Author Archives: picturesinpowell

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 →

Jenkins knows of Lord Vowchurch, Mrs. Conyers father, both from circulating stories about him, “one of those men oddly prevalent in Victorian times who sought personal power through buffoonery,” and from a caricature by Spy, which had appeared in Vanity Fair and now … Continue reading →

AW concludes with Jenkins musing on love as he rushes to meet Jean; in his pocket is a French postcard from her, showing  “a man and a woman sitting literally one on top of the other in an armchair upholstered with … Continue reading →

When Jenkins and Widermerpool bring the drunk Stringham back to his flat, Jenkins is reminded of Stringham’s room at school [AW 214/205]. On the walls hang the racehorse prints of The Pharisee and Trimalchio, pictures of Stringham’s parents, a drawing … Continue reading →

When Jenkins first met Lady Anne Stepney in the late 1920s, Botticelli seemed to be the limit of her knowledge of art. However, by 1933,  Stringham, speaking of his ex-sister-in-law, says: “I heard by the way, that Anne had got a painter … Continue reading →

When Nick meets the truculent, self-styled “art student” Anne Stepney at Foppa’s, Anne surveys Foppa and his card-playing companion and remarks, “‘I always think people playing cards make such a good pattern.’ ‘Rather like a Chardin,’ I suggested. ‘Do you … Continue reading →

At Foppa’s club, Foppa himself is no less handsomely turned out than Victor Emmanuelle II, but in the finely tailored suit and shoes of an urban dandy.  Foppa is fond of trotting races and the gambling that attends them.  “Hanging … Continue reading →

At Foppa’s Club, Nick surveys the scene:  “The Walls were white and bare, the vermouth bottles above the little bar shining out in bright stripes of colour that seemed to form a kind of spectrum in red, white and green.  … Continue reading →