By Gainsborough Ladies I don’t mean the powdered and fashionably dressed aristocrats painted, often reluctantly, by the painter of that name, though they are distant relations. I’m thinking of the ladies that decorated many of my mother’s things, from tea plates to brooches. These are often seated demurely, amid a flower filled garden, wearing bonnets upon their ringleted hair and dresses with multiple ruffles and flounces.[1] They represent a feminine imagination that is now barely visible through the mists of time. Their immediate ancestor would be the heroines created by the British film company, Gainsborough Pictures, which paid a frivolous homage to the painter by adopting his name.
According to the BFI[2], its studios in Islington “were dedicated to lower-status fare”. It’s most often remembered for the romantic costume melodramas of the 1940’s such as ‘The Wicked Lady’ and ‘The Man in Grey’ which fired the imaginations of the women of the era with their tales of gypsies, “wanton women” and wicked aristocrats. It made stars of British actors Margaret Lockwood, Stuart Granger and James Mason. Everything about these pictures was extravagant, from the plots to the costumes. They offered a temporary escape from the constraints of war time and the restraints of convention and morality. My mother has a collection of signed postcards from the stars of this period, which were stored in the little cupboard next to her armchair, along with old diaries, photos and papers. I like to think there was some lingering whiff of the Wicked Lady as she got out these plates to set the table for afternoon tea, on one of those rare occasions that someone came to visit.
The brooches are probably pre-war, and may look back to an era, real or imagined, when ladies did not discard their ball gowns and disguise their selves as highwaymen. Neither did they have to leave the garden to do the chores, the cooking or the cleaning. Their lovers would be invariably charming, well dressed and affluent. They would not gamble, drink, deceive… When she married she left these brooches behind, among the things in her jewellery box on the dressing table. These, along with much else, my grandmother gave to me. I have worn them, once upon a time, on vintage jackets or blouses.
I suspect the plates had been in the cupboard for decades, though I did find them on the top shelf of the cupboard next to the kitchen. They weren’t in the cupboard under the stairs, which fulfilled an out of sight out of mind function for so many things. I don’t know if my mother had any special attachment to any of these things and it’s now too late to ask her. Since her stroke we communicate more by facial expression and touch. Verbal communication is best kept to questions that can be answered by either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. This gives all her stuff an added poignancy, as if they hold secrets that will now never be unlocked.
1. gold dish, Crown Clarence Made in England; Lady in bonnet dish, Morley Ware England; Two plates, 1960’s, Alfred Meakin England
2. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448996/ Gainsborough Pictures 1924-1951
According to the BFI[2], its studios in Islington “were dedicated to lower-status fare”. It’s most often remembered for the romantic costume melodramas of the 1940’s such as ‘The Wicked Lady’ and ‘The Man in Grey’ which fired the imaginations of the women of the era with their tales of gypsies, “wanton women” and wicked aristocrats. It made stars of British actors Margaret Lockwood, Stuart Granger and James Mason. Everything about these pictures was extravagant, from the plots to the costumes. They offered a temporary escape from the constraints of war time and the restraints of convention and morality. My mother has a collection of signed postcards from the stars of this period, which were stored in the little cupboard next to her armchair, along with old diaries, photos and papers. I like to think there was some lingering whiff of the Wicked Lady as she got out these plates to set the table for afternoon tea, on one of those rare occasions that someone came to visit.
The brooches are probably pre-war, and may look back to an era, real or imagined, when ladies did not discard their ball gowns and disguise their selves as highwaymen. Neither did they have to leave the garden to do the chores, the cooking or the cleaning. Their lovers would be invariably charming, well dressed and affluent. They would not gamble, drink, deceive… When she married she left these brooches behind, among the things in her jewellery box on the dressing table. These, along with much else, my grandmother gave to me. I have worn them, once upon a time, on vintage jackets or blouses.
I suspect the plates had been in the cupboard for decades, though I did find them on the top shelf of the cupboard next to the kitchen. They weren’t in the cupboard under the stairs, which fulfilled an out of sight out of mind function for so many things. I don’t know if my mother had any special attachment to any of these things and it’s now too late to ask her. Since her stroke we communicate more by facial expression and touch. Verbal communication is best kept to questions that can be answered by either a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. This gives all her stuff an added poignancy, as if they hold secrets that will now never be unlocked.
1. gold dish, Crown Clarence Made in England; Lady in bonnet dish, Morley Ware England; Two plates, 1960’s, Alfred Meakin England
2. http://www.screenonline.org.uk/people/id/448996/ Gainsborough Pictures 1924-1951