sitting for Cecil

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'All artists speak the same language , so photographers should be considered in terms of artists...' CB

 Mary Cushing Astor by Cecil Beaton

I've often looked longingly at my Cecil Beaton tomes and sighed-what beautiful photographs.

What gorgeous women, what handsome men-the sitters.

What gorgeous backdrops, the settings.

I love Cecil Beaton.

& that must be one of the many reasons I loved the return of Upstairs Downstairs. Cecil visits the residents of 165 Eaton Place in the last episode of the series. Well played by Christopher Harper, Cecil is there to photograph Lady Agnes Holland & her sister Lady Persie. Beaton brings all his charms- mostly spent on "Cook". Beaton also brings his own props to create the perfect setting for the perfect sitting. 

Baba Beaton, Cecil Beaton's sister & one of his favorite sitters

I've noticed the settings- painterly like. It's interesting to note Beaton never had what he called a studio-his idea was not to have one,certainly unusual in the day . He preferred to use his mother's drawing room, later- his own residences or those of his sitters-and true to fiction- he would bring props from drawing rooms and later drawing from his own stash of props expressly for his portrait work. Not one to wait and see what his sitter's rooms might be like-Cecil was prepared, fully armed with the perfect props to create the perfect portrait-screens, settees, silk, netting, pedestal, vase, roses and the like.

Oh--- 
& cellophane.
cellophane curtained, draped, twisted, tied and tasseled.

He staged.

He draped.

Norma Shearer by Cecil Beaton

Soap Suds by Cecil Beaton

'My sitters were more likely to be somewhat hazily discovered in a bower or grotto of silvery blossom or in some Hades of polka dots.' CB

The haze of Beaton's tinsel and cellophane props,his costumed & gowned sitters, made Beaton's subjects the envy of every aristocrat. When Beaton sends "Cook" a copy of her portrait-a vision- she looks at it admiringly and declares, “I could be aristocracy!”

Cecil Beaton as Major-General FH Seymour, The Groom of the Robes, at 'The Opera Ball', Metropolitan Opera House New York, April 1933. NPG

Beaton  was known as one of the foremost of the Society photographers by 1930. His own special signature became the doubling up of his sitters- twins, sisters or debutantes or a single sitter reflected in a piano top, mirror or some other clever Beatonesque ploy.

 Baba Beaton

 Paula Gellebrand by Cecil Beaton

 Marlene Dietrich by Cecil Beaton

'We all owe a great debt to Cecil, for keeping the idea of style alive.'  David Bailey

Drawing pictorial paradigms  from Watteau, Fragonard, Gainsborough and Piranesi ,Beaton blew up his work to create backdrops for his photographs. His idea- grandeur without the hauteur. Beaton photographed the Queen and other Royals with these scenes in the background. Not just for the Royals, Beaton used them to create the noble aristocratic image dear "Cook" craved so.

 Doris Duke by Cecil Beaton

image borrowed from Colette van den Thillart at Nicky Haslam Design

 The Famous Beauties Ball, 1931.Miss Baba Beaton (second from left) surrounded by Jess Chattock, Nancy Mitford, and Carol Prickard in enormous pageant dresses. by Cecil Beaton

"As far as possible I avoid allowing modern clothes to appear in a photograph... I try to get my sitters to wear some kind of costume that has withstood the criticism of time-that is located amidst a decor of rosebuds, chiffons & turtle doves."- CB

Marquise de Casa Maury by Cecil Beaton

In one of the scenes from Upstairs, Pritchard the butler confides to the Rose that above stairs there is a “contretemps regarding pastel tones.”  Lady Persie is off  to change her dress &  wear a different shade of lipstick to harmonize with her sister's appearance. Beaton not just fearing to date his work- but to he desired it to escape time.  Friends, painter Rex Whistler and David Garnett, novelist, were idealizing the era they lived in-holding time at bay. It was Beaton's way of shunning Modernism- as he stated it was his attempt 'to decorate a machine with dog roses.'   Some of my favorite Beaton photographs are portraits: A series of photographs of Paula Gellibrand, Marquise de Casa Maury  & photographs of Edith Sitwell.

Both so different- but both exuding that Beatonesque haze of timelessness that few can match.

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as Elizabeth saw her

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'She was like an altar on the move.'

