The iconic portrait of Ellen
Terry as Lady Macbeth in her beetle-wing dress has been a favourite
painting of mine for many, many
years.
I am not alone
in my enthusiasm as, with the detachment of someone who had been on
stage almost all her life, the actress herself commented:
“The
picture of me is nearly finished and I think it magnificent. The
green and the blue of the dress is splendid, and I think the
expression as Lady Macbeth holds the crown over her head quite
wonderful.”
A
while ago, studying Victorian theatre for my children’s novel, I learned that the
beetle-wing dress still existed, and was kept
as part of Terry’s
costume archive
at her last home, Smallhythe Place.
The property, a small
half-timbered cottage with a tiny theatre, is deep in the Kent
countryside, between
Tenterden and Rye and
now owned by the
National Trust. However,
the
opening hours and parking were
limited and Kent is
a long way from my home
in Yorkshire.
Later,
when I was passing
through
Kent
for work, the website
informed me that the Trust
was now focused
on a nearby
archaeological site, that
Smallhythe Place itself was under renovation and Terry’s dress away
for conservation. Ah
well, so be it, I
thought. By
then, my novel A
Boy Called M.O.U.S.E was
out into the world, other things were
happening,
and life moved on.
However,
about fortnight ago, Ellen Terry came back into my mind. In
‘The Motive and
The Clue’, Jack
Thorne’s play about
the tensions
between ageing Sir John
Gielgud and young
hellraiser, Richard
Burton, who wants
direction as Hamlet. In
response to Burton’s
tirade about
life as a miners son, Gielgud - most
wonderfully played by
Mark Gattis - says
in a hollow, lonely voice something
like “What else
could I be, coming from a theatrical family like mine?” Which
is when I remembered that Gielgud’s family tree included great-aunt
Ellen Terry of
the beetle-wing dress.
Almost
on the same day, in
a series of tweets
by fashion
historian Dr Kate Strasdin, I read that, right now, both the
Lady Macbeth portrait and
that famous dress
are on
display in Tate Britain, which
has prompted
this
History Girls post today.
The Dress
In 1888, John Singer Sargent,
an American-born,
European artist, and the
leading portrait painter of his generation, attended the opening of
Henry Irving’s production of Macbeth. Seeing
Terry as Lady Macbeth, he immediately asked to paint her but, as he
wrote to his wealthy American patron, Terry delayed until
the reviews of the play were in. She “had
not yet made up her mind to let me paint her in one of the dresses
until she is convinced she is a success. From the pictorial point of
view, there can be no doubt about it – magenta hair!”
The blue-green dress was
designed by Alice Comyns Carr who made many of Terry’s costumes.
The dress ‘shone
with a strange metallic lustre’.
And had a hint of soft
chain mail about it. Carr recorded
that her “fine
needlewoman”
Adaline Cort Nettleship, had “bought
this fine yarn for me in Bohemia . . a twist of soft green silk and
blue tinsel, and
wanted
‘something that would give the appearance of the scales of a
serpent”. Photographs,
rather
than the a painting,
show that ‘Mrs
Nettles’,
as Terry called her, used crotchet work to create the effect.
The
design was chosen to invoke fear. Not only was green a dangerously
sinister hue but the dress was covered in a thousand glittering
scales: the shining wing-cases or ‘elytra’
of
the green jewel beetle, which were harvested when the farmed insects
had died, which meant little in an era of feathers and furs.
Beetle-wing
embroidery originally came from Mughal India, where small sequin-like
pieces of ‘elytra’ were
traditionally added to decorative and household fabrics and to
clothing and accessories for all genders and ages. In the eighteenth
century, English women living in India wore soft white dresses
embroidered with small green elytra motifs.
However,
during
the nineteenth century, elytra and elytra fabric were imported to
Britain. The fabrics were of lesser quality, but
the
hard wing cases that
glittered
in
gas or candle-light, were ideal for evening dresses. Terry’s dress,
however,
was so well-made that it was re-used many times and went
on
tour to America, before becoming part of her costume archive.
