Prorogation of Parliament announced, 28th August 2019

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On the day that the prorogation of UK Parliament was announced, we visited the house that poet Hugh MacDiarmid (1892-1978), author Valda Trevlyn Grieve (1906-1989) and their son Michael lived in for nine years from 1933, on the Shetland island of Whalsay.

‘Sodom, Whalsay, Shetland’, (2019), Jenny Brownrigg. Box Brownie, T-Max 400
‘Sodom, Whalsay, Shetland’, (2019), Jenny Brownrigg. Box Brownie, T-Max 400

Brian Smith writes, in the excellent MacDiarmid in Shetland (1), that the poet had been poor in health and economy. Friends made arrangements with a Whalsay doctor for MacDiarmid and Trevlyn’s arrival. After a period of temporary accommodation, ‘…they heard news of a cottar’s house at Sodom, near Symbister, vacant because a child had died there of an infectious disease. No-one wanted to live there.’ (2)

The house, present day, sits in a field, with drunken thistles growing in clusters at the side of the track leading up to it. The high position of the house affords views over the island, down towards the distant harbour. MacDiarmid himself had sailed out with Whalsay’s herring fishers, with an ear to borrow their dialect for his poetry.  The connecting outhouses at Sodom (Norn for sud-heim or south house) are rusting and ruinous. However the dwelling, now called Grieve House, after the poet’s real surname, is watertight and used as a Shetland Böd.

‘Sodom, Whalsay, Shetland’, (2019), Jenny Brownrigg
‘Interior, Sodom, Whalsay, Shetland’ (2019), Jenny Brownrigg

In his 1934 poem, On A Raised Beach, MacDiarmid wrote,

‘It makes no difference to them [the stones] whether they are high or low, / Mountain peak or ocean floor, palace or pigsty. / There are plenty of ruined buildings but no ruined stones.’

From the humble stones of Sodom to the limestone of Augustus Pugin’s (1812-1852) Houses of Parliament. On the 28th August 2019, the Prime Minister announced that he had asked the Sovereign for the prorogation of Parliament to be from 9-12th September, until the beginning of the new session on 14th October 2019.  This was to allow the government time to set out legislative plans for the UK’s departure from the European Union, scheduled for 31st October 2019. As the announcement was made, the stones of Breiwick Beach shimmered.

Beach2Down at Symbister harbour, the berth for Whalsay’s pelagic fleet, there are signs, worn by weather and by hand, that evidence EU funding. This is nothing unusual. Signs across Scotland’s Highlands and Islands stand testament to monