Cocodile Dundee, Outback Steakhouse, shark attack cocktails

Crocodile Dundee was the second-highest-grossing film in the U.S in 1986, and stood as the highest-grossing non-U.S. film ever at the American box office. There is a strong consensus that the film relied heavily on outback stereotypes that do not represent most modern Australians, who largely live in coastal cities. Contemporary critical commentaries pointed out that the movie featured out of date social dynamics regarding gender, race, foods, drinks and clothes that many modern Australians would not have recognised. Principal photography for Crocodile Dundee began in 1985, starting with the scenes filmed at the Federal Hotel renamed the Walkabout Creek Hotel in McKinlay, Queensland

 Nonetheless it is the American home of juicy steaks, spirited drinks and Aussie hospitality.

Outback steakhouse shark attack cocktail called Aussie JAWSsie

The ocean blue has clouds of red blood. Etsy

Outback Steakhouse didn't copy Walkabout Creek Hotel, but its vibe was generated by Crocodile Dundee which featured the iconic pub. Compare the two photos below.

The first Outback Steakhouse location was opened in Mar 1988 in Tampa Florida, and now there are 660 Outback Steakhouse locations in the U.S. Despite its Down Under branding and Aussie-themed slang eg three Australian appertizers (Bloomin onion, Aussie Cheese fries, Coconut shrimp), the chain was inspired by the popularity of the film Crocodile Dundee and served American-style cuisine rather than authentic Australian food. Outback Steakhouse operates a small number of locations (c8) in Australia but only in NSW and QLD; so I have never seen any in my state, Victoria.

Outback Steakhouse, Randolf MA 

Trip Advisor

Walkabout Creek Hotel, Qld

delicious

Outback Steakhouse is touted as an Australian-themed restaurant but focuses on American-style grilled steaks, seafood, chicken and ribs; big portions at moderate prices. The menu’s famous items are the fresh seafoods, wedge salad, mashed potato and cocktails - the Wallaby Darned is a signature, frosty frozen peach cocktail. The Outback Steakhouses targets itself between casual dining and classic steakhouses, hearty food without fine-dining prices.

Shark Week has been an annual week-long summer programme at the Discovery Channel focusing on shark-themed programming since 1988. Originally devoted to conservation efforts and correcting fallacies about sharks, Shark Week is marked at the Outback Steakhouse chain each year. It offers $8 drinks and 50% off appetizers for Shark Week. The shark-attack drink, named the Aussie JAWSsie is made with New Amsterdam Raspberry Vodka, Blue Curaçao, a trio of citrus juices and grenadine. Directions for making the shark-attack drink are as follows.

Step 1. Pour spiced rum, club soda, vodka, blue Curaçao and lime juice together in a pitcher.
Step 2. Gently mix with a long spoon. Pour Shark Bite cocktail into ice-filled individual glasses.
Step 3. Drizzle 1 1/4 ounces of grenadine into each glass to create a blooming effect that resembles blood in ocean water. Strain cocktail over ice in the glass. Add drops of grenadine to cocktail.
Step 4 Garnish with a blue gummy shark in each glass.

The Aussie JAWSsie: a blue tropical alcoholic cocktail crafted with New Amsterdam Raspberry Vodka, Blue Curaçao, a citrus juice blend, and topped off by squeezing red grenadine i.e shark blood from a keepsake plastic shark toy into the drink. This is the jaws-themed cocktail!

Outback also has a new mocktail - Sharky Temple: a child-friendly, alcohol-free version made with a base of Sprite and grenadine, also served with an interactive shark toy. These 2 drinks became popular to Outback Steakhouse for the 2026 summer and Shark Week promotions.

Walkabout Creek Hotel

Queensland

Mick Dundee & crocodile in Walkabout Creek Hotel.

ABC News, 1985

Has anyone ever visited a Outback Steakhouse? Did you try a shark attack cocktail? 

Canadian history, Hudson’s Bay Co and furs

The C17th fur trade became a major commercial growth in Nth Am­erica, due to Eur­ope’s dem­and for beaver hats. Two French trad­ers pl­an­ned a trad­ing com­pany to reach the inland via Hudson Bay and to gain access to the int­er­ior fur resources. Af­ter not win­n­ing French sup­­port, they went to Prince Rupert in Britain in 1665 where Rup­ert sw­ay­ed cousin King Charles II, mer­ch­­ants and noble men to back the ve­n­ture. Two ships were sent mid 1668 and the royal charter for Rup­ert’s Land. Hudson’s Bay Co./HBC was pr­o­claimed May 1670. The Gov­ernor and Co. of Advent­ur­ers of England received ex­clusive trading rights in Hud­son Bay Terr­it­ory.

Original charter of the HBC, declared in 1670

HBC shareholders at Annual General Court Meeting elected a Governor and comm­ittee to organ­ise fur auctions, order trade goods, hire workers and arr­ange shipping. The London-based Governor set all the basic polic­ies implem­ented in Rup­ert’s Land, using annual reports, journals & accounts supplied by the Bay of­f­icials. 

Prince of Wales and Eddystone, Hudson's Bay Co. Ships

Canadian Encyclopaedia

After trapping beaver pelts when they reached their best quality (win­t­er), Indigenous Peoples trav­elled to the trading posts in sum­m­er. These traders were middlemen, bringing furs from inland communities and trad­ing furs for manufactured goods eg tools, guns, text­il­es, food.

In 1713 France agreed to England’s claim to Hudson Bay with Treaty of Utr­echt. For 60 years, the HBC erected posts largely at major rivers flowing into the bay. This hesit­ance to establish posts in Rupert’s Land all­owed comp­et­itors to out­do the HBC by travel­l­ing into the in­ter­ior to trade with Indigenous peoples. In return, ind­igenous trad­ers extracted greater ret­urns for their furs. 

 

Timber wolf fur sales, Fur Harvesters Auction in North Bay, Ont.

CBC

Until 1763 HBC struggled with the French for control of fur trades in south­ern Rupert’s Land, and naval battles erupted on Hud­son & James Bays. In the Treaty of Paris 1763, the Montreal overland trade network was taken by the British. By 1774 HBC trade had been undercut enough that the Governor designed an aggres­s­ive policy of inland expansion, be­ginning with building facilities on the Saskatch­ewan River.

Intensive competition with the North West Co. spil­l­ed beyond Rup­ert’s Land into the Pac­if­ic slope, combining economic conflict with occasional physical viol­ence. In 1821 the parties merged, and the British Parlia­ment extended the Co.’s monopolies to include the N.W Territories.