Continuing
to describe Lady Macbeth’s costume, Carr noted that: “When the straight
thirteenth-century dress with sweeping sleeves was finished it hung
most beautifully, but we did not think it was brilliant enough, so it
was sewn all over with the real green beetlewings, and a narrow
border of celtic designs worked out in rubies and diamonds, hemmed
all the edges. To this was added a cloak of shot velvet in heather
tones, upon which great griffons were embroidered with flame-coloured
tinsel . . . two long plaits twisted with gold hung to her knees.”
Note that cloak: though
the cloak in the description above is described as “heather”,
Carr had also designed a bright scarlet cloak for Terry’s
appearance after the
Macbeth murder scene. The second cloak offers an interesting view of
Terry and Irving’s relationship: although Irving praised the look
of the cloak when Terry wore it on
the first night, by
the second performance, Irving appeared with the cloak thrown around his own
shoulders, aware that the splash
of the blood-red
focused the audience’s
eyes on him, on Macbeth. Terry, I assume, shrugged her shoulders.
This action
was not necessarily as
harsh as it seems. Irving must have felt that, on stage, the cloak
would look better on Macbeth as the central character. Irving was
always aware of the quality of the acting, but he was also conscious
of the picture the scene was creating. He was particular, not only of
the positioning and gestures of the actors but also the quality of
the painted scenery and the drama added by all the lighting effects.
Irving’s intention was that his audience would see each scene as a
beautiful, carefully constructed painting: as an example of theatre
as high art, not common
music-hall
entertainment. Ellen Terry, appearing in her green dress, helped
to fulfil to his
purpose.
The Painting.
Dressed in costume
and wearing her long dark-red theatrical wig, Terry took her carriage to
Sargent’s studio in Tite Street, London each
day for a couple of
weeks. She noted that during that time, her
“face’s appearance”, as she put it, earned her
no fee. Ellen,
who loved luxury, was also aware of poverty.
Oscar Wilde, who lived
nearby, watched her daily
arrival. A Terry fan,
he wrote “The
street that on a wet dreary morning has vouchsafed the vision of Lady
Macbeth in full regalia . . . can never again be as other streets: it
must always be full of wonderful possibilities.”
John Singer Sargent, although his image
indirectly promoted Irving’s play, did not choose a scene from the production. Originally
he started
work
on a series of grisaille sketches, showing Lady Macbeth leaving the
castle keep,
surrounded by flares and bowing court ladies.
However, Singer was keen to use the richness of oil paints to show the “stained glass
effects” that he had observed on the Lyceum
stage, so he chose to
paint a solitary Lady Macbeth, holding Duncan’s crown above her
head, a queen from the Celtic
twilight.
In the picture, Terry
gazes up at
the crown
with an extraordinary, enigmatic
expression. She saw
Lady Macbeth as a
woman who, because of love, was as one with her husband and his ambition:
“a woman of
highest nervous organisation, with a passionate intensity of
purpose.” Terry
loved the work,
describing her look as
apprehension, and said
that the portrait felt
“more like me than
any other”.
Jonathan Jones, art
critic of the Guardian,
writing about twenty years ago,
suggested
that she looks like a sacred figure from an ancient temple. He also criticised the work, pointing out that
‘this is not a
real moment of self-loss. It is a painting of what theatre meant to
the people at the time, an evocation of Terry’s power to inspire
fantasy in her public.”
Sargent may have decorated
the frame with Celtic motifs, ready for the portrait's first public viewing, which took place in 1889, at the New Gallery in Regent Street’s owned by
Alice’s Comyns Carr’s husband Joseph. The work became a great
attraction. Terry reported it as “the
sensation of the year . . . There are dense crowds round it day after
day . . . but opinions differ about it.”
Though some critics loved Sargent's painting, others did not, and The Saturday Review
declared it “the
best hated picture of the year.”
