Blimey, it's that time of year already! This is making me somewhat panicky, not least because in less than a week it will be my daughter's 20th birthday and this will be our 14th year of doing Blogvent (surely not! 2011 was only 5 minutes ago! etc etc) so I better crack on with it.
I gave it a lot of thought and this blogvent is going to be based around an activity I wish I had more time for. This will be Bookvent, 24 days of reading, with pictures of people and their books and so I will start with this one:
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| Afternoon Tea (1878) Edith Jane Ballantyne |
This is what I call a good time! Oh, to be in a comfy chair in front of a fire with my book and no-one disturbing me for half an hour. I'm going to start with the best bits - that is a gorgeous frock. All that pleating that is pooling on the floor, with her matching pale blue stockings and little shoes. She is a very stylish woman, although I am left wondering if she is meant to be going out somewhere or is she expecting company? Has she just got dressed up to read her book? Honestly, I would be happiest in my new fleecy pyjamas (so elegant) but I admire her sense of occasion.
I'm also loving this chair with its floral, tangled leaves, Morris-style of print. It looks very comfy indeed. I notice that she has quite an aray of plates and bowls on the shelves behind her and I am left wondering about this woman's life. Is it her collection? Is she married? Look at that enormous plate!
What a wonderful plate, obviously a prize possession. Right at the top, all on its own. Hmmm...
At first I didn't notice the chain on the cockatoo's leg. I saw that the stand it was perched on was sat in a tray to obviously catch whatever falls from a cockatoo but I thought that was optimistic, given that my childhood budgies were let out of the cage, and they would merrily poo everywhere. This chap is not going anywhere and he doesn't exactly look best pleased about that fact. I think he is a sulphur-crested cockatoo, with his yellow plume. I read that they were extremely intelligent and therefore made challenging pets and that makes me wonder about the woman.
She has two books on the go, so I'm guessing she's clever but look how small the room seems to be. It could be read as cosy or it could be read as constricting, so much clutter and that rug is folded ready to trip her up should she try to escape. She's in her fine clothes, her fine plumage, but to what end? No-one is seeing her, she's having her afternoon tea all on her own. I suppose the thing about a book is that you are never on your own and even if she is confined to her little gilded cage, she can escape into a story.
Edith Jane Ballantyne (1849-1933) is an interesting artist, born in Edinburgh, the daughter of portrait painter John Ballantyne (1815-1897) and active in the Royal Scottish Academy, the Royal Academy and others. She moved to Wiltshire in the south-west of England after her father died in 1897 where she lived out the last years of her life hindered by rheumatoid arthritis. She had a live-in companion in her old age, Miss Augusta Player, for 22 years, who was there when Edith fell out of bed and broke her thigh in 1933. Edith died not long afterwards but was remembered fondly, if sadly, in her local newspapers.
Well, today has been cheery. See you tomorrow...