Bringing together the different business traditions of the North West Co. and HBC required changes in the new Co’s administrative structure. British North America was divided into trading depart­ments and dist­r­icts. District managers met annual­ly in depart­mental council meetings presided over by the Governor in North Am­erica, Sir George Simpson. Th­ese coun­cils passed reg­ul­ations governing local trade, det­er­mined work­ers’ deployment and established the log­is­tical requirements. The offic­ers also had a vested interest since they shared in the profits, accord­ing to the 1821-71 deed polls. But Sim­pson had considerable power, and the London Governor overruled local decisions. Post-merger, the HBC closed many unprof­itable trading posts, adv­ersely damaging Indigenous groups whose survival relied on fur.

After 1821, independent free Métis traders at the Red River Colony opp­osed the Co’s monopoly rights, which had been renewed in 1838. The issue ended in the famous 1849 Sayer Trial, where Métis man Pierre-Guillaume Sayer was tried and convict­ed of trading with Indigen­ous groups, violating the Co’s legal privileges. The court’s decision to free him effectively opened the trade of Rup­ert’s Land.

To standardise trade between posts, HBC introduced the Made Beav­er as the currency (1857). All furs were valued according to the equivalent of one prime male beaver skin. Hud­s­on's Bay Co. fur trade im­pacted on Indig­en­ous peoples, many of whom ab­andoned th­eir life-styles and economy, and relied on Europ­ean manuf­ac­t­ured goods for survival.

Although the Co.’s primary concern remained the fur trade, it increas­ingly provided government for settlers in Red River Valley and Vanc­ouver Island. Only in 1849 did Britain grant­ the Van­couver Island col­ony to the HBC, to be used as an agricultural sett­lement.

During the Fraser Gold Rush in 1858, the mainland colony of British Co­l­umbia was created out of New Caledonia. Governor James Douglas was requ­ir­ed by the British govern­ment to resign his HBC commission before bec­om­ing Governor of BC. Thus the Co. began to relinquish its colonial res­ponsibilities. It was then Canada’s growing expansionist movement saw the ann­exation and settlement of the NW as essential to Canada’s future.

Expansionists portrayed the HBC as delaying Canada’s growth; they cl­aim­ed that to protect its fur trade interests, the HBC had proclaimed that the NW was a barren waste­land, unsuited to agricultural set­tlement. But this belief was challenged by reports of the Palliser and Hind expedit­ions in 1857-60 which encouraged westward British settlement.

In 1863, International Financial Society bought control in HBC, signal­l­ing a shift in the Co: most new shareholders were less interested in the fur trade than in real estate and economic development in the West. Negotiations held with the Colonial Office and with the Can­adian government DID result in selling Rupert’s Land to Can­ada in 1870. In the agreement the Co retained title to the old trading lands.

Fur trader in Northwest Territories, in the 1890s

Wiki

See the post-1870 growth. By retain­ing large land­holdings on the prair­ies adjacent to its posts, many of which were loc­at­ed in growing ur­ban centres, the HBC became a most im­portant dev­el­opers in western Canada.

As Prairie economic development accelerated post-1870, the Co. expanded retail business with settlers. Initially most of this act­ivity occurred at its trading posts. Since it differed from the trade with Indigenous groups, separate sales shop accounts were kept. Then the HBC’s retail and whole­sale divisions emerged, with outlets separate from fur trade. In 1910 the Co was divided into 1]land, 2]fur & 3]retail. In 1913 HBC helped build new retail shops, recog­nising that this had a greater fut­ure potential than land and fur sales. The first of the 6 stores op­en­ed in Calg­ary and the last in Winnipeg in 1926. From 1965 the shop em­braced the short form of its name, The Bay, and its logo featured the B. And its historic coat of arms nodded to its rich role in Canadian history.

Hudson's Bay Montreal, department store chain acquired by HBC in 1960.

 In 1970, 300th year in HBC history, the Queen formally transferred it from U.K to Canada, with new headquarters in Winnipeg. The Co. owned 239 dep­art­ment stores in Canada and U.S then. But  after failing to secure new financing or buyers, the historic 355-year-old retailer permanently closed its last doors in 2025 and completed liquidation.

Thank you to Canadian Encyclopedia

 

Sam Neill, brilliant films & tv series

Born Nigel Neill in 1947 in Omagh, Nth Ireland to an English mother and a New Zealand father serving in the British army. His family moved to Christchurch N.Z in 1954 where Sam went to school. He became Sam because there were several Nigels at school, saying “I moved more easily as a Sam”.

Sam Neill and Meryl Streep as Michael & Lindy Chamberlain,

Evil Angels, 1988

Sam Neill went on to study English literature and acting at Canterbury Uni. He began acting in Canberbury Uni productions, then moved to Wellington to the Downstage Theatre as a professional actor, being paid $35 a week. Neill acted in some tv films and shorts for New Zealand in the 70s before winning his first lead role in the locally produced thriller Sleeping Dogs 1977, receiving inter-national acclaim in the first New Zealand film to open in the US. Soon after that he landed a leading role in My Brilliant Career 1979 directed by Gillian Armstrong; played the son of the devil in Omen III 1981; in the  1988 biopic Evil Angels, as Lindy Chamberlain’s husband Michael with Meryl Streep; and in The Hunt for Red October 1990. His role in Ivanhoe 1982 boosted Neill in Sweden where the film’s on TV every New Year’s Day for 40 years. In fact he built his career as dashing romantic leads and magnetic villains. He truly arrived on the international film stage as Damien Thorn in Omen III.

 

Sam Neill & Judy Davis on My Brilliant Career, 1979 

Michael Ochs Archives

He soon moved to Australia, landing another internationally lauded role with My Brilliant Career 1979. He was one of the leading candidates to succeed Roger Moore as James Bond and screen-tested in 1986, but lost out to Timothy Dalton. He was nominated for a Golden Globe for his spy role in the 1983 miniseries Reilly, Ace of Spies.

He went on to star in some films of varying success for the following 45 years, incl Dead Calm, Hunt for Red October and The Piano 1993. Neill came to widespread international attention in 1993 with his role as the New Zealand settler Alisdair Stewart in Jane Campion’s Oscar-winner The Piano. Neill, well known for his role as palaeontologist Dr Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park 1993, a role originally offered to Harrison Ford. Neill played Alan Grant again in two Jurassic Park sequels. 