Sir Henry Irving bought
the
painting and
hung it at The Lyceum Theatre, where he hosted the all-male
Beefsteak dining club and eventually celebrated the hundredth performance of 'The
Merchant of Venice'. The painting was also exhibited in Europe and South
America, until finally being auctioned off and bought for the Tate by
a wealthy donor in 1906.
The
Actress
Ellen Terry (1847-1928) was
born into a large theatrical family. As an infant, her cot would have
been an open chest of drawers in that production’s lodgings. As a
young child, she grew up reading the works of Shakespeare with her
siblings. Terry grew up as familiar with the hardships of the touring
life as with the glamour of life on stage.
Her father, Ben, was the
business man, the one who found work with the actor-manager Charles
Keans’ company. Sarah,
Terry’s mother, who taught the
child actress about
performance and the importance of being ‘useful’ on stage to the
leading actors. Aged five, Terry appeared as Prince Arthur in King
John and other
young roles in
Kean’s productions. At eleven, she took the role of Puck in his A
Midsummer Nights Dream,
and
also
appeared
in a genteel Shakespearian Entertainment attended by Queen Victoria.
Terry’s
lively manner, burnished gold hair and Pre-Raphaelite beauty brought
her to the attention of wealthy artistic circles, and her life was
not without notoriety. At sixteen she retired from the stage to
become
the wife of the renowned painter G. F. Watts. Already in his
mid-forties, Watts was unsure whether he should adopt his model or
marry her.
Watts
painted The
Sisters,
a double portrait of Ellen Terry and her older sister Kate, he also
painted her alone: in his
work
‘Choosing’,
she appears as a young girl, caught between the
attraction of
a
scarlet, scentless camellia and the humble, maidenly sweetness of a
bunch of violets. Knowing
the circumstances and
the outcome,
this is a rather unsettling image.
Terry
also modelled for the pioneer photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron,
who
was related to Mrs Princeps,
Watt’s too-dominant patron. Terry appears as a simple young girl in
classical dress, her eyes closed and her head resting in an innocent
dreamlike pose. Sadly,
as
Watts’ spirited
wife,
Terry found no role in his already well-organised home and was
shunned by his reverential circle of admirers. The marriage was not a
success, and Terry
returned to her parents.
After
some
brief
appearances
on
stage, Terry
fell deeply in love with the designer and architect Edwin Godwin. She
ran away from her parents and the public to live with
him in rural
Hertfordshire, and was soon the mother of two adored children. With
Goodwin often away and Terry cut off from society, the relationship
was strained, and their mutual love of art and luxury soon brought
financial problems.
Then, in 1874, when Terry’s
pony-cart lost a wheel on a country lane, Charles Reade a passing
horseman, recognised her. He was a playwright and an old theatrical
friend who helped her and persuaded her to return to the stage in one
of his own plays. With the bailiffs at the door, and Reade’s money
on offer, Terry accepted and found that her audiences welcomed her
back warmly, both in London and on tour.
Terry’s true ascent to
theatrical stardom came not long after. Squire Bancroft, the renowned
theatre manager, cast her as Portia in his 1875 production of The
Merchant of Venice. Her
appearance, first in a china-blue and white gown designed by Alice
Comyns Carr and then in black velvet as
lawyer, stole the eye.
According to the artist Graham Robertson, she was “the
painter’s actress”
appealing to the eye and ear, “her
gestures and pose being elegance itself; her charm held everyone but
predominantly those who loved pictures.”
Though the actor playing Shylock did
not live up to the role, Terry
herself, and the production, shone.
Though Godwin’s
stage sets,
based on his
visits to Venice, were
praised, Terry’s
trust had gone and the relationship broke down. Before
long, now formally
separated from Watts, she married the
actor Charles Wardell
Kelly whom she knew on
tour. Marriage brought
her respectability and
her mother and family,
who had disowned her, happily
accept their daughter again.
Kelly, though,
was not happy to accept
roles of lesser stature than his wife and
so, as Terry’s
theatrical reputation rose higher, envy and jealousy blighted the
marriage.
