NPG and William Morris

you may not immediately see the link between William Morris, beardy Victorian socialist, and the 1951 Festival of Britain with its space-age aspirations, but the upcoming exhibition ANARCHY & BEAUTY, opening on 16 October, aims to show you..

Curated by acclaimed author and biographer Fiona MacCarthy, the display features original furniture and textiles designed and owned by Morris as well as the work of his contemporaries including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Edward Burne-Jones. These will be innovatively showcased alongside remarkable books, jewellery, ceramics and clothing by craftspeople such as Eric Gill, Bernard Leach and Terence Conran, demonstrating how Morris’s legacy continued into the twentieth century, influencing radical politics, the Garden City movement and the Festival of Britain in 1951

http://www.npg.org.uk/whatson/anarchy-beauty-william-morris-and-his-legacy-1860-1960/home.php

William Morris by C Fairfax Murray 

and for a comprehensive account of ALL portraits of Morris - paintings, drawings, caricatures, busts, photographs - go to Carol Blackett-Ord's scholarly list of All Known Portraits in the LATER VICTORIAN CATALOGUE on NPG website.  Which links through to all those in the NPG collection and many elsewhere:

http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/personExtended/mp03189/william-morris?tab=iconography

Moroccan Ambassadors

Copyright University of Birmingham 

 copyright English Heritage

The fine portraits of the Moroccan ambassadors 
[1] to Elizabeth I : Abd el-Ouahad ben Messaoud, 1600 by unknown artist, now Shakespeare Centre with legend '1600 / Abdul Guahid / Envoy from the Barbary Kingdoms to England / age 42' 
 and [2] to Charles II : Ben Hadou, 1684, by Godfrey Kneller and Jan Wyck (now Chiswick House)  
have been joined by two splendid images of  Georgian envoys

copyright Ben Elwes

copyright Ben Elwes 

 [3] to George I and George II:   Admiral Hajj Abdelkader Perez, with a naval engagement by Michael Dahl;

and [4] to George I :  Mohammed Ben Ali Abgali by Enoch Seeman.

Both painted during their tours of duty in Britain, and both retained by the courtier who was appointed their host/minder/liaison officer.  
It was obviously a tradition  They make one wonder what the sitters and their  entourages thought of the likenesses in Anglo-mode, half-length or three-quarter-length, and whether any copies were made for them to take home.

Here, incidentally, is John Evelyn's eye-witness account of Amb. Hadou's presentation to the Court of St James:

1682 Jan 11th To Lond: Saw the Audience of the Morocco Ambassador [Ben Haddu]: his retinue not numerous, was receivd in the banqueting-house both their majesties present: he cam up to the Throne without making any sort of Reverence, bowing so much as his head or body: he spake by a Renegado English man, for whose safe return there was a promise: They were all Clad in the Moorish habite Cassocks of Colourd Cloth or silk with buttons and loopes, over this an Alhaga [haik] or white wollan mantle, so large as to wrap both head & body, a shash or small Turban, naked leg'd and arm'd, but with lether socks like the Turks, rich Symeters [scimitars], large calico sleev'd shirts &c. The Ambassador had a string of Pearls oddly woven in his Turbant; I fancy the old Roman habite was little different as to the Mantle and naked limbs: The Ambassador was an handsom person, well fetur'd, & of a wise looke, subtile, and extreamly Civile: their Presents were Lions and Estridges [in fact two lions and 30 ostriches] &c: Their Errant, about a Peace at Tangire [Tangiers] &c.

    

Castle Howard and William Morris

Exhibition alert

<http://www.castlehoward.co.uk/house-and-grounds/exhibitions-2/william-morris.html>

This looks a nice display at Castle Howard, with a great portrait sketch of Morris's unruly hair by George Howard aka Earl of Carlisle, and the three-part Illustrious Women screen embroidered by Bessie Burden.

Spitalfields Nippers at Pre-Raphaelite exhibition

The Spitalfieldslife blog by the gentleauthor has publicised a riveting collection of photos taken in 1901-2 by Horace Warner, superintendent of the Bedford Institute, a Quaker mission.   Entitled Spitalfields Nippers, the photos are all of youngsters, in the streets and yards, with one striking group in the newly-opened Whitechapel Art Gallery during the inaugural exhibition of 'Modern Pictures by Living Artists' including the Pre-Raphaelites. This shows five children and a babe-in-arms grouped for the camera in front of several paintings, including two by Burne-Jones - an oil version of the stained glass design of St Luke and a levitating female figure of Hope.    They were presumably loaned by Georgiana, since EBJ died in 1898. One intriguing connection links the photographer with the painter, because Warner's family firm was that of Jeffrey & Co., which printed wallpapers for Morris & Co., in which of course Burne-Jones was an original partner.  Possibly Warner chose to pose his Nippers by Burne-Jones's works because of his connection.

Crowd-sourcing is requested to fund publication of the unique collection.  For more information:

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2014/06/29/an-astonishing-photographic-discovery/ 

UPDATE

and another image of Spitalfields kids (the same group I think) among Pre-Raphaelite pictures

with a link to the published volume here