My favourite was The Piano. In mid-C19th a mute woman went along with her young daughter and prized piano for an arranged marriage to a farmer in New Zealand, but was soon lusted after by a farmworker. Jane Campion was the director and it starred Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel & Sam Neill.

Dr Alan Grant and Tyrannosaurus Rex, Jurassic Park,1993, 

by Murray Close 

Neill shaped a career playing memorable romantic leads & captivating villains with 150+ credits in 50 years, incl Dead Calm 1989, Jungle Book 1994, In the Mouth of Madness 1995, Event Horizon 1997, Bicentennial Man 1999, The Dish 2000 and Peter Rabbit 2018. Neill also worked on tv, incl miniseries Merlin 1998. The Tudors mini-series 2007, as the corrupt Maj Chester Campbell in Peaky Blinders tv drama 2013 and The Twelve miniseries 2022.

Sam Neil and Holly Hunter, The Piano

Sam Neill was the New Zealand actor whose career spanned Oscar winners and famous films, so he dreaded any prospect of retirement. He won Officer of the Order of the British Empire 1991 for his services to acting and a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2007. Years later, the New Zealand’s honours system allowed recipients to convert his Order of Merit into a knighthood, Sir Sam accepted a knighthood in 2022.

Actor Rachel Griffiths, who cast Neill as Michelle Payne’s horse trainer father in her directorial debut Ride Like A Girl, also commented on social media. Two Paddocks is the label under which Neill has been making wine for decades, a pursuit he took as seriously as acting. When not working, Neill split his later years between his Surry Hills home and his farm in New Zealand, where he kept rescue animals and produced wine from his vineyard. Based in Central Otago Sth Island, it created classy pinot noirs and average Picnic range.

Aust Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on X mourned Neill’s passing. “Sam starred in so many beloved Australian stories and he earned a special place in Australian hearts. Wry and thoughtful, Sam fought illness with the same dignity, humour & conviction that gave strength to his performances.

New Zealand prime minister Christopher Luxon said “Sam started out when there was barely a film industry in this country to speak of. For 50+ years he took New Zealand stories to the world and his talents helped make our film industry into what it is today, one of our greatest cultural exports. His work will be watched and loved long after us.” NZ’s foreign affairs minister Winston Peters said Neill was a Kiwi icon whose work in both local & Hollywood films entertained people globally for decades.

In 2023 Neill’s memoir, Did I Ever Tell You About This? revealed he'd been undergoing chemo-therapy for a year after being diagnosed with non-Hodgkin lymphoma blood cancer. By the time his Memoirs were published in March 2023 his cancer was in remission, but he underwent monthly chemotherapy for the rest of his life; he signed a contract with the drug company that if he was alive in 4 months, the treatment was free. Neill explained it was an aggressive form of blood cancer with fewer than half of those diagnosed surviving 5+ years. But it this was not the cause of death.

He wrote that he later went into remission after undergoing a trial with a new chemotherapy drug. In 2023 he wrote “I’m not afraid to die, but it would annoy me. Because I’d really like another decade or two. We’ve built all these lovely terraces, we’ve got these olive trees and cypresses, and I want to be around to see it all mature. And I’ve got my 6 lovely little grandchildren. I want to see them get big.”

The extended family group shared the tragic news of Sam’s passing in July in Sydney. Surrounded by family and passing with dignity, Sam was survived by 4 children & 8 grandchildren.

Martin Ferrero, Sir Richard Attenborough, Jeff Goldblum, Sam Neill, Laura Dernin Jurassic Park,

Yahoo Life

Capt Scott & his Antarctic team

20th explorers on their way to Antarctica, incl­uding Ernest Shackle­ton, often vis­it­ed NZ. They used local ports and quar­antine islands, and grate­ful­ly accepted other offers of assistance. They also took on New Zeal­ander crew with them, to take part in the Antarctic trips.

 Capt Robert Falcon Scott 

1905, Wiki

Capt Robert Falcon Scott (1868–1912) was born in Devon to a sea far­ing family. He joined his first ship when he was 13, then becom­ing an off­ic­er in the Royal Navy. Later he became one of the first Brit­ish explorers to extensive­ly explore Antarctica in the ear­ly 1900s.

Scott’s plan was to explore the part of Antarctica around the Ross Sea, originally discovered back in 1841 by Sir James Clark Ross. Scott led 2 expeditions to the Antarctic. His first expedition on the Discovery took place between 1901–04, partially Govern­ment funded. Discovery was specially built for the voyage, as a re­search ship to go through icy seas.

Clarence Hare, 1902

ABC News

New Zealander Clarence Hare (1880-1967) began his career as a clerk in N.Z and Fiji. While working in a Lyttelton grocery in Nov 1901 he met the Discovery's stores off­ic­er as they were preparing for their initial voyage south. The exp­edition's steward had been dis­missed at Lyttel­ton and 20-year-old Hare was taken on as the replacement steward. He was the youngest crew member on board.

As steward, Hare was in day-to-day contact with Capt Scott and the other officers on board. He carefully kept a diary which has been widely quoted in accounts of the expedition and biog­raphies of Sc­ott. Hare's name is still recalled in most accounts of the exped­it­ion, for the observations he wrote about and for his mir­ac­ulous story of life and death.

Note this was the first time Antarctic land had been expl­ored extensively, zoologically and geologically. Dr Edward Wilson, for ex­ample, was a keen zoologist on both of Scott's exp­ed­it­ions. Hare's grand-daughter Vir­g­inia Basset agreed. She said grandpa’s personal diary reveal­ed the lengths the crew went to for research, which claimed multiple lives onboard. They went out and collected penguins, seals, shells, whatever samples they could find to take back to England for scien­t­ific experiments. And they had to take part in collecting big ice blocks for the water supply.

Oates. Bowers, Scott, Wilson, and Evans at the South Pole.

UNSW

In March 1902, they wanted to leave directions to the expedition's winter quarters for the relief ship Morning. But after painfully slow progress, Hare's party led by 2nd Lieut Michael Barne was sent back to the ship with most of the men from the other party. During their return jour­ney they struck a blizzard a few kms from the ship. They tried to camp but soon decided to continued on foot. c10 minut­es later Hare was reported missing. Most of the party eventual­ly made it back to the Discovery, or were subsequently discovered by search parties. But Hare and George Vince, who had fal­len into the sea from a cliff edge, were given up as lost. 48 hours later Hare reappeared back at the ship unharmed! Vince's body was never found.

In 1910, Scott sailed on another scientific voyage in the whaler Terra Nova. With Royal Navy Officer E Evans (1876–1912) 2nd in charge, Scott determined to be the 1st explorer to reach the South Pole, but he faced stiff completion from Norwegian Roald Amundsen. Scott achieved his dream and reached the South Pole in Jan 1912, then he discovered that Amundsen had got there first. The 800-mile journey back to their base camp was hideous, and all 5 of Scott’s party died from cold and hunger. A search party was sent out from McMurdo Sound in late 1912 and found the bodies. 

In Feb 1913, the world woke to the headline “Death of Captain Scott. Lost with four comrades. The Pole reached”. The keenly anticipated, privately funded scientific venture off the map had turned to tragedy. When news of the tragedy reached Britain, a huge mem­orial ser­vice with King George V was held in St Paul's Cathedral.

Where was the detailed diary in which he documented the 2 years he spent with the navy crew, scientists and civil­ians in the Antarctic? Hare had donated his diary to the Alexander Turnbull Lib­rary in Wel­l­ington in the 1960s, avail­able for reading only on spec­ial request. And see the whistle he kept blowing while lost in a blizzard for 46 hours.

The diary from Scott's Antarctic voyage was published in 2022. 

and edited by Maureen Lee

In 1961-2 the N.Z Geological Survey Antarctic Expedit­ion named an Antar­ctic peak at the end of a ridge on the Leigh Hunt Glacier after Hare. This was approved by the N.Z Geog­r­aphic Board in 1962. Clarence Hare retired to fruit farm on the Sunshine Coast, dying in 1967. But now the diary has been published for the first time as A Young Man's Antarctic Discovery, Maureen Lee ed., 55 years after his death!! 

Capt Scott's memorial statue, Christchurch

erected 1916

Was Scott of the Antarctic sabotaged by his angry deputy, Officer E Evans? No the final cause of death in each man's case was hypothermia, but dying was a long, slow process with a number of factors: Insufficient food, frost bite and failed protection. Nonetheless read UNSW Newsroom for a conspiracy theory that I had not heard of before.

Chaim Soutine, great artist but disturbed?

Portrait of a Young Woman, 1915

Wiki

Pastry Cook of Cagnes, 1922 

The Guardian

Grotesque self portrait, c1923

Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris.

Thanks to George Prochnik for this review. From 1913, to get from Smilovichi, a shtetl in Belarus, to Paris. 20 year old artist Chaim Soutine (1893-1943) made many visits to the Louvre to study the canvas. In the mid-1920s he decided to translate it into his own idiom: a huge impasto, churning with deep, febrile colours. Where Rembrandt’s hanging carcass was mottled with pale tones once the blood has drained away, Soutine’s reds appear to be fermenting. It’s not a picture of mortality! Interpreters of Rembrandt’s ox often place it in a memento mori, but Soutine’s picture convulses with what is happening right now.

Soutine insisted that he could only depict a subject if he had it in front of him, and various accounts of how he managed this with a huge quarter-side of beef came down to us. In her passionate biography, Celeste Marcus shares the most lurid. After hauling the carcass from the slaughterhouse to his studio in darkness, Soutine set to work painting it, but after a few days it began to go green and give off a terrible stench. He returned to the abattoir to get a bucket of blood so that he could keep the colours vibrant. But the blood dripped through the floorboards into the apartment below. The street was aghast. The official sanitation squad paid him a visit to shut down the project, but Soutine’s assistant prevailed on them to let him finish the work, whereupon they relented and showed him how to inject the meat with ammonia to preserve it. Soutine was also busy painting dead ducks, turkeys and chickens! The smaller bodies still stank making him a troublesome neighbour, but Soutine’s devotion to his work kept complaints to a minimum. 

Much death went into making Soutine’s art. Yet it is Marcus’ argument that everything Soutine does on the canvas should be understood as part of the artist’s pursuit of life. His canvases bear witness to his epic struggle for self-mastery, discipline and skill to communicate satisfactorily the energy of life itself. Plus many of his landscapes appear deliquescent, while the figures and faces of his human subjects are contortions. He shows us scenes in which our perspectives on life and painting have become unstuck, inverting his subject matter inside out. 

In an important 1963 essay on Soutine, critic David Sylvester noted the painter’s debt to Cézanne. Sylvester describes how Soutine’s endeavour recalls Cézanne’s determination to take hold of volume in its full tactile reality and beat it, as it were, into the picture-plane. Both artists aspired to re-create – which meant capturing the swing between broad, organic continuity and individual ephemerality. 

Marcus recognises the pitfalls of writing a biography about an artist who made so few personal statements, and for an understanding of whose formative experiences we are forced to rely on sketchy anecdotes supplied by those who knew the painter – or had heard the stories first-hand. She makes good use of this material, however, especially in her account of how Soutine left behind his constricted youth in an orthodox eastern European Jewish village for bohemian Paris. Here he lived a destitute, industrious, essentially monastic life for many years, despite soon earning the esteem of his peers in Montparnasse, among them Modigliani. 

Then c1922 collector Albert Barnes encountered Soutine’s work, seized on the artist as a star-in-waiting and bought 50+ paintings in one go, liberating Soutine from the struggle for survival, until the rise of Fascism stripped his life of all security once more. Soutine spent his last years moving from flat to flat, trying to keep out of sight. He relentlessly worked, but his health deteriorated. Medical care for the stomach problems that probably began with youthful malnutrition became more challenging under the new political realities, leaving him more vulnerable until, in 1943, he died of a perforated ulcer.

Marcus fills out this chronicle with mini-biographies of some of Soutine’s intimates, including Gerda Michaelis, the German-Jewish refugee who in 1937 became Soutine’s partner and one serious love affair. Conceptually however the author honours the position articulated by Hilton Kramer, that the painter had no biography outside his art; one might even say that his art was a substitute for a biography. She scoffs at those who insist he left no traces: he is there, right before our eyes. The man was his art, and his paintings bellow from the walls on which they hang. This is a legitimate position to take, but it is somewhat surprising to confront the confidence with which Marcus pronounces on what this bellowing is communicating.

Plucked Goose c1933,

Artists Rights Society, New York

 Carcass of Beef, 1924

The New Yorker

Marcus wants to rescue Soutine from critics who ascribe his work's emotional content  to traumatic Jewish experience. To consider this view of his art, she takes a formalist approach making Soutine’s evolution an almost exclusively interior, technical development. Marcus has enlightening things to say about the increasing strength of Soutine’s style, some informed by her own paintings. Yet it’s unclear what is gained by trying to draw so strict a line between the historical & personal. World horrors can penetrate even the most focused creative consciousness. Nor did Soutine try to keep his head down as evidence for Hitler’s designs on Europe were mounting.