Besides, Ellen
Terry, at that point, was
beginning the most
important professional relationship of her life. Henry Irving, the
leading stage manager and actor of the Victorian age invited her to
play Ophelia to his Hamlet at his
Lyceum Theatre. She became
his stage partner, establishing
a theatrical marriage that continued for twenty-four years. Their
personalities on stage were complementary
and were once
described as “the flower and the tree”. Terry’s warmth,
womanliness and lightness contrasted with Irving’s serious attitude
and sometimes stiff
manner. For her part,
she was content to use
her famed femininity as a foil to his dominant roles.
Irving, in his turn, gave
Terry the chance to star in all the female Shakespearean roles: Ophelia,
Desdemona, Portia, Juliet, Viola, Beatrice, Lady Macbeth, Cordelia,
Imogen, Volumnia and Queen Katherine,
for his theatre and she
was dubbed, by Oscar
Wilde, “Our Lady
of the Lyceum.”
And
the ‘Missing’ Dress . . .?
I
had long given up thoughts of seeing the dress itself, and I did not see the
painting when I visited Tate
Britain last year, after the great rehang. However, Dr Kate
Stradin’s
tweet sent me searching online, and there was an answer to the missing garment.
Around the millenium, the
National Trust had found that Terry’s archive at Smallhythe Place needed serious attention. There was particular concern about the presence of 'wooly bear moths' within the house and the fabric collection. Consequently, twelve
years ago, Zenze
Tinka Conservation starting
major
preservation
work on the
beetle-wing dress, which was in
preparation for the
“Sargent
and Fashion”
exhibition
to be held at the Boston Museum of Fine Art in 2023. Reading
on, I discovered that the
whole exhibition
was due to
transfer to
Tate Britain, in
London, in 2024.
It is 2024 now, and Ellen Terry's
famous costume is
right
here, on display. For the first time since 1889, her green beetle-wing dress,
the heather-coloured cloak and Sargent’s
portrait
will be together
in
the same place.
And
on the day this History Girls post appears,
I will be down
at Tate Britain,
meeting and greeting Ellen
Terry’s
famous green beetle-wing dress at last.
Maybe, over the summer, I might even take a look at Smallhythe
Place
again, and see how the conservation work is getting on.
Penny Dolan
PS. After being disappointed by
Jonathan Jones’ rather dismissive Guardian review of the
Sargent and Fashion
exhibition recently, I was hugely cheered to see, on the Letters
page, a spirited response from Cally
Blackman, asserting
the importance of fashion and frocks.
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2024/feb/23/throw-off-the-cloak-of-snobbery-and-treat-fashion-as-a-serious-art-form
She writes
“Whatever the distress
caused to Jones by the lighting, wall colours and glass cases in
wrong places, it is a very rare thing indeed to see garments
displayed next to the paintings in which they are depicted, and a
special joy to see these same garments interpreted on the canvas with
Sargent’s consummate skill and aesthetic judgment. Some of the
gowns on display are by Charles Worth, the most prestigious couturier
in Paris (not “designer” – the word had not been invented
then).”
Then
came Blackman’s warning:
Compared with these, Ellen Terry’s beetle-wing-embellished Lady
Macbeth stage costume (“costume” is the term for clothing worn
for performance, not for garments worn in everyday life) looked dull
and lifeless, yet scintillated in radiant, glowing colour from
Sargent’s portrait, a testament to his quality as an artist.”
I
am still looking forward to seeing the dress, and the whole exhibition, tremendously. It has been a long time.
Further
information:
Ellen Terry
by Joy Melville.
Sir Henry Irving: A
Victorian Actor and His World
by Jeffrey Richards.
A Strange Eventful History:
The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable
Families
by Michael Holroyd
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/visit/kent/smallhythe-place
Tom Gurney:
HistoryofArt.org
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2002/jan/12/arts.highereducation
A Boy Called M.O.U.S.E
by Penny Dolan
and
Dr Kate Strasdin
@kateStrasdin The
Dress Diary of Mrs Anne Sykes