William Powell Frith #williampowellfrith

As it’s Derby week I’ve reread one of my favourite novels, it’s William Powell Frith’s Victorian life painting The Derby Day in novel form. I get the same sense of excitement every time I read it #Booksky #DJTaylor #DerbyDay #WilliamPowellFrith

Dolly Varden appears in the 1840 novel “Barnaby Rudge” by Charles Dickens set around the time of the Gordon Riots in 1780. The daughter of the town locksmith, she is a young, flirtatious, well-dressed woman who ends up marrying Joe Willett. Charles Dickens described Dolly as: “The very pink and pattern of good looks, in a smart little cherry coloured mantle...a little straw hat…And she wore such a cruel little muff, and such a heart-rending pair of shoes.” Two years later, English artist William Powell Frith completed this portrait format painting depicting Dolly as a cheerful young woman in an off-white dress, crimson cloak, fuchsia stockings, and pointy black shoes while posing in a woodland. Her pale face is aglow with laughter beneath a straw hat held in place by a pink bow under her chin. She poses with her left hand playfully on her hip while a fur hand muff covers her right hand on the other side. During the early Victorian era there was a fashion for paintings based on works of theatre and literature, generally featuring popular characters and scenes. “Barnaby Rudge” was Dickens fifth published novel. Frith, a member of the art group known as “The Clique,” first met Dickens at the time of the painting. The two men established a friendship that lasted until the author's death in 1870. Frith finished at least four versions of the painting, including one for Dickens himself. The best known of these is this one in the Victoria and Albert Museum in South Kensington, London. The character inspired a fashionable outfit known as the “Dolly Varden,” popular in Britain and the United States between 1865 and 1870 then briefly in the 1880s.

Dolly Varden by William Powell Frith (English) - Oil on canvas / 1842 - Victoria and Albert Museum (London, England) #womeninart #oilpainting #art #fineart #womensart #WilliamPowellFrith #artwork #CharlesDickens #Frith #EnglishArtist #EnglishArt #oiloncanvas #artoftheday #VictoriaandAlbertMuseum

“Ramsgate Sands (Life at the Seaside).” William Powell Frith (British; 1819–1909). Oil on canvas, 1851–4. Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2017.

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