Original Victorian Photo Album of Young Women and Children Recreating Famous English Paintings

England, 1910. Very Good. England? ca. 1910. Small 12mo (16cm); handmade photo album of brown wax paper over stiff card hand-painted with the stylized initials AKW within a decorative border; 15 stiff grey leaves to which are mounted fourteen small silver gelatin photographs (9x7.5cm), captions in white manuscript ink on facing page. A little bit of chipping and toning to wrappers, a few images a bit blurry but all very nicely fixed and images quite clear. A Very Good example overall.

Wonderful little album documenting a group of women and children recreating famous English paintings, a popular and largely harmless pastime. Tableaux include "Contrary Winds" by Thomas Webster depicting three children blowing at a sailboat in a wooden tub of water; "The Spinner" (better known as "The Spinstress") by George Romney; and "Battledore" by Leonard Campbell Taylor, which depicts two women in big white dresses playing a badminton style parlor game while a third woman, clad in black, looks on with her paddle at the ready.

What is especially noteworthy is the heavy representation of Pre-Raphaelite painters, which showcased the sitters' often long flowing hair: "Dante's Dream" and "The Borgia Family" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti; "Bubbles" by Sir John Everett Millais (misspelled here "Millay"); "The Last Watch of Hero" by Frederick Leighton; "Alleluia" and "The Culprit," by Thomas Cooper Gotch; and "Mistress Mine Where Are You Roaming," by Edwin Austin Abbey, from a scene in Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night.