Frith has not been on the Post before before because there is too much detail! This from the Tate website: ‘When The Derby Day was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1858, it proved so popular that a rail had to be put up to keep back the crowds. It presents a panorama of modern Victorian life, a previously unknown genre.’ For the rest of this week (a short week because yesterday was a Bank Holiday in the UK) details from The Derby Day.
And another previously unseen drawing by Tirzah – it’s pen and ink and is called Penny for the Guy. Btw, we sell The Dog Show as a postcard in the shop. (The Persephone Post is on holiday next week and the one after. Of course the shop is open.)
At the end of the scrapbook there are some designs by Tirzah Garwood. This is an undated design for a wood engraving called Street Games.
The traditional symbols for the twelve signs of the Zodiac: the cover of an Almanack designed for the Lanston Montype Corporation.
Two colour ways for the sinuous double loop pattern designed by Ravilious and printed by the Curwen Press for an Austin Reed 1930s promotional booklet.
Eric Ravilious Scrapbooks is a beautiful book which we sell in the shop (it’s horribly expensive though, £40, but £35 with our £5-off sticker). Every page is fascinating and this week on the Post five random examples. First a 1932 woodblock. ‘The colour effect was achieved by rolling red ink on the top of the block and black on the bottom so the colours mingled’ (p. 71).
And, to conclude, a characteristic view. If you are visiting Bath it is so worth visiting the allotments. From the Royal Crescent you go across to the road on the west which is Marlborough Buildings. Walk up to the Marlborough Tavern (very nice pub with good food), turn left and go along about fifty metres. There is a little gate in the railings which is always open and here you can go in and walk across the allotments to the other end of Marlborough Buildings and thus back to the Royal Crescent.
Another view, with Marlborough Buildings as the backcloth. One of the reasons these allotments are so beautiful is that they are framed by the early nineteenth century typical Bath houses on the one side and a nicely mown path on the other.
Gladioli – like the sunflower they are enormous. Our friend and preface writer Charles Lock wrote yesterday to say: ‘The inventor of the allotment seems to have been Moritz Schreber in c. 1850 (incidentally, it was his son Daniel who was Freud’s patient ). In German the word is Schrebergarten, intended for those living in apartments ie. most of the urban population of Europe apart from the English. Railway lines created many waste spaces around the allotment/Schrebergarten and this was an obvious use.’ Here in Bath the allotments are on the western edge of the city between a park and ‘the Buildings’ and, amazingly, have never been built on.
Sunflowers are a must on any self-respecting allotment and this is the largest ever – as comparison, there is a ‘normal’ sized one to the right of the picture (and another huge one on the left).