Elizabeth Bowen on Edith Sitwell

Cecil Beaton photographer




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looking again: a glimpse of Edith Sitwell

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a book can keep me busy for hours, even the most well worn.*  some of the photographs of rooms, portraits, homes I've memorized-scrutinized, &amp though I am sure some -after 27 years- have changed hands or been demolished to be sure-they still capture my attention as if it were the first time.

Edith Sitwell painted by Tchelitchew in 1935

this time SHE caught my eye.
I saw her hanging there.
None other than the Dame.
Edith Sitwell.
She is holding court in the lovingly cluttered library of her brother Sir Sacherevell Sitwell's Weston Hall. Friend Pavel Tchelitchew painted this portrait of Edith. The pair were great friends- Edith having a quite unrequited love for the homosexual Pavel. He certainly wasn't the kindest kind of friend when he painted this portrait. Edith would have been 48 then- as I figure- and seeing the many photographs of her during this period- she never appeared as Pavel paints her. Pavel obviously was trying to reach beyond the woman and conjure a medieval knight. Edith was a woman he felt insecure with & he missed the mark with this one. I don't think his mediocre talent captured the poet or the woman-though Edith championed him, because she loved him. Love makes you blind.
Edith never found the formidable Original man to her formidable Original self.

Along with the books, a lovely collection of blue opaline vases and like pieces fill the space. Apparently the Sitwell ladies typically inherited the home-passed down through the family since it was built around 1700. The house went to Sacheverell in the 1920's and was decorated with pieces from the house. More opaline pieces line the mantle and over it a wired bookcase holding valuable leather editions.

The pair of gilt mirrors hanging over the Chinese cabinets belonged to Edith too.

Sir Sacheverell Sitwell in the Weston library, 1952

photographed by Cecil Beaton

 

Weston Hall as painted by friend and frequent visitor Rex Whistler

Edith's niece Susanna still lives at Weston Hall and Edith's great nephew William Sitwell has inherited many of her books. He also spent a year learning the hypnotic words of her Facade poems set to music.

'Looking through cupboards and wardrobes at Weston Hall, I come across examples of her clothes. Long flowing robes, gowns, turbans and other headgear, and huge colourful rings that adorned her long fingers.' (WSitwell)

He says of Facade : 'Some of the lines must be proclaimed at breakneck speed, and as I worked my way through the colourful, exotic language, the assonances and dissonances, I could almost feel her spirit conjuring up the figures of Sir Beelzebub and Black Mrs Behemoth, not to mention the satyrs, nymphs and others who appear. She wrote this early white rap in the 1920s, finessing it over the next 40 years, and it demonstrates her extraordinary, dextrous touch with the English language, and her musical abilities.'

A new book- Edith Sitwell Avant Garde Poet, English Genius by Richard Greene has been out for a few months & I am about ready to read on- The author suggests 'It is time to look again at Edith Sitwell.’ 

She is someone we look to often- and never for a moment have we forgotten her.

(interior pictures of Weston Hall from a book English Style-one of the first of my "big books" in 1984 at a price of $35.00 then, I think they may be more reasonable now. That still seems a lot to me-even now.)

portraits & Weston Hall, by Rex Whistler from The Sitwells

about Edith at little augury here


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in your Easter bonnet V

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 Edith

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December grisamber

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 WHEN cold December
Froze to grisamber
The jangling bells on the sweet rose-trees--
Then fading slow
And furred is the snow
As the almond's sweet husk--
And smelling like musk.
The snow amygdaline
Under the eglantine
Where the bristling stars shine
Like a gilt porcupine--
The snow confesses
The little Princesses
On their small chioppines
Dance under the orpines.
See the casuistries
Of their slant fluttering eyes--
Gilt as the zodiac
(Dancing Herodiac).
Only the snow slides
Like gilded myrrh--
From the rose-branches--hides
Rose-roots that stir.

