Printable Vintage Art: Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot, Countess Brownlow by Sir Frederic Leighton

Lady Adelaide Chetwynd-Talbot, Countess Brownlow (1844-1917), c1879
by Sir Frederic Leighton (1830–1896)

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But he who dares not grasp the thorn
Should never crave the rose.
― Anne Brontë

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
― William Butler Yeats, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats

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About the subject of the painting
A full-length portrait of a young woman, standing, turned slightly to proper left, gazing to bottom left, wearing a voluminous draped ivory gown and holding a posy of pink roses to her right shoulder in her right hand. Against blue sky, with large white cumulus and cirrus clouds, and parkland at Ashridge, Hertfordshire.

Adelaide was the youngest of three daughters of Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and Lady Sarah Elizabeth Beresford. She married Adelbert Wellington Brownlow Cust, 3rd Earl Brownlow (1844-1921), son of John Hume Egerton, Viscount Alford and Lady Marianne Margaret Compton, on 22 June 1868 at Ford Castle, Northumberland. They lived at Belton and Ashridge Park, Herefordshire, She died at Carlton Terrace, London, England, after a long illness, without issue. Her sisters became Countess of Pembroke and Countess Cowper respectively.

In 1893 Lady Paget described Lady Brownlow as the “most beautiful of three sisters, every one of them the salt of the earth. She was seated between Lady Lothian and Lady Pembroke, the former in trailing black and the latter in trailing white draperies. Lady Brownlow was in sober grey of the same make, and they looked like the Three Fates. They all asked questions in high-pitched voices.”

Sources:
[1] Original image and description from National Trust Collections.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as an 8 x 13 @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Summer Days by Vicente Palmaroli

Summer Days, c1885
by Vicente Palmaroli (1834–1896)

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If I had two lives, I’d have lived one permanently at the beach.
― Nkwachukwu Ogbuagu

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About the painting:
Sitting near the seashore, a lady puts her reading aside for a moment to turn and look out at the spectator. Despite her location out on the beach, she wears a long purple skirt with splendid black lace decoration, a white pinafore, a comfortable shawl and a hat with blond lace and feathers. In her hand she holds a small parasol. She appears to have settled comfortably and sits at a distance from the other holiday-makers and next to a number of rush-bottomed chairs (for resting by the sea), other useful beach items, and a few articles of clothing. Reserved, reading and surprised in her solitude, there is a melancholic, refined air about this female holiday-maker that is greatly in keeping with both the tastes of the European upper-middle class of the last quarter of the 19th century and a stereotype of bourgeois femininity well-known through literature and reflected in a perfectly defined type of art.

Palmaroli often went to the beaches at Trouville-sur-mer, in the Calvados region of Normandy, summering there between 1873 and 1883 in a fashionable location graced by the presence of famous painters and writers such as Gustave Flaubert, Marcel Proust, Claude Monet and Eugène Boudin – all of whom contributed in their way, as did Palmaroli in his, to passing down the image of the upper echelons of the European bourgeoisie of their time.

Sources:
[1] Original image and description from Museo Carmen Thyssen Málaga.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as a 9” x 12” @ 300 ppi JPEG.

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Here is a video of a walking tour through Trouville-sur-mer,
France's most beautiful fishing village,
(where the painting is supposed to have been set):



Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Art: Cat in Summer Greenery by Bruno Liljefors

Cat in Summer Greenery, 1884
by Bruno Liljefors (1860–1939)

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“What's your name,” Coraline asked the cat. “Look, I'm Coraline. Okay?”
“Cats don't have names,” it said.
“No?” said Coraline.
“No,” said the cat. “Now you people have names.
That's because you don't know who you are.
We know who we are, so we don't need names.”
― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

“Curiosity killed the cat,” Fesgao remarked, his dark eyes unreadable.
Aly rolled her eyes. Why did everyone say that to her?
“People always forget the rest of the saying,” she complained.
“‘And satisfaction brought it back.”
― Tamora Pierce, Trickster's Choice
Sources:
[1] Original image from Wikimedia.
[2] The Real Victorian's digitally enhanced version of the painting (seen above), downloadable as an 8” x 10” @ 300 ppi JPEG.


Digitally enhanced reproductions of public domain paintings are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Printable Vintage Illustration: Feeding the Pheasants, 1896

Spring flew swiftly by, and summer came; and if the village had been beautiful at first, it was now in the full glow and luxuriance of its richness. The great trees, which had looked shrunken and bare in the earlier months, had now burst into strong life and health; and stretching forth their green arms over the thirsty ground, converted open and naked spots into choice nooks, where was a deep and pleasant shade from which to look upon the wide prospect, steeped in sunshine, which lay stretched out beyond. The earth had donned her mantle of brightest green; and shed her richest perfumes abroad. It was the prime and vigour of the year; all things were glad and flourishing.
― Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist

All in all, it was a never-to-be-forgotten summer — one of those summers which come seldom into any life, but leave a rich heritage of beautiful memories in their going — one of those summers which, in a fortunate combination of delightful weather, delightful friends and delightful doing, come as near to perfection as anything can come in this world.
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne's House of Dreams

Antique illustration of Victorians in the countryside for a weekend getaway, feeding a flock of pheasants; originally published 1896. You can download the high-res illustration as an 8” x 9” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.

Printable Vintage Illustration: A Summer Seaside Scene, 1896

My soul is full of longing
for the secret of the sea,
and the heart of the great ocean
sends a thrilling pulse through me.
― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

So fine was the morning except for a streak of wind here and there
that the sea and sky looked all one fabric,
as if sails were stuck high up in the sky,
or the clouds had dropped down into the sea.
― Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
Illustration of a Victorian lady standing on a stone promenade gazing in fascination at the ever changing seaside scene in front of her. You can download this high-res illustration as a 9.5” x 12” @ 300 ppi JPEG here.


For personal use only. Not for resale. All digitized work by The Real Victorian is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Please cite RealVictorian.com as your source when sharing or publishing.