How to cut and paste, Victorian-style: the Macready-Dickens Screen
July 6, 2016 5:45 PM Subscribe
Sometime in the 1850s, when the legendary Victorian actor William Macready was leasing Sherborne House, his family got together with that of his good friend Charles Dickens to produce a very Victorian craft object: a folding screen. The screen has now been restored and the "over 500 images" on eight panels digitized. (Via VICTORIA.)
Screens like this were an extension of the Victorian interest in scrapbooking. (Folding screens were also painted--if you read enough Victorian fiction, you will stumble across references to young women learning to paint them as a genteel "accomplishment.") In this case, the engravings include illustrations for literary texts, especially Shakespeare; landscapes; famous politicians; and, of course, literary figures (including Dickens himself).
Visitors to the site can view images individually or in the context of the full panels (which are carefully laid out). Many of the images are derived from issues of the literary annual The Keepsake; other prominent sources include The Byron and Moore Gallery, William Brockedon's Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps..., and various issues of the Literary Souvenir.
Screens like this were an extension of the Victorian interest in scrapbooking. (Folding screens were also painted--if you read enough Victorian fiction, you will stumble across references to young women learning to paint them as a genteel "accomplishment.") In this case, the engravings include illustrations for literary texts, especially Shakespeare; landscapes; famous politicians; and, of course, literary figures (including Dickens himself).
Visitors to the site can view images individually or in the context of the full panels (which are carefully laid out). Many of the images are derived from issues of the literary annual The Keepsake; other prominent sources include The Byron and Moore Gallery, William Brockedon's Illustrations of the Passes of the Alps..., and various issues of the Literary Souvenir.
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posted by SansPoint at 6:15 PM on July 6, 2016