~edith sitwell 

 

edith sitwell drawing by rex whistler

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& Ladies of the Club: Marilyn

 top picture Edith Sitwell, bottom, Elsa Maxwell- both pictured with Marilyn Monroe.
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& Ladies of the Club : the 3 Graces

“The two greatest mannequins of the century were Gertrude Stein and Edith Sitwell- unquestionably. You just couldn't take a bad picture of those two old girls.” DV

a bit more Sitwell

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The Sitwells by John Singer Sargent, 1900

Edith Sitwell

Sir George Sitwell

Lady Ida Sitwell

 Sacheverell Sitwell, the Spare

Osbert Sitwell, the Heir

(interior of Renishaw)

in the Drawing Room at Renishaw

photographed by Bill Brandt, 1945

Edith Sitwell

Osbert Sitwell

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below the Sargent, an 18th c. silhoutte

of the Sitwell and Warnerford families

by Francis Torond

the Drawing Room photograph accompanied a series in Lilliput, Nov, 1949- "An Odd Lot"- text by Alan Pryce-Jones here:  

'In a plain age, they have always maintained coloured standards. Large houses and large imaginings; good prose and good food; movement and vision; warm friendship and blood rows- in public and in private their roles are as remote from the Century of the Common Man as the Aztecs.'

(Fascinating)

(from THE SITWELLS, Bradford,Clerk,Fryer,Gibson,Pearson)

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the Sitwell Equation

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+

+

=

how could it be otherwise?

image 1- the 18th century Sitwell children,John Singleton Copley 1787

image 2- the Sitwell family estate Renishaw's Entrance to the Wilderness, photograph by Bill Brandt,1945, the images (the Wilderness-also known as Brockhill Wood, the statues are a warrior and an amazon.

image 3- Lady Ida Sitwell, the Sitwell's mother, painted by Sir William Blake Richmond, before marriage the Honourable Ida Denison,descended from the Plantagenet kings

image 4- Osbert (35), ( Edith (age 40) Sacheverell (30) 1927 by Cecil Beaton

Renishaw HERE
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decorating Edith with diamonds and rhubarb

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have you ever looked at many portraits, photography or paintings of Edith Sitwell?
what strikes you?

Edith 1918, by Roger Fry

The woman, yes-She was extraordinary. Her features were captivating, perhaps not beautiful, perhaps not even close. Miss Sitwell did manage to make the list of DEVASTATING BEAUTIES compiled by little augury from a field of blogging aesthetes earlier in the year. After looking at photographs inching over the Sitwell profile, the deep set eyes draped by the shadow of a brow-penetrating her observer's gaze-

photograph by Jane Brown

-what else is there? After getting past that stare- It's the jewelry, Darling!

Debra Healy of the blog-Diamonds and Rhubarb- and little augury are taking a look at the Dame's jewels. No one better than Debra to collaborate with; she is an expert- a Paris resident, she pens a second blog called Paris Originals.  There is little doubt that the 6 foot frame of Edith Sitwell adorned with the exotic stones and simple loosely fitting gowns must have been arresting. She 'wore extravagant clothes and jewels; usually the clothes did not fit at all they just hung. She did it exactly her own way and got away with it.' (Horst)

 Some of Edith's jewels-

a pair of French gold-plated expanding bracelets

two aquamarine rings-one with rubies on the shoulders

(Michael Gosschalk of Motocombe Street, Belgravia-supplied these)

an amethyst ring

a fluorite ring,carved in the shape of two bears, 19th c. Chinese

( image from The Sitwells)

One of the England's privileged- bright young things, Allanah Harper- observed: 
'Here was the beauty of a Piero della Francesca. Her flat fair hair was like that of a naiad, her hands as white as alabaster. On her long gothic fingers she wore huge rings, lumps of topaz and turquoise, on her wrist were coral and jet bracelets.' (1925)

 Edith by Cecil Beaton, 1926

Edith's hands were her face-(Not my words the Dame's). 'I am not beautiful, but I wouldn't look any other way.'

'My hands are my face!' 

(1959) 

Edith's beautiful jewelry achieved its own fame- she penned articles about them, along with her clothes, for Harper's Bazaar (Feb 1939, Precious Stones and Metals), My Clothes and I, (Harper's Bazaar October 1959 & The Observer, May 1959). 'I feel undressed without my rings. These aquamarines I love, but I’ve got a beautiful topaz like a sunflower--and when I’ve worn these too much I feel it’s being neglected….I’ve got red and green and black amber bracelets, and a ring I call tiger into grape. Its yellow, veined with blue and red, but when it snows it turns blue.'  In "Precious Stones and Metals,Harper's Bazaar (London), Edith recommends mixing semi-precious and precious stones 'to revive the rich an variegated palette of ancient jewelry...'
Debra adds, the tiger into grape stone she is describing could be ametrine a cross between citrine and amethyst- both are quartz and could be the same crystal, or an alexandrite.

