Before fanzines and social media we had picture kits to celebrate the actors of the day Frame at last for glittering stars
One of our favourite pictures is a baby’s cotton bib embroidered naively with a picture of a child sitting in a garden and a stitched titled which reads: “Where the rainbow ends”. It cost us a penny when we picked it up at a church jumble sale something like 40 years ago and we framed it ourselves.
Since then we’ve made a point of searching for pictures, all of them artistic but none worth more than a few pounds, which have never seen a paintbrush.
Bored Victorians spent hours making such pictures and the better ones find a ready market when they turn up in the saleroom. They were fashioned from all manner of raw materials such as seaweed, shells and sand from the seaside, dried flowers and leaves, cork, wax, butterfly wings, rolled and curled paper and even human hair They fall into the generic collecting category of “pictures-without-paint” and the list is extensive.
none, though, was more inventive than those made by soldiers and sailors, who must surely have been subjected to the most mind-numbing boredom of all.
Take the case of sailor whiling away the hours on the dogwatch. What better way to pass the time than by embroidering a picture of the ship on which you were sitting? Some of these were done in such accurate detail, it is often possible to date and even identify the vessels concerned.
The woolwork pictures are quite obviously the work of a male hand.
Usually, they were embroidered in a crude long stitch on sailcloth or some other coarse material stretched over a frame knocked together from any wood that happened to be available. expect to pay £250-£350 for one still in good condition.
The First World War was another opportunity for men to try their hands at sewing and embroidery. They are found preserved today in often quite large pictures containing a photograph of the soldier, surrounded by embroidered flags of the Allies, laurel leaves, poppies and patriotic inscriptions.
They can be picked up relatively cheaply and the good ones, worked in coloured silks, can only appreciate in value.
From about 1840m cut-out pictures, not unlike paper doilies, were favoured by artistic, but bored, young ladies and gentlemen who produced work of the most amazing delicacy.
Pinprick pictures – basically pictures made from holes – made from kits complete with instructions and designs found in books and magazines were at the height of their popularity from 1820-1840.
Pictures were made using a range of different sized pins and often also involving the cut-out technique seen first in silhouettes.
The less artistic chose to make foil
or tinsel pictures, although the effect of glinting foil in a picture, as it catches the light, is most appealing.
They were created from scraps of material and coloured and shiny paper cut to form pictures of fruit, flowers and landscapes in a pastime that first became popular towards the end of the 18th century.
By the 1830s, as interest in the craze grew, booksellers, print dealers
and stationers began selling kits containing pre-cut tinsel, leather and feather ornaments to decorate watercolour or printed images.
The kits became popular during the first half of the 19th century and were considered an adult, rather than a child’s hobby, but it had largely died out by about 1850.
There is, however, one group of tinsel pictures that are particularly appealing and, as far as I am aware, unique to the United Kingdom: theatrical portraits that reflect our enduring love of the stage and the heroes and heroines who trod the boards.
They are also becoming increasingly scarce, so it was a real surprise to find a group in a catalogue from Surrey auctioneers ewbank’s in the post last week. Sadly, they will have been sold by the time you read this, but you might be inspired to search out others.
The idea was probably adapted from the so-called “patch portraits” made by French napoleonic prisoners of war who were allowed to sell the crafts they made while incarcerated to supplement their meagre rations.
The technique is much older, though, Old master drawings of religious subjects that date from the mid-15th century are found decorated with tiny shiny slivers of silver and gold leaf and further enhanced with coloured quartz crystals.
In the largely pre-mechanised days of the mid 19th century, the tinsel was produced by gunsmiths using a range of steel punches and dies from which the various components of the pictures were cut. Swords, helmets and armour, buttons and buckles for the men, hair ornaments, sashes, jewellery and flowers for the ladies, were then varnished with the appropriate colours.
Print sellers latched on to the idea with entrepreneurial fervour producing what were in effect the first pop star posters. not only could they sell you prints of the leading actors and actresses just days after the latest plays had their opening nights, they could also supply all the components to enhance the prints and later frame the gleaming results while you waited.
The other joy of collecting these particular tinsel pictures is the fact that, being based on theatrical prints, each one is often fully identified.
Printed inscriptions give such information as the actor’s name, the character the actor is portraying and the name of the production in which he or she appears.
Taking advantage of the opportunity for self-promotion, the name of the printseller who published the image and the date it was published is also often given and even if a print is undated, it is a relatively simple task to ascertain the age with considerable accuracy.
Take the ones illustrated here, for example. Miss Vincent as Prince Aladdin, is shown in her costume, hat and sabre embellished with tinsel, while her tunic and trousers are silk. The print is named and dated 1837.
Although undated, another print shows Madame Auriol appearing as Columbine in the pantomime Harlequinade, the debut of which is recorded as 1815. She wears tinsel ornaments on her silk clothing, headdress and jewellery, while opposite her was Mr G French as Harlequin, depicted in prints published by J.redington.
Mr elsgood, meanwhile, was depicted as Quicksand in the one-act play “The Silver Palace”, embellished with metal foil tinsel ornaments on his costume, hat, sabre and shield, while opposite him was Mr Smith as Ironspark in the same production.
When it was performed at Sadler’s Wells in 1839, the theatre’s retractable stage sat over a water tank which was used to create spectacular crowd-pleasing sea battles and fireworks set to music.