or an extrapolation of the art of physiognomy. The tension between the deductive certainty of the decoding process and the cognitive awareness of the constructed and performed nature

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of the portraiture portrayal operated in an uneasy dichotomy of essential truth and

performed fiction in this period of profound social change. The viewer continued to make

assumptions based on visual identifiers while simultaneously knowing that the image was a

mediated construction. Davis and Postlewait have suggested that the theatricality of an

image or performance does not necessarily mean that it is untrue, and perhaps this is what

we are seeing in the figure’s duality, a juxtaposition of two alternate perspectives of the

“truth” of the portrait, as either a depiction of the essence of the figure or an image of

constructed performance, that are co-existing rather than in opposition.

If we move away from the period 1890 to 1914 and consider the future of the upper-class

woman in the century that has since elapsed, we can see the perhaps astonishing fact that

the class system continues to stagger along in the twenty-first century. While the last

debutante presentation was held in 1948 and the upper-class women of Country Life are

just as likely to be depicted in Wellingtons as in diamonds, the sense of social and cultural

separation, the idea of insider and outsider, continues to permeate English society.

However, my interest is not in the continuation and longevity of class system, but rather in

the strategies of portrait images and practices that can be utilized for negotiation by

sections of society in order to reinforce and redefine individual and collective identity in the

perception of the public. My study has highlighted the way portraiture has been used as a

tool for the adaptation and repurposing of collective identity, sometimes reflecting and

sometimes requiring the reconstitution of individual or group behaviour. New forms of

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media call for adjusted and creative forms of portraiture practice. However, I suggest that

many of the issues and strategies faced and employed in the current age – the conscious

construction of portraits designed to create a consistent public persona; the development

of certain poses and looks that become the trademark image of the celebrity “caught” in

the snapshot; the conflation of celebrity and philanthropy to establish a platform for

political involvement; the projection of an image of moral and cultural leadership; the

overflow of the still portrait image into the theatrical staging of everyday life; and the

negotiation of a balance between public access and privacy – can find their progenitor in the pre-War period and in the practices of the upper-class women I have examined.

I therefore finish with one more example. Although worthy of a much less cursory

comparison, I want to draw the analogy between the practices considered in this study and

the portraiture practices used by Prince William and Prince Harry in their attempt to

reinvigorate the image of and public interest and investment in the Royal family. While

retaining the formal imagery that reinforces the traditional claims to power and respect

arising from the social status of Royalty, both brothers have also presented themselves as

individuals and as representatives of English royalty as emblems of a new future for Britain.

I can point to social media, television, and a continuing flood of snapshots and posed

portraits that present Princes William and Harry, with their brides and families, using their

social capital and celebrity status to influence social and political change on a global level

while also continuing to reinforce the social stability of the family unit as the traditional

model of domestic life and the value of the royal family. Like the Duchess of Sutherland, the

381 young royals use new forms of portraiture practice to leverage their conventional duties of philanthropy into real statements of social and political change. Like Diana Manners, they simultaneously maintain the distance of status while providing increasingly greater access to private details that encourage public interest and identification. The loss of privacy entailed in the greater exposure is translated into enhanced social capital available for repositioning English royalty as a viable institution for the future. Finally, it is impossible to ignore the importance of the brides of both Princes in capturing and moulding the interest of the public, both within Britain and on an international level.

The recent marriage of Prince Harry to the television actress Meghan Markle, and her assimilation as an accepted member of the Royal Family reverberates with the strategy of the upper class in the early twentieth century, as the integration and incorporation of the theatre actress was used as a means to intensify the celebrity status of the upper class, to suggest the potential for a successful resolution of the Cinderella fantasy, and to speak to the invigoration of the group with the entry of new genetic material and new cultural values.

As we saw with Princess Diana, fashion remains a method to fixate attention on the female members of the group, whose status as fashion icons is easily translated into authority for social and political views. An image of either the Duchess of Cambridge or the Duchess of

Sussex creates a fashion frenzy, as women all over the world attempt to emulate their

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style.495 If we consider Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, for instance, the plethora of mother

and child images alternate with an obsessive fascination with her wardrobe. Fashion

becomes a way to represent and to reinforce values of home and family in a way that is

accessible and relatable by many. Although the Duchess may draw on high fashion

designers for formal occasions, the style of the garment is always restrained, feminine, and

non-sexual. She is careful to offset these moments of extravagance with repeated images

where she wears accessible, ready-to-wear fashion, often by British designers, balancing the

fantasy of being a royal princess with the pretence of relatability and accessibility.

The fashion platform established by Meghan Markle through her acting career is now being

shifted to adapt to her new circumstances as the Duchess of Sussex, much in the way that

we saw images of Zena Dare adjust after her aristocratic marriage. The form-fitting and

often sexually alluring wardrobe of the actress in her former life is shifting to a more classic

and simple sophistication. In an article in British Vogue the Duchess sadly noted that she

could no longer wear thigh high boots.496 However, the edgier presentation of Meghan

Markle as compared the other royal females, together with her independent celebrity

status and the statements of race that are imbricated in her acceptance by the royal family, offer a vision of a new Britain of which the royal family can act as exemplars and

495 The fashion-icon status of the Duchess of Cambridge is estimated to have contributed $205 million to the British economy. It is estimated that the financial impact of the Duchess of Sussex’s wardrobe choices could exceed that of her sister-in-law.Tanza Loudenback, Business Insider, May 15, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/meghan-markle-kate- middleton-bring-millions-to-the-british-economy-2018-1. 496 Afua Hirsch and Claudia Croft, “The Meaning of Meghan,” Vogue, May 18, 2018, https://www.vogue.co.uk/article/meghan-markle-fashion.

383 representative figures. The mixed-race status of the new Duchess of Sussex combined with her American nationality, her inclusion in the royal family and her broad-based acceptance by the British public demonstrates the shifting ideas of national beauty and of the eugenic future of Britain. In this way, as we saw with the discussion of the strategic use of portraits and portrayals in the last century, the female members of the collective stand at a strategic juncture, emblems of a golden past and promises of a golden future.

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