After 1851: The material and visual cultures of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham

231 Pages·2017·27.416 MB·English

by  Kate Nichols (editor), Sarah Victoria Turner (editor)

After 1851

After 1851
The material and visual cultures of the
Crystal Palace at Sydenham
Edited by Kate Nichols and
Sarah Victoria Turner
Manchester University Press
Copyright © Manchester University Press 2017
While copyright in the volume as a whole is vested in Manchester University Press,
copyright in individual chapters belongs to their respective authors, and no chapter may
be reproduced wholly or in part without the express permission in writing of both author
and publisher.
Published by Manchester University Press
Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 978 0719 09649 5 hardback
First published 2017
The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any
external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee
that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
Typeset in Monotype Baskerville by
Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire
Contents
List of figures page vii
List of contributors ix
Foreword by Isobel Armstrong xi
Acknowledgements xv
1 ‘What is to become of the Crystal Palace?’ The Crystal Palace
after 1851 1
Kate Nichols and Sarah Victoria Turner
2 ‘A present from the Crystal Palace’: souvenirs of Sydenham,
miniature views and material memory 24
Verity Hunt
3 The cosmopolitan world of Victorian portraiture: the Crystal
Palace portrait gallery, c.1854 47
Jason Edwards
4 The armless artist and the lightning cartoonist: performing
popular culture at the Crystal Palace c.1900 73
Ann Roberts
5 ‘[M]anly beauty and muscular strength’: sculpture, sport and the
nation at the Crystal Palace, 1854–1918 97
Kate Nichols
6 From Ajanta to Sydenham: ‘Indian’ art at the Sydenham Palace 122
Sarah Victoria Turner
vi contents
7 Peculiar pleasure in the ruined Crystal Palace 143
James Boaden
8 Dinosaurs Don’t Die: the Crystal Palace monsters in children’s
literature, 1854–2001 159
Melanie Keene
9 ‘A copy – or rather a translation … with numerous sparkling
emendations.’ Re-rebuilding the Pompeian Court of the Crystal
Palace 179
Shelley Hales and Nic Earle
Index 209
Figures
1.1 Postcard of the Crystal Palace, early twentieth century page 2
1.2 Visitors at the Nineveh Court, 1854 3
1.3 Ground plan of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham in 1854 5
1.4 Photograph of Tropical Department, mid-nineteenth century 8
1.5 Plan of the Crystal Palace and railway connections, 1858 11
1.6 Plan of the Festival of Empire and Imperial Exhibition, 1911 13
1.7 ‘Inauguration of the Peace Trophy and Scutari Monument at
the Crystal Palace’, 1856 14
1.8 John Lavery, ‘RNVR Crystal Palace, 1917’, 1917 16
1.9 Camille Pisarro, ‘The Crystal Palace, 1871’, 1871 16
1.10 Postcard of the Crystal Palace after the fire, 1936 18
2.1a and 2.1b Two views of a Crystal Palace peep egg 31
2.2 Interior of a peep egg showing a ‘grotto’ 32
2.3 A Sydenham Stanhope viewer needle case, c.1860–68 37
4.1 Crystal Palace Programme, Thursday, 18 September 1902 76
4.2 ‘An Artist of the Lips’, Morning Leader, 27 November 1900 80
4.3 Self-portrait of Bartram Hiles, 1901 85
4.4 Untitled black and white illustration by Bartram Hiles 86
4.5 Programme Cover for one of Herbert Beecroft’s ‘Sketching
Lectures and Entertainments’ 88
4.6 ‘Lightning’ sketches by Herbert Beecroft, ‘Qik, The Lightning
Colour Cartoonist’, 1902 90
5.1 Plan of the Crystal Palace Park, 1906 98
5.2 Visitors in the Roman Court, 1854 101
5.3 ‘A Novel Bicycle Display by Ladies at the Crystal Palace’, 1899 103
5.4 Athletics at the 1911 Inter-Empire Games 111
viii list of figures
5.5 Women from the WRNS drilling in the Palace grounds, 1918 112
5.6 ‘Latest Types of British Aircraft. Crystal Palace, Imperial War
Museum and Great Victory Exhibition’, postcard, 1920–24 115
6.1 Robert Gill, ‘Copy of Painting inside the Caves of Ajanta’,
1856 123
6.2 George Measom, The Crystal Palace Alphabet, 1855 127
6.3 William Simpson, Buddhist Vihara Cave, Ajanta, 1862 129
6.4 Owen Jones, The Grammar of Ornament, 1856 131
6.5 Robert Gill, ‘Interior of Cave 19, Ajunta’, 1864 132
6.6 ‘Exterior of the Indian Court at the Festival of Empire, 1911’ 134
6.7 ‘Royal Love Scene, Cave XVII’, in Ajanta Frescoes, 1915 136
7.1 Still from James Broughton dir., The Pleasure Garden, 1953 150
7.2 Still from James Broughton dir., The Pleasure Garden, 1953 151
7.3 Still from James Broughton dir., The Pleasure Garden, 1953 152
8.1 George Baxter, ‘The Crystal Palace and Gardens’, [1854?] 160
8.2 ‘A Visit to the Antediluvian Reptiles at Sydenham’, cartoon
from Punch, 1855 164
9.1 Restoration of a Pompeian atrium, 1896 180
9.2 Pompeian Court, Crystal Palace, 1854 180
9.3 Floor Plan of the Pompeian Court, 1854 182
9.4 View of Atrium of the digital Pompeian Court, Second Life 184
9.5 Avatar hovering over roof of the digital Pompeian Court,
Second Life 186
9.6 Remains of the Pompeian Court, 1936 199
Contributors
James Boaden is lecturer in modern and contemporary art history at
the University of York. His work is focused on the intersection between
experimental film and more traditional fine art practices in mid-twentieth-
century North America. He has curated film screenings for Tate Modern
and the British Film Institute, and has contributed to Art History, Papers of
Surrealism, and Burlington Magazine.
Nic Earle is academic project manager at the University of Gloucestershire.
His PhD was concerned with visual aspects of communication in online
virtual worlds and he has published articles on this topic. His current work
explores how technology combined with robot actors can make 3D histori-
cal visualisations engaging and useful to different user groups.
Jason Edwards is Professor of History of Art at the University of York
and the author of Alfred Gilbert’s Aestheticism (Routledge, 2006) and Eve
Kosofsky Sedgwick (Routledge, 2009). He is also the co-editor (with Stephanie
L. Taylor) of Joseph Cornell: Opening the Box (Verlag Peter Lang, 2007) and
(with Imogen Hart) of Rethinking the Interior: Aestheticism and Arts and Crafts,
1867–1896 (Routledge, 2009) as well as of two special issues of Visual Culture
in Britain. His research focuses on queer and animal theory, and the global
contexts of British Sculpture from c.1760–1940.
Shelley Hales is Senior Lecturer in Art and Visual Culture in the
Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Bristol.
She works primarily on Roman domestic art and architecture and the
impact of Pompeii’s domestic ruins on nineteenth-century audiences. She
recently co-edited with Joanna Paul, Pompeii in the Public Imagination from its
Rediscovery to Today (Oxford University Press, 2010).