The firewall Marcus puts up between Soutine’s subjection to history and his creative genius leads her to minimise the ways in which his first 20 years might have shaped his sensibility. There are conflicting ideas about how miserable Soutine was in the shtetl. He seems to have found the country beautiful and the markets lively, but he suffered poverty & physical abuse. Some versions of his story indicate that he was beaten by his brothers, perhaps for making art, and received at least one significant beating from others for painting an old man in the community, although accounts differ about whether a violation of Jewish law was the issue. Once he left the Pale of Settlement there is no outward indication that Soutine ever looked back. But the experience ?continued to gnaw at him.

Given the bias against visual culture within Orthodox Judaism, it is perfectly plausible to view his art as a reaction against it.  Many of his paintings do seem to demand that we look when others turn away – and to stare hard.  Soutine said When I painted the beef carcass it was still this cry that I wanted to liberate. I have still not succeeded. Francis Bacon, who acknowledged the fertile shock produced by his encounter with Soutine’s work, and whose homage to Rembrandt’s ox seems more indebted to Soutine than to the Old Master, made the screaming mouth a leitmotif, even in the absence of a visual cue.

John Ashbery found Soutine’s MOMA show in 1950 a heady revelation that increased his sense of possibility as a writer: the fact that the sky could come crashing joyously into the grass, that trees could dance upside down and houses roll over like cats … I began pushing my own poems around. It’s a topsy-turvy scene but there is danger pulsing beneath that fallen sky. Writer Maurice Sachs, who met Soutine some times in the early 1930s, said he painted in a state of lyrical panic. He slashed his canvases and destroyed them when he felt they'd failed. Surely he was addressing a dilemma with historical and political dimensions; what Freud described as the perpetual agon between humanity’s life and death drives. Freud saw the future of civilisation as dependent on the life urge prevailing, but already by 1930 the prospects of that outcome were dwindling. Chaim Soutine died in 1943.

Good looking and young, even towards the end of his life

wiki

I Helen know that there was never a formal diagnosis from a psychiatrist to suggest the Expressionist painter Soutine was psychotic, even though his turbulent life and distorted paintings strongly suggested his mental state wasn't normal. If anything Soutine was a painter of his own obsessions, probably due to family rejection, exile, extreme poverty, physical illness and Nazi terror. I am on Hilton Kramer's side: Soutine's life was a harrowing tale of impossible aspirations,  unappeasable emotions and impossible appetites, not handled except perhaps through Expressionism.

Read Chaim Soutine: Genius, Obsession, and a Dramatic Life in Art By Celeste Marcus

Edgar Degas, impressionist or modernist?

Edgar Degas (1834-1917) was born in Paris, son of banker Augustin De Gas. At 11 Degas enrolled in Lycée Louis-le-Grand, graduating in 1853. He was painting seriously and by 18, his bedroom became an artist's studio. He began making copies in the Louvre, but his father wanted him to study. So Degas enrolled in Law at Paris Uni in Nov 1853 but was bored. In 1855, Degas met Jean Auguste Ingres whom he revered. In Ap that year, Degas enrolled at Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied drawing & flourished. In Jul 1856 Degas moved to Italy for 3 years, copying Renaissance art.

After returning home, Degas continued copying paintings at the Louvre, still remained a keen copyist. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1865, when the jury accepted his painting Scene of War in the Middle Ages, attracting little attention. Although he exhibited annually in the Salon for 4 years, he submitted no more history paintings; his Steeplechase: The Fallen Jockey (1866 Salon) signalled a new commitment to modernity. The change in his art was influenced by Édouard Manet who he met in the Louvre.

Degas, Cotton Office in New Orleans, 

1873, Wiki

`

When the Franco-Prussian War erupted in 1870, Degas enlisted in the National Guard, defending Paris. During rifle training, his eyes were damaged. Post-war Degas enjoyed a long stay (from 1872) in New Orleans LA where his brother René and other relatives lived. One of Degas' New Orleans works, Cotton Exchange at New Orleans, won positive notice in France. Note it was his only work purchased by a museum during his lifetime!

Impressionism emerged in the 1860s, and grew in part from the realism of men like Courbet and Corot. The Impressionists painted the world's realities using notable colours, concentrating mainly on light effects. Degas hurt the Impressionists when he constantly belittled their en plein air art. He was anti-Impressionism, just like the critics who reviewed their shows, saying: What I do is the result of reflection and of the study of the great masters; I know nothing of spontaneity. See his Parisian scenes, off-centre compositions, experiments with colour & form, and friendship with key Impressionists.

Degas returned to Paris in 1873. Alas his father died and in settling the estate, it was found that brother René had amassed huge business debts. To preserve the family name, Degas had to sell his house and a collection of art he’d inherited. He suddenly found himself dependent on his own art sales for income. By now very unhappy with the Salon, Degas joined forces with young artists who were organising an Independent Art Society. Their first Impressionist Exhibitions started in 1874,  and they later held 7 additional shows until 1886.

Degas’ distinct style showed his respect for the old masters and his admiration for Ingres and Eugène Delacroix. And he liked the vigorous realism of popular illustrators. When he became famous for horses and dancers, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Degas already showed the mature style that he would later develop more, by cropping subjects awkwardly and by choosing unusual views. By late 1860s, Degas had shifted from his initial history paintings to contemporary life.

 
The artist organised the shows and displayed his style in all of them, despite conflicting with other group members. He had little in common with Monet & other landscape artists whom he mocked for painting outside. Conservative socially, he disliked the scandal created by the shows, plus the publicity that his colleagues sought. He rejected the name Impressionist that the press popularised, and his insistence on having traditional artists in the shows annoyed the group, disbanding in 1886. As his financial situation improved via selling his own works, he was keen to collect works by old masters eg El Greco, and moderns eg Manet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Loved artists, Ingres & Delacroix, were well represented.

The Ballet Class, c1875

Wiki

The Dancing Class, 1870s

The French Desk

Degas became isolated, due partly to his belief that an artist could have no personal life. The Dreyfus Affair (1894->) brought his anti-Semitism to the fore and he separated from all his Jewish friends. His interest in portraiture led him to study the ways in which peoples’ social stature and employment type were revealed in their features, posture & dress. In Portraits At the Stock Exchange 1879, he anti-Semitically showed a group of Jewish businessmen. With his athletic dancers and solid laundresses painting, he revealed their occupations by their dress, activities and body type.

