Monthly Archives: August 2014

Jenkins meets Widermerpool at Lady Molly’s. Widermerpool is looking wan but revives when he starts to talk about an invitation to visit Dogdene. “The reflection seemed to give him strength. I thought of Pepys and the ‘great black maid’; and … Continue reading →

Dicky Umfraville talks about the artistic aspirations of his ex-wife, Lady Anne Stepney, but adds that he, himself, “Can’t tell a Sargent from a ‘Snaffles.’” (ATM p 181) A snaffle is a common type of horse bit. ‘Snaffles’ was Charles … Continue reading →

Visits to the Jeavons’ household help Nick begin to fill out his picture of Molly Jeavons:  “She might have the acquisitive instinct to capture from her first marriage (if that was indeed their provenance) such spoils  as the Wilson and … Continue reading →

At Thrubworth, Jenkins sees a “full-length portrait by Lawrence, of an officer wearing the slung jacket of a hussar.”  Errigde explains that this is the “4th Lord Erridge and 1st Earl of Warminster,” a contemporary of the Duke of Wellington. [ALM … Continue reading →

Jenkins saw Mona as “like a strapping statue of Venus, conceived at a period when a touch of vulgarity had found its way into classical sculpture. “  [ALM 107/105 ]   We have already seen how Quiggins thought contemporary sculptors might treat … Continue reading →

The thought of General Conyers playing his cello reminds Jenkins of “Dutch genre pictures, sentimental yet at the same time impressive, not only on account of their adroit recession and delicate colour tones, but also from the deep social conviction … Continue reading →

Chips Lovell brings Nick to the Jeavons home, where Nick surveys the scene upon entering the drawing room:  “Some of the furniture was obviously rather valuable:  the rest, gimcrack to a degree.  Pictures showed a similar variation of standard, a … Continue reading →

Chips Lovell’s father was a painter whose “insipid, Barbizonish little landscapes, not wholly devoid of merit,  never sold beyond his own circle of friends. ” [ALM 16/14 ] The ‘Barbizon school‘ refers to a group of French nineteenth century landscape painters, … Continue reading →

In his introduction to the Sleaford family at the beginning of At Lady Molly’s, Nick evokes his image of Dogdene, the Sleaford great house:  “I also knew Constable’s picture in the National Gallery, which shows the mansion itself lying away … Continue reading →