One of the many portraits of Edith Sitwell painted by Pavel Tchelitchew. Edith and Pavel began a deep & complicated friendship- she his muse and his champion. Edith wrote a friend that she was 'frightfully pleased,' with the Sibyl portrait. Tchelitchew's biographer says the artist wanted 'to pay a signal tribute to Edith Sitwell.' Edith wears no rings in the portrait-instead- a monumental brooch that appears to be weighing down her very simple dress.

 the Sibyl portrait, 1937

Dame Edith seldom completed an interview without referring to her huge aquamarine rings( why not?)
from the 1959 article My Clothes and I -"She is wearing four enormous chunks of Aquamarine on her famous hands and her nails were enameled a deep brown red. Her plain black satin dress was cut with a low U neck, and the brooch pinned there was a Blue stone set in engraved gold that her brother Osbert brought her from China."

 "I take very great care of my hands and put cream on them--Peggy Sage and other things." edith sitwell-

 Edith Sitwell,by Norman Parkinson, 1939

Edith wears a Queen Anne bracelet and ring of pearls and mauve pink topaz in the portrait

Edith Sitwell photographed by Terry Fincher

Horst photographed Edith in 1948 for Vogue in New York. Here-along with her aquamarines-Edith wears two massive brooches. Horst says “Edith Sitwell wore extravagant clothes and Jewels; usually the clothes did not fit at all they just hung. She did it exactly her own way and got away with it.” "She was considered an Improbable and anachronistic fashion icon frequently photographed bristling with gigantic aquamarine rings-- at least two to a finger, and plastered with vast brooches of semi-precious stones" (from Verdura: the life work of a master jeweler, by Patricia Corbett)

The Brooches-from the Chinese Box- likely were a gift from Osbert, Edith's brother, brought back from a 1934 trip to China. Debra adds- the Chines box seems to be mountings in gold or silver gilt on white jade. The stones look like rubies, sapphires, jades,  and cats-eyes (chrysoberyl).

massive brooches

nestled in the Chinese box

Edith with Osbert in 1948

 an ankle ornament of traditional silverwork, Yemen

Debra adds- the jewelry Dame Edith is wearing (above) looks ethnic, the bracelets could be from India or Yemen. The necklace looks like a belt. She must have been very large boned, to be able to wear two rings on one finger, and those bracelets were originally ankle bracelets for much smaller women .The necklace (belt) looks Malaysian.

Edith photographed by Jane Brown
from My Clothes and I

The Brown photograph accompanied Edith's Observer article. According to Edith the necklace became known as her 'Aztec' necklace. She writes-
' This gold collar was made for me by an American woman called Millicent Rogers. She was one of my greatest friends, though I only met her once. She sent it to me, and the British Museum kept it four days and thought it was pre-Columban[sic], undoubtedly from the tomb of an Inca-though they couldn't make out how the gold could be stiffened in a way that wasn't in existence in those days. But I have to be careful of the clanking when I am reciting and don't often wear it for that.' 


Debra adds, Millicent Rogers may have had Fulco di Verdura put the necklace together for Dame Edith, because it has been attributed to him  in Victoria Glendinning’s book.(Edith Sitwell A Unicorn Among Lions, Weidenfeld and Nicolson,1981, London.)  Glendinning also mentions that Dame Edith wore “ The Aztec” collar to a nearly disastrous reading  at the Edinburgh Festival in August of 1959. It was reported that the necklace made so much noise, and combined with a malfunctioning microphone made it practically impossible for the audience the hear her. This must be the reason she mentions the noise issue in the interview in Harper's Bazaar. She was after all very concerned about her image, and her (readings) performances.

 a 1962 Beaton photograph

The 1959 Harper's Bazaar cover likely honoured Edith on her 75th birthday with the peacock eye cover. This is the issue with Edith's article- My Clothes and I. There is not a dedication referencing the cover -but it can not be a coincidence; as a child Edith had befriended a peacock on the grounds of her family estate Renishaw. (see the little augury post here)

( cover image-Diamonds and Rhubarb)

Cecil Beaton photographed the great lady in dramatically studied poses only a woman of confidence could evoke in
 1962.  The Dame adorned with her rings and brooches- and feathers.

A peacock? Indeed.

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