{"id":979,"date":"2012-10-24T13:16:59","date_gmt":"2012-10-24T13:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/?p=979"},"modified":"2012-10-24T13:16:59","modified_gmt":"2012-10-24T13:16:59","slug":"romantic-era-album","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/2012\/10\/24\/romantic-era-album\/","title":{"rendered":"Romantic-era album"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Just acquired from a dealer in London, a partially dis-bound album put together by Ellen Harper Parkes (later Ellen Worseley, aunt of Samuel Butler), ca. 1824\u20131827, in which she collected artwork from many friends, obviously requested and produced especially for her.\u00a0 Mary Parkes, Ellen\u2019s cousin, was married in 1823 to William Swainson (she was his first wife, and mother of several of his children, who died before he moved to New Zealand).\u00a0 Swainson (1809-1833) was the first attorney-general of New Zealand (1841-56), and a progressive (for his time) defender of the Maoris, learning to know them by long expeditions on foot through the bush.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The album includes two paintings of birds in watercolor almost identical to plates from Swainson\u2019s Zoological Illustrations<\/em>.\u00a0 One of the birds is described in Swainson\u2019s book as a unique specimen brought from Peru.\u00a0 Other leaves include drawings and paintings by others in social circles intersecting with Robert Southey\u2019s house in Greta Hall.\u00a0 Seventeen of them are various art contributions on identical cards (which were obviously distributed for the purpose), including two similar images of Southey\u2019s Greta Hall by Parkes herself, and another (pencil drawing), inscribed \u201cSouthey\u2019s Cottage at Keswick\u201d by \u201cC. L.,\u201d who may be Charles Lamb. Other contributions are possibly from the Coleridge family (S. C. for Sara, D. C. for Derwent), Letitia Elizabeth Landon (\u201cL.E.L.\u201d, as she often signed her published work), and perhaps Amelia Heber\u2014wife of Bishop Heber, the great English book collector.<\/p>\n

There are sixteen other hand painted or hand drawn items done on the pages of the album itself, including not only the Swainson birds but also watercolor Lapland skiing scenes copied from Arthur de Capelle Brooke\u2019s 1827 account of Lapland, a black-and-white bird, and several striking butterflies.\u00a0 After Ellen Parkes\u2019 marriage to Samuel Worseley they moved to Clifton, Bristol, which is where this album came into the dealer\u2019s possession, and so to us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just acquired from a dealer in London, a partially dis-bound album put together by Ellen Harper Parkes (later Ellen Worseley, aunt of Samuel Butler), ca. 1824\u20131827, in which she collected artwork from many friends, obviously requested and produced especially for her.\u00a0 Mary Parkes, Ellen\u2019s cousin, was married in 1823 to William Swainson (she was his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22,14],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=979"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":983,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/979\/revisions\/983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/commons.trincoll.edu\/watkinson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}