A Tale of Two Divas by Elspeth Cameron & Gail Kreutzer

Author:Elspeth Cameron & Gail Kreutzer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing
Published: 2016-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Now, a week later, he held that same palette, resting it on his arm. He stood as he painted, peeking back and forth at Edith as he daubed oil paint on the large canvas. He had asked her to wear something white, something she had performed in. He had chosen to paint her in profile, as he had painted a few other subjects, such as Mrs. Laura C. H. Coxe, founder of the Watlington Library. Most of his sitters (or standers, as the case may be)—mainly peers, distinguished doctors, powerful civic officials, famous professors, military officers, high-ranking members of the clergy (though he had done a few of labourers)—had been three-quarter face or facing front. The year before he had done an official portrait of His Majesty, King Edward VII, in his royal robes.

He had placed a large pot of lilies overlapping the back of her skirt. She held a hymnal. These symbols suggested religion: Easter, the season of sacrifice and redemption, and the religious music Edith had so often sung. Yet behind her on her right was a table draped in a gorgeous fabric that extended past her. Balancing on its front edge, “darkly visible,” was a porcelain figurine—apparently of two mythological beings, lovers perhaps—that suggested only faintly that minor key Harold Speed had noticed at their first meeting. Such accoutrements, intended to suggest the personality of the subject, were typical in official portraits. Harold Speed called this “decorative pageantry.”

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