The Day the Thames Froze Over

Frost Fair of 1684

I first read about the Thames in London freezing over a few years ago, and it really caught my imagination.  Between 1309 and 1814 (during the Little Ice Age), the Thames froze at least 23 times, and on five of these occasions the ice was thick enough to hold a "frost fair." Tents and booths were set up on the ice with food (roast ox), drink (gin), and games (bull baiting and fox hunting).  Some tents contained brothels. At the last frost fair, in 1814, an Elephant was led across the ice at Blackfriars Bridge. The Thames has not frozen solid since. 

Slate just ran a piece on the printers who set up printing presses on the ice and churned out engraved and letter-pressed sheets of paper as souvenirs. These souvenirs contained verses and engravings of the festivities.

Jimmy Page on the Pre-Raphaelites

There's a fantastic interview in this week's Financial Times with Jimmy Page, guitarist from Led Zeppelin, on his admiration for all things Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts. The interview takes place in the Leighton House Museum, which is around the corner from Page's own historic house, Tower House.  Tower House is a Victorian era home dominated by a gothic-revival turret and designed by the architect and designer William Burges, "who sought artistic refuge from industrialisation in a fantasy vision of the Middle Ages."

Page speaks about scouring second-hand shops for Arts & Crafts furniture in the sixties and seventies, and his fascination with the Pre-Raphaelites.  He tells the FT that "I got just caught up in that whole romantic notion of the Pre-Raphaelites, the mission they were on [to revolutionise art]. It was something that really captured my imagination, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.”

Check out the rest of this fantastic interview here.

Creating a Pre-Raphaelite Guide to London and Environs

The Tate Britain 

While working on Ophelia's Muse, I was lucky enough to be able to be able to visit many of the paintings and locations in and around London that I was writing about. Some locations, such as Cranbourne Alley, where Lizzie worked as a milliner crafting bonnets, are long gone. But others, like Hyde Park, can take you back to Victorian days with just a squint of the eyes and a little imagination. And there were many places to see Pre-Raphaelite painting and Victorian artifacts - some major ones are the Tate Britain, where Millais's painting of Ophelia hangs, and the Leighton House Museum, the painter Frederic, Lord Leighton's stunning home and studio, which houses a collection of Pre-Raphaelite paintings. 

Leighton House

I'm putting together a list of must-see Pre-Raphaelite locations in London and the surrounding towns, for fans of the book and others interested in the movement. There are so many great websites out there, I'm hoping that the list can serve as a guide for both armchair online exploration and visitors to the area. 

If you have a favorite Pre-Raphaelite or Victorian museum, house, location, or shop, please share them with me and I'll add them to the list!

Pre-Raphaelite Works on Paper at the Tate Britain

When I think of Pre-Raphaelite art, the first thing that comes to mind is large jewel-toned canvases dense with color, light, and beauty.  But the sketches - some preparatory, some casual - as well as smaller works in watercolor, often give us a glimpse into more intimate moments and into the artistic process itself. A collection of 60 of these works, including sketchbooks, scraps, and even backs of envelopes, is on view now through the spring of 2017 at the Tate Britain.

From the website: "The preparatory sketches and more finished works on paper on view in this room explore personal dramas, tense and tender encounters sometimes in private settings. The detailed studies reveal another kind of close encounter between artist and subject: the long, intimate observation that underpinned Pre-Raphaelite ‘truth to nature’."

This Daily Mail article combines two of my great loves - the Pre-Raphaelites and real estate. Apparently John Everett Millais' apartment in Kensington is on the market for five million pounds. If only he had that amazing soaking tub when he painted Ophelia, maybe Lizzie Siddal wouldn't have caught a chill posing in a cold tub in his drafty studio!