Miss Fairfax

We have had a really heartening notice about Edwardian Opulence by Sylviane Gold in this morning’s New York Times, and it coincides with a small but fascinating discovery among my papers. One of the most beautiful sculptures in our exhibition is the marble bust of Miss Eve Fairfax by Auguste Rodin—known also as La Nature. The reason why we borrowed this bust is that it was the first of a string of notable British portrait commissions executed by Rodin through the Edwardian decade. Miss Fairfax was most probably Rodin’s lover, ca. 1902, or soon afterwards, but what I did not realize until after the catalogue went to press was that she was still alive in 1978. The following obituary was published in The Times on June 12 of that year:

Miss Eve Fairfax

G. writes: “This grand old lady passed away in her 107^th year on May 27 in York in which city or nearby countryside she had spent most of her long and fascinating life. A direct descendant of General [Thomas] Fairfax, she was born on October 10, 1871, at Bilborough, near York, where she spent her childhood. She rode her pony eight miles to school in York, winter and summer, taking tea most days at Bishopthorpe Palace with Archbishop Thomson’s family. As a young woman she spent many hours in the saddle following the fox-hounds round York. She was presented at Court to Queen Victoria at Windsor in 1888. The second Lord Grimthorpe commissioned Rodin to scupt her in 1902 and the result was a beautiful bust in marble, now in the National Gallery in Johannesburg; copies in bronze are in Paris and New York. That from Paris was shown several years ago in London and portrays superbly the fine figure and wonderful bone structure of Miss Fairfax. After the death of her parents she always lived in York and was a powerful figure in the Old Yorkshire Club and a frequent attender of the Snow and Summer Balls at the Old Assembly Rooms—long since discontinued. She became a welcome visitor to many great houses in England and Scotland, arriving for a few nights and frequently staying for several weeks complete with her huge autograph book of names, pictures and anecdotes of her life, and a voluminous sewing bag. A fine story-teller and avid bridge player (she played well past her 100th birthday), she was feared by children and grown-ups—but a friendly sparkle in her eyes charmed everyone. Latterly increasing infirmity of her legs prevented much movement and she was a patient for her last few years at The Retreat in York, where the devotion and wonderful kindness of the staff kept this often cantankerous and difficult old lady in high good humour. Only a few weeks before she died she was sitting up in bed reading her favourite newspaper without spectacles. Alas there will never be another Eve Fairfax, straight of back, her tall and stately figure surmounted by her beautiful nearly white hair, gave all the houses an added luster when she was around. To her few remaining friends and relations, she represented a fascinating chapter of history starting in the reign of Queen Victoria and ending after man had successfully walked on the moon.”

As obituaries go, this one takes many words to say surprisingly little. It was presumably the work of a friend or relation, who, while affectionate and admiring, also let slip some not entirely reassuring particulars. Feared by young and old alike? Cantankerous and difficult? Invited for a few nights, but stayed for several weeks? And what about that autograph album—evidence, perhaps, of the modern equivalent of scalp-hunting? The author is also muddled about the bust. Rodin carved no fewer than five versions in marble. She is right about one of them, which is indeed at Johannesburg Art Gallery (the South African National Gallery is in Cape Town). Another, the one we have here in New Haven at present, is normally to be seen in the galleries of the Legion of Honor (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco). Another three, together with many related plasters and subsequent bronzes are mostly at the Musée Rodin in Paris. If Rodin’s preoccupation with Miss Fairfax was erotic, as seems likely, in due course it waned. Some time after he finished the San Francisco bust, the sculptor inscribed it on the reverse: “À Loïe [Fuller],” and signed it a second time. Perhaps Eve Fairfax was eclipsed by the celebrated danseuse, although satisfactorily “G.” points out that Miss Fairfax was for many years an enthusiastic dancer, but purely non-professional.

The message

Every now and then one is reminded of British imperial swagger, mostly symbolical but invariably sentimental, even nostalgic. Yesterday, for example, from Buckingham Palace the Queen transmitted the following message to the International Space Station—naturally in French as well as in English:

Le 13 mars 2013

Je suis heureuse de transmettre mes vœux les plus chaleureux ainsi que ceux de tous les Canadiens et Canadiennes au Colonel Christopher Hadfield, qui prend aujourd’hui le commandement de la Station spatiale internationale. Nos pensées et nos meilleurs souhaits accompagnent le Colonel Hadfield et tout son équipage, et nous prions pour qu’ils rentrent en toute sécurité auprès de leurs familles, amis et concitoyens.

ELIZABETH R.

No doubt we would be foolish to allow ourselves too readily to think of Scott, Shackleton, Mawson, or Hillary, but the gallant imagery is plainly there for those of us who choose to take note of it.

The conclave

Nothing guarantees the rapt attention of outsiders more than the idea of blanket secrecy, and no procedure better illustrates this point than a papal conclave. As the Holy Ghost gets down to business later today, the cardinals are locked in and the rest of the world is locked out. Nobody will be in a position to know what went on unless someone inside violates the oath, either deliberately or by accident. The latter possibility is real. In the long history of conclave speculation shreds of gossip, pertinent or otherwise, have drifted like swan down from domestics in particular—those who long afterwards have been either unable or unwilling to resist the wiles of the most cunning seekers of information. The lowlier the sworn official, moreover, the scrubber of loos in Santa Marta for example, the greater must be her sense that in the midst of an unremarkable life she stands witness to a great event, albeit on the outermost periphery. Would it be so surprising if afterwards she casually complained to a non-sworn collega about the length (and liveliness) of late-night discussions in the room of a cardinal who, incidentally, likes to smoke cigars, and the inconvenience therefore of having to trudge all the way up to the fourth floor well after one o’clock in the morning? She has no reason to suppose that the collega’s brother-in-law is a journalist. Then, of course, there are the politics inherent in the process itself. By their very nature, at least a good proportion of the cardinals must be possessed of hard-nosed political shrewdness or they would not be there. Nor would they have attained each of the previous rungs in those long, stout ladders of ecclesiastical preferment. The eligible voters are, of course, bound by the apostolic constitution which governs the process, but this does not mean that some of them are not busily doing their numbers. It would appear to be very unusual, even counterproductive, for anyone to be doing or seen to be doing the numbers on their own behalf, but surely not so strange for ambitious men to lobby for a “candidate,” because not to do so would be simply naïve. Someone else will certainly be doing it. Further, in a group of 115 eligible voters one should expect to discover the fullest range of human characteristics, good and bad. Not for nothing is a staff of confessors laid on in the Sistine sacristy. The cardinals will be short-tempered or placid, patient or maddened by signs of weakness in others. There is no reason to suppose that cardinals do not bear grudges, even nurture hatreds, just like anyone else—and those may go back years and years, and originate in some petty quarrel to which men naturally cling with hot resentment, even while they are fully aware of the overriding injunction to love thy neighbor. They will be worldly and holy in different measure, keenly aware of needing publicly to convey neither too much of one quality, nor too little of the other. Some will be known to be fonder of clothes or canasta than seems entirely healthy. Some will be better than others at correctly reading a balance sheet, and acting accordingly. Others will be taking blood pressure medication. They will be clever or stupid or funny or deaf or inconceivably dull. Some will be comparatively patrician veterans of diplomatic service, their manners further enhanced by having been born into an old and distinguished Argentine or Colombian family. Some will enjoy giving the impression of wholesome and unaffected affability, while others careful to polish a performance of unrivaled ascetic dogmatism. Some, with long experience of the Roman curia, will have developed the useful skill of reading upside-down over distances of ten meters or more; others will be as blind as a bat. Their Eminences will have limited opportunities to demonstrate their fluency in five languages or more, but if and when they do so will this be misconstrued as an ostentatious display? How will national or ethnic affinities affect their instinctive groupings—over meals, for example, or in more formal blocs? Is the malign influence of foreign governments or even secret intelligence organisations detectable in the subtle behavior of cardinals who for years, maybe through grim necessity, have had to navigate unscrupulous, undemocratic, or corrupt regimes, and occasionally accommodate themselves to their wishes? How on earth do you do handle or even take the measure of a solitary Vietnamese cardinal, or a Sudanese, or a Hungarian? Faced with the real possibility of the election of a wholly unacceptable candidate, will there not be some casual remark cleverly implanted in the ear of a garrulous old fool who can be relied upon innocently to spread it about so as to damage, if not thwart? And what about the mini-buses? In the polite post-ballot exodus, the cardinals’ equivalent of a scrum, which Eminences will make sure that they sit next to whom on those brief but insular rides back and forth to the Sistine Chapel, and who will be roundly shunned by those whose keenest interest is making sure that they are where the action is? And what will the drivers, also sworn, notice in the rear-view mirror, or hear muttered over their left hand shoulder? We will probably never know, and should any gossip emerge in due course and inevitably fail to satisfy the hunger of the world’s media, none of it will be at all reliable.

The sheep

Uncle Tony Trumble has been mining the bottom of his cupboard in southern Tasmania. Here he is, circa 1932, with Uncle Arthur, one of our great-grandmother Campbell’s many Frew siblings. According to Uncle To, Uncle Arthur asked him to go in and bring him a baa. Tony marched in and attempted to do so. The baas were understandably startled, and Uncle Arthur had to go in and rescue him. This is what is happening in this action shot, presumably captured by Pa—evidence, perhaps, of the long Trumble tradition of capturing on camera moments of distress experienced by the children. I am rather taken by Uncle Arthur’s belt and braces, and that traditional stockman’s hat. Uncle Arthur’s property was at Binalong, near Coonabarabran, northeast of Dubbo in New South Wales. My grandparents drove all the way up there in the car they knew affectionately as Leaping Lena. Arthur Frew was a well known identity in the district, and gates to his memory were not long afterwards erected at the Binalong Show Grounds. In about 1939 the Coonabarabran Agricultural Society co-opted those gates for their own show grounds, but after the war Binalong demanded them back. Much later Uncle To investigated, and found them in a very diminished state. He dug up the committee and donated a couple of hundred dollars to get them fixed. It cost a great deal more than $200, but the Show Society generously paid the difference. I gather Uncle Alec has since called in to check up on them. Thus our footprint endures.

The gown

The day before yesterday we installed Lady Curzon’s spectacular white satin “orchid” gown, one of a number that were created for her by the House of Worth. We know she wore it on state occasions in Delhi when she was Vicereine of India. The train is fourteen feet long, and, together with the bodice and skirt the entire ensemble was richly embroidered by Indian craftsmen and women with gold and silver threads and further augmented with faceted crystal beading that with the bullion shimmer under the lights. This indigenous technique is known as zardozi. Watching our colleague from the Fashion Museum at Bath perform the operation of dressing the dress was slightly eerie, as this sequence of photos will demonstrate, because one gradually began to sense more and more Mary Curzon’s ghostly presence, while also witnessing something of what it must have been like for a skilled lady’s maid to help her to get dressed. It would be impossible to do this without assistance. Naturally we began with a customized dummy on a stand.

The dummy and its precious cargo migrated from place to place throughout this procedure, which added to a vague but growing sense of imminence, but it was in the beginning dressed with a long calico petticoat to give some support the very fragile skirt.

Naturally Lady Curzon wore additional foundation garments, including an up-to-the-minute boned and laced “s” corset, so this impression of the size of her waist (when so constricted) is actually quite conservative.

The skirt came first, fastened with hooks to innumerable hand-stitched eyelets. Lady Curzon presumably stepped into it, but we had to very carefully lower it over her head.

Then came the bodice, very tight fitting and, like the skirt, extraordinarily heavy for its size (because of the bullion-work)...

...and finally the train, which you see here folded in three between layers of tissue paper. The front end of the train was secured with tapes around the waist, and these double bows finally tucked inside the front of the bodice.

This is the view that none of our visitors will have because I took the photograph through the rear of the case before it was firmly shut (for environmental control and light sensitivity). But it is helpful to explain why the train had to be arranged in this fluid manner, for to extend it fully would cause too much tension along the left edge. We had decided that it would be best to orient Lady Curzon to the front, a slightly less than three-quarters view, and to allow the train to create for her a graceful arc. Notice also that the skirt itself is possessed of a short but ample “bell” train on its own, so all the bullion-work and embroidery on the back of it is therefore mostly covered by the removable train.

Here she is, making a graceful turn. Lady Curzon must have had at least one page to assist her with the train, possibly two, and it was only worn for the most formal ceremonies. The pungent Indian iconography of sprays of orchids dominates the decoration of the skirt and bodice, but the train adds to this the more squarely English clusters of oak leaves and other British vice-regal heraldic devices, and fuses both in a sequence of classicizing wreaths around the edges that culminate in three very large ones at the end of the train. It is a truly remarkable hybrid. Very few exercises in art museum display have taught me as much or given me as much pleasure and fascination over three or four magical hours as did this gradual re-animation of Mary Curzon’s spectacular white satin “orchid” gown. Do please come and see it for yourselves.

The diamonds

Diamonds are impossible to photograph. No image ever really captures the astonishing effects of color, fire, and light in motion that are produced by these most fascinating stones—lumps of pure carbon, compressed into atomic hardness by colossal pressure deep inside the earth’s crust and at huge temperatures tens of millions of years ago. A colleague recalls witnessing the funeral procession of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, and the moment when, making the wide turn from Clarence House onto the Mall, hard by his office in St. James’s Palace, Her Majesty’s gun-carriage and catafalque, which was surmounted by the queen-consort’s crown, caused the famous Koh-i-noor diamond mounted in front to project an almost blinding searchlight-flash across the same wide arc, and caught him by surprise. Yesterday we installed and secured the Manchester tiara, and it was thrilling to observe a similar effect, but this time further exploited by the master craftsmen of Cartier, ca. 1903. For the central portions of the principal up-thrusting forms of this sumptuous jewel—actually flaming hearts of catholic dogma—consist of stones artfully suspended in groups of three so that the slightest motion will set the entire jewel alight. It is as if the light emanates from within each stone, instead of simply bouncing off or passing through it. In a world that especially for young people increasingly knows no tangible difference between physical reality and virtual substitutes, it is heartening to think that there is in the museum experience an opportunity to reach for the ungraspable, and enjoy a visual experience that cannot happen any other way. Magnificent jewels may also prompt ruminations upon the astounding excesses of elite consumption, but this is also healthy. I daresay many New Englanders will judge the Manchester tiara to veer dangerously towards a region of high vulgarity that is difficult to approach without the crampons and heavy lifting gear afforded by immense wealth. I tried to imagine what it must have felt like to wear this spectacular jewel, as the Duchess of Manchester undoubtedly did. At least satisfying, I should think, and probably exciting too. Good looks, decent teeth, clear skin are simply irrelevant when you have something as visually amazing perched on top of your head. However, I suspect I may be old-fashioned in attaching rather more importance to the purely aesthetic impact of this great jewel. It consists, after all, of hundreds of old-cut diamonds, dozens of them whoppers—strobing, glinting, flashing out of the colorless clarity of their hand-made facets bright and paradoxical little murmurings of green, orange, yellow, and blue. Nothing better captures the supreme self-confidence of a ruling elite than the Manchester tiara. Through the Edwardian decade that aristocracy knew it was dancing on the rim of a volcano, and I suppose there were no better or surer guarantees attaching to their self-confidence than today’s Wall Street plutocrats presume they too enjoy.

Miss Preston

Mr. John Proctor and Miss Alison Preston have arrived from Perth, Western Australia, thanks to the generosity of Wesfarmers Limited. This beautifully-painted action portrait by the Australian expatriate George Washington Lambert, the father of the composer Constant Lambert, was originally exhibited as Mearbeck Moor, probably to avoid raising indelicate questions as to the exact character of the relationship between a middle-aged gentleman and a much younger lady with different surnames posing together in the same portrait. In fact they were uncle and niece, and the atmosphere of the salubrious outdoor exercise and country sport are perhaps also misleading. Mr. Proctor was a London barrister, a professional man whose authoritative pose as a huntsman and maybe squire is therefore strongly aspirational in tone. I wonder also if the al-fresco cigar, a Cohiba Robustos surely, encodes a hint of metropolitan taste that is slightly at odds with the briskness of a day out riding on the moor, and even slightly vulgar. The brilliant part about getting hold of the objects in an exhibition and having an opportunity to examine them again at close quarters and for some considerable time is that you notice many new and intriguing things. 

So it was not until last evening that I grasped that Miss Preston is wearing a pince-nez, or possibly spectacles, which I suppose seems prudent but rather inconvenient when riding side-saddle. She must have needed them. Alison Preston is an interesting figure, because the very fact that she is participating in a hunt at all, and on horseback, implies an independent-mindedness and a definitely progressive spirit that underlies this particular social gathering, and certainly her own cheerful participation in it. Edwardian ladies did not usually go out shooting. Indeed, the late Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, remembered her father-in-law King George V being genuinely shocked to learn that she firmly intended to accompany the Duke when he went stalking at Balmoral. And that was in 1935. Given the longstanding conventions of portraiture, the wearing of spectacles is always noteworthy: Reynolds made no secret of his, on the contrary. Whistler positively advertised his rimless monocles. But it is nevertheless most unusual for young women to be portrayed wearing specs. A tactful artist might have chosen to omit them, and some ladies may also have preferred to be portrayed without. That Miss Preston wears hers here strongly suggests to me that the detail existed either with her blessing, or possibly at her instigation. I like her choice of hatpin, too: a jumbo South Sea pearl to go with the riding outfit. Splendid!