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(Countess of Loudoun) Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings (1833 - 1874)
(Countess of Loudoun) Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings
(1833 - 1874) |
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Art Work
| Name: |
(Countess of Loudoun) Edith Maud Rawdon-Hastings |
| Gender: |
Female |
| Place of Birth: |
United Kingdom |
| Nationality: |
British |
| Birth: |
1833 |
| Death: |
1874 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
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| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
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| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
Drawing
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Biography
An inscription on the mount of the Countess of Loudoun's drawing describes it as an 'impression of the ball (and the people at it) given when her brother the Marquis of Hastings came of age'. It seems likely that this was part of the celebration reported in the London Illustrated News on 5 July 1863: 'The Marquis of Hastings' "majority" has been celebrated with great festivities at Donington Park, Leicestershire, during the past week.' Unfortunately the young Marquis lived for only five more years and died childless, leaving his sister to succeed him.
Looking at the drawing with hindsight, the skeletons seem to us a chilling presentiment of the fate of the young man in whose honor the ball was held, but there are two further possible layers of meaning. If the dancing skeletons were purely the product of the Countess's imagination, she could have been influenced by the Victorian taste for gothic literature, with its macabre creepy effects. There is also the possibility that she was recording the type of fancy dress party that Victorian society loved. The Queen had held her first such ball in 1842. A painting by Landseer of Victoria and Albert in their costumes shows her wearing a fashionable crinoline, overlaid with supposedly fourteenth century decorative touches. And the female skeletons are surrounded by the swirl of their mid-nineteenth-century skirts. In the year the drawing was made, the London Illustrated News reported that The modesties of the world of fashion have been so engaged of late in inventing new costumes for the numerous fancy dress balls that have been following one another over here in such rapid succession that they have hardly had time to bestow even a passing thought on toilets for ordinary occasions.' |
Samples of Work
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