His subject matter & his technique changed. The dark palette displaying Dutch art’s influence gave way to colour use and bold brush strokes. Place de la Concorde 1875 “froze” to portray them accurately, seeing movement. The changes to his palette, brushwork & composition displayed the influence that both Impressionism’s & photography’s natural images had.

Jockeys, 1881

all that's good

Race horses, 1884

While visiting a childhood friend in Normandy, Degas made his first studies of horses. Then his treatment of traditional historical subjects became idealised. Degas did racing scenes throughout his career, using his horses and jockeys from one picture to the next. All the figures had been in earlier works and some of the poses were quite distinguished. The prancing mount and rider derived from Benozzo Gozzoli's Journey in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi Florence, which Degas copied earlier. Yet this picture was unusual for its medium—pastel, colouring the sky and landscape, & giving a warm undertone in front. Race course scenes allowed Degas to depict horses and riders in a modern context.

Laundry Girls Ironing, 1884

WikiArt

When he painted working women eg milliners & laundresses, his treatment of traditional historical subjects became less idealised. Portrait of Mlle Fiocre in Ballet La Source, in the 1868 Salon, was his first major work to introduce his favourite models: dancers. In many later paintings, dancers were shown backstage or rehearsing, focusing on their status as working professionals. Degas also began to paint café life. He urged other artists to paint real life instead of traditional mythological or historical art, and his few literary scenes were modern. By the later 1870s Degas had mastered not only the traditional oils, but also pastels. The dry medium enabled him to reconcile his interest in line and in expressive colour. In the mid-1870s he returned to etching and less traditional printmaking.

These changes in media engendered the paintings that Degas produced in later life. Degas drew and painted women drying themselves with towels, combing their hair and bathing. The backgrounds were simplified.

Except for his skilled draftsmanship and obsession with figures, his later work bore little resemblance to his early era. Ironically the works created after the heyday of the Impressionist movement that most obviously used the colouristic techniques of Impressionism. Certain features of Degas's work remained for life. He always painted indoors, working IN his studio using models. The figure remained his primary subject; his landscapes were produced from memory or imagination. His works were prepared, calculated, practised and developed in stages.

Public reception of Degas' work included both admiration to contempt. As a promising artist in the conventional mode, Degas had a few works accepted in the Salon in the early years. These works received praise from some French critics. But Degas soon joined forces with the Impressionists and rejected the rigid rules, judgements, and elitism of the Salon. The Salon initially rejected the experimentalism of the Impressionists!

Degas' work was controversial, but in time it was admired for its draftsmanship. The nudes Degas exhibited in the 8th Impressionist Exhibition in 1886 produced "the most concentrated body of critical writing on the artist in his lifetime. ... The overall reaction was positive and laudatory." Little Dancer of Fourteen Years was probably his most controversial piece, with some critics said they saw ugliness.

He was a key artist late in life, esp by his great admirer Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; it was his lively creation of daily activities and his bold colours that urged him into late Impressionism. But his paintings, pastels, drawings & sculptures weren’t intended for exhibition. Degas had no formal pupils, although he did influence painters like Mary Cassatt & Walter Sickert. He was working more, only ceasing his art in 1912. With demolition of his home, he spent the last years of his life, single and nearly blind, wandering Paris streets. Degas died in 1917. His paintings were discovered only after post-death, now prominently displayed in important museums.

Great Emu War Australia 1932 - not a joke!

A flock of 20,000 hungry emus

WA, 1932

photo credit: Footnoting History

 

In the years following WW1, the Australian Government struggled to find work for their ex-servicemen to do on returning home. From 1915 a Soldier Settlement Scheme began to be rolled out across all states, and event­ual­ly it saw c5,030 ex-soldiers given plots of land to con­vert into working farms, primarily to cultivate wheat and sheep. By Sep 1920, the government had purchased 90,000 hectares for the ex-servicemen but still needed more. So they started placing returning soldiers in marginal areas of Perth in W.A, even though setting up a successful farm with little experience in a good area would not have been easy. Plus the ex-servicemen struggled even more when the Great Depression hit in 1929, as wheat prices plunged. Alas the government’s promised subsidies for wheat never came.

Aust­ralian emus had been a protected native spec­ies up until 1922 when they started to destroyed the fences around wheat farms and ate or trampled the wheat. Thus they were officially reclas­sified as vermin. In summer 1932, a flock of 20,000 6’, hungry birds migrated from the coastal regions to inland regions, looking for food and to breed. By late 1932, they were wreaking havoc on the marginal wheat farms owned by the ex-servicemen.

A group of local ex-soldiers were sent to speak with the Minister of Defence. These farmers had no access to the nec­essary ammunition, so they called on the Aust­ralian military to act and soldiers were sent to the region with mach­ine guns!! Being ex-mil­it­ary, the farm­ers were very aware of how eff­ect­ive mac­hine guns would be.

Led by Major GPW Meredith, 7th Battery of Royal Austr­al­ian Artillery, the army set out in Nov 1932, certain to gun down birds in one district. The soldiers moved in formation behind the birds, and the birds immediately scattered in all di­r­ect­ions - emus cannot fly but they can run VERY quickly. 2 days lat­er, hidden gunners sighted 1,000 emus nearby and waited patiently for them to arrive. The soldiers open fired at short range, killing 10-12 emus, while the others re-scatt­ered. The media noted: Each emu mob has its lead­er, always an en­or­mous black-plumed bird standing fully 6’ high, who kept watch while his fellows busied them­selves with the wheat. As soon as he gave the signal, the leader always remained until his followers reach­ed safety.

WW1 Lewis machine gun

used against the emus in W.A

credit: Wikimedia Commons

On 8th Nov 1932, it was reported that Maj Mered­ith’s party had used 2,500 rounds of ammunition (25% of the all­otted total) to destroy 200 emus. The Australian House of Repres­entatives discussed the military operat­ion and following the humiliating negative coverage of the Emu War in the local media, the army withdrew the military personnel and machine guns! Instead the government decided to prov­ide the ammunition that the locals need­ed to take care of the problem th­emselves, and 57,034 emus were killed over six months. The Journal of Aus­tr­al­ian Studies suggested it could have been a pro­p­a­ganda exercise to show that the government was supp­orting its strugg­ling war heroes. But I would have been more worried about physically and psychiatrically damaged WW1 soldiers being given machine guns again ☹

Australian coat of arms

starring the kangaroo and the emu

 

The emu still takes its place of pride on the Australian coat of arms with our other native, the kangaroo, having had its status as a protected animal reinstated. The emu population across Australia is c600,000-700,000+, not in danger of dying out. But conservation­ists are working to save several specific populations greatly at risk, especially in NSW.

Emus are very large, flightless birds and the massive number of emus was causing concern to local farmers. I have no doubt that the West­ern Australian farmers were facing hard times with their crops foll­owing the Great Depres­sion, and their difficulties greatly in­creased with the arrival of c20,000 emus migrating inland in their breeding season. But these birds are in­digenous to Australia, prot­ected and importantly symbolic. So the Great Emu War of Australia was both underst­and­able and unforgivable! At least they could have given the emu meat, which is both healthy and tasty, to families starving during the Depression.

The birds still remain plentiful in the areas outside Perth, so in some sense the War was also futile. Conservationists were clearly unhappy and hoped that problematic wildlife management would never involve machine guns again! So I am pleased to note that, although in the following years farmers requested assistance from the army again, the government did refuse!

Wilsons Promontory National Park, Victoria, 2010

Wikimedia Commons

Smithfield Meat Market London. Keep!!

Thanks to Ted Geier for the amazing history of Smithfield Market, London. The first written record of a weekly live stock market was 1174. Thomas Becket’s clerk described the area as a smooth field where there was a weekly sale of fine cows horses, swine and huge oxen. Animals were walked to Smithfield, were fattened up and sold. The slaughtering would then take place inside the City walls, at Newgate Shambles or Eastcheap, but in the 1300s the slaughter of animals moved to Smithfield, next to the River Fleet. A 1327 charter issued by Edward II made Smithfield London’s oldest meat market.

St Barts Hospital opened in 1123, the world’s oldest hospital. Just next door to the market, it was an important resource (and NB St Bartholomew was the patron saint of butchers). And Smithfield was a popular with the public in the medieval period for football, wrestling, archery, jousting & executions. The Elms at Smithfield is London’s oldest execution site; William Braveheart Wallace being hanged in 1305; Wat Tyler, leader of 1381 Peasant Revolt, was beheaded there; and where hundreds of Protestants were burnt at the stake for Queen Mary I in 1555-8. So the City’s bloody past was largely state-imposed! Tyburn Tree was the infamous gallows spot, now called Marble Arch.

Jones designed a dead meat building to house all services under one roof

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Animals trotted to the site from the Midlands in the medieval era; by C16th, cattle and sheep drovers linked Wales and Scotland to Smithfield. As the city’s population grew over time, the market also grew. 2,000,000 sheep and 200,000 cows were annually taken to Smithfield by mid C19th, causing horrid noise, unsanitary & congested, filth over flowing into the surrounding lanes.

The livestock market was later seen as unsuitable in this location and in 1852, the Smithfield Market Removal Act was passed, prompting the live cattle market to be relocated to Islington. 3 years later, the Bartholomew Fair was closed for good. Having brought cloth trading and all manner of revelry to Smithfield since 1133, it became a threat to public order! A growing criticism brought Smithfield into contempt for all its noise and stink, especially when London’s under-ground transit system was extended to Farringdon in 1863!

Smithfield was home to ancient professional guilds. Worshipful Co. of Butchers was based at Bartholomew Close since starting in c975, its members often heavily involved in City politics, including opposing the Removal Act of 1852. The Butchers was the only old trade organisation to remain active; other Livery Companies lived on as charities.

And Smithfield has a central place in the history of animal welfare law. The Cruel Treatment of Cattle Act of 1822 aimed to prevent the cruel treatment of cattle. Often cited as the first piece of animal rights legislation in the world, it arose partly from animal abuse at Smithfield. Father Arthur Broome, who co-founded the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals-RSPCA 200 years ago, personally paid for market inspectors to monitor animal abuse.

The name Smithfield came from Smooth Field, the smooth grassy fields that once lay on the banks of the River Fleet. It was one of London’s lost rivers, that still flows underground beneath Farringdon Road. Note Charles Dickens described it thus: the ground was covered nearly ankle-deep with filth and mire; and a thick steam perpetually rising from the reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney-tops, hung heavily above. Countrymen, butchers and drovers, mingled in a dense mass: drovers whistling, dogs barking, beasts bellowing, and hawkers shouting loudly.

Meat shops

The Conversation

Later Smithfield had no live animals so a state-of-the art New Market Building was needed. Horace Jones, City of London’s Architect and Surveyor, was commissioned to design it in 1866, and later he went on to design Billingsgate Market building, Leadenhall Market and then notably Tower Bridge. Billingsgate fish market, marked for closure in the same Corporation vote, will also stay.

Horace Jones' designed a wonderful entrance 

Building Design

The Victorian market he designed was functional AND beautiful, with its intricate and colourful design. The East and West market buildings were designed, opening in 1868. The design was state-of-the-art, using a lot of cast iron and glass to keep the market cool, crucial for meat and to maintain cleanliness. And revolutionary in that it was built over the first underground railway-line.

Metropolitan freight trains delivered meat into Jones’ huge basement of brick arches and iron girders. The meat was brought up to ground level for sale via hydraulic lift, or spiral ramp outside. It sits over a cross-section of 3 railway lines, one from the Chatham & Dover Railway, and one heading Eastwards. The impressive ramp leads down to the underground carpark below the rotunda. A Poultry Market structure followed in 1875 (and rebuilt post-fire in 1958) and the General Market building in 1883.

Meat rationing era which ended in 1954

Conversation

Smithfield Market was closed in WW2. The Government did not want crowds in buildings that were easily recognisable from the air. The decentralisation of meat stores ended to Smithfield’s trading and in 1942, the Poultry Market was damaged by a German bomb. In 1954 rationing on meat was lifted and Smithfield Market was back to normal. Meat then came from Australia, N.Zealand, Africa and Sth America, brought by rail via unloading bays underneath the building. The great displays of carcasses and the grand cast iron structure of Horace Jones’ building were restored. Lots of the businesses were still family run, often for generations. Visit the whole-sale meat market by day and admire the beautiful Victorian architecture. Or visit at 6.30am, at the end of the market’s very busy night activities.

In 2024 City of London Corporation voted to withdraw financial support for Smithfield Market, inspiring a petition to Protect Our Heritage and declarations in the British press that the soul of London will be butchered. At stake, defenders say, is a living legacy of meat trade that began there 1,000+ years ago, and the site of a rich seam of British history. But the market’s history was always one of change, involving shifts in justice, taste, hygiene and civic order.

The oldest meat and fish markets in London, now 850 years old, face permanent closure in 2028. Smithfield meat market, near St Paul's Cathedral, and Billingsgate fish market in Canary Wharf, are to be closed after the City of London Corporation voted to withdraw support. Work has already begun, turning this site into a new cultural and commercial hub, including the new permanent galleries of London Museum. Some of the disused buildings in the complex are already being restored.

Smithfield meat market’s Christmas Eve auction

ianvisits

The Christmas Eve sell-off dates back pre-refrigeration days when customers would buy as close to Christmas as possible. Meat dealers also needed to sell off everything before the Christmas shutdown. Enthusiastic customers can still pick up a fantastic financial deal each Christmas Eve.

The Edwardians: Age of Elegance Exhibit

The Edwardian era was always my favourite to read and write about. Health care services improved, mortality declined, literacy spread widely, women’s rights were debated, New Zealand & Australia women were enfran-chised, trade unionism increased and the arts and sports were now widely available. Canada federated progressively, while Australian & South African states unified.

Royal portraits and coronation cloaks

Visit London

So I was keen to see what The Edwardians: Age of Elegance Exhibition in 2025 in King’s Gallery in Buckingham Palace focused on. The exhibition went back into late Victorian era to examine the patronage of Albert Prince of Wales/King Edward VII & wife Alexandra of Denmark. The couple married in 1863, soon after Queen Victoria was widowed and withdrew from public life. Thus the young royals were leading taste-makers in society, well before 1901.

Winterhalter portraits of Edward and Alexandra, 1864

the year after their wedding.

jennifereremeeva

Queen Victoria’s son reigned on her death but unlike his very elderly mother, he died too soon 1910. Edward’s son King George V & wife Mary of Teck reigned from 1910-36, but the Edwardian Era will be labelled thus until the Golden Age ended with WW1 carnage. Thank you to Visit London & jennifereremeeva.

Court pageantry was seen in fine art eg Danish Laurits Tuxen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace 1897-9 and Family of Queen Victoria at her 1887 golden jubilee. The theme then focussed on the lavish court world. Note the opulent coronation robes of George & Mary and jewels.

Edward and Alexandra were patrons of leading artists: HE owned works by popular Victorian artist Frederic Leighton, while SHE collected art by Pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne Jones. Alexandra also supported Minton’s Pottery Studio in 1870s, patronising women artists. And Alexandra, like many upper-class Victorian women, was a keen photographer.

Laurits Tuxen, Family of Queen Victoria, 

1887, Historian About Town

Global royal patronage was regular. Alexandra’s Danish heritage was seen in Royal Copenhagen Porcelain Co. art, including a huge porcelain cabinet with an ornamental roof. And objects were also collected on visits and in diplomatic exchange with the colonies: India, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Africa. In the late C19th, better travel networks made the world closer, so the royal family travelled further and more often. These visits played an important role in Britain’s imperial identity eg in 1875-6 Edward toured India, producing an array of diplomatic gifts.

In 1871 Waverley Ball commemorated the 100th anniversary of Romantic author Sir Walter Scott and raised funds for the Scott Memorial in Edinburgh. Guests were dressed in costumes inspired by Scott’s Waverley literature. Edward went as Lord of Isles, titular character of an old poem, while Alexandra went as Mary Queen of Scots in the novel The Abbot. Emperor Pedro II of Brazil also attended

Edward and Alexandra hosted a Fancy Ball at Marlborough House in 1874. Actors, artists, aristocrats, musicians, politicians and bankers, called The Marlborough House Set, were invited. Named after their Pall Mall home, they were arbiters of fashion and taste, embracing new movements eg Art Nouveau & Arts and Crafts. Artist Godefroy Durand made a watercolour of the event, which showed Edward in fancy dress as Charles I, with Alexandra in Venetian costume.

A great party was the Devonshire House ball to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee 1897. 700+ invitations went out and James Lafayette photographed the guests. Edward was dressed as a Knight of Malta and Alexandra went as the C16th French queen Marguerite de Valois. Daughters Victoria and Maud, together with Maud’s husband, Prince Charles of Denmark, wore the costumes of her courtiers. And an early royal garden parties was at Buckingham Palace in 1897, marking Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee, quickly becoming part of the royal calendar. While keeping strict dress codes, the Prince & Princess of Wales surrounded themselves with fashionable society figures.

A group of artists were portraying members of the set. Philip de László was renowned for his glamorous and natural portraits. In one painting of Princess Andrew of Greece-Denmark/Alice of Battenberg, George V’s cousin, he depicted the Princess in an elegant pose. A highlight of C20th royal portraiture was a striking painting of Queen Alexandra by François Flameng in 1908. In her mid-60s, she was presented as a fashion leader, promoting Cartier choker-necklaces. The best-known society portraitist of the era was by John Singer Sargent who painted Edward’s brother Arthur, Duke of Connaught & wife Duchess Louise 1908. And depicted folds of the Duchess’ dark silk and chiffon sleeves.

The social season also included sporting events eg horse racing during Royal Ascot week in June. The royal stables produced some important racehorses in the 1890s, including the famed Persimmon who won the Epsom Derby and the Ascot Gold Cup. And note the yacht racing at Cowes Isle of Wight. A small seal, enamelled in royal racing colours, marked 1896 when Britannia won 14 yacht races! And the exhibition revealed the royals’ loved dogs!

Fans and jewels

King's Gallery

Visit London

Edward and Alexandra watched theatre goers, actors and musicians in their social set. A bronze inkwell self-portrait by actress Sarah Bernhardt was in Edward’s Marlborough House study. Alexandra was a skilled pianist and Puccini's opera La Fanciulla del West of 1910 was dedicated to her.

For the royal family, and everyone, the age of glamour abruptly ended in WW1. By then Edward’s son, King George V, was on the throne. Both George and his wife Queen Mary visited the battlefields of Northern Europe to meet troops and boost morale, the first time a monarch had visited a warzone in over a century. The art collected by the royal family in this wartime period reflected a solemn purpose. George V collected military relics and images of the Western Front, including the bleak landscapes by photographer Olive Edis, Britain’s first female war photographer. She recorded the devastation caused by bombing and artillery to the buildings of France and Belgium

The monarchy which emerged after WW1 ended in late 1918 displayed a strong sense of duty. See Frank Salisbury's image of the first ceremony at the Whitehall Cenotaph Nov 1920, where King George V led the nation in collective mourning.

international gifts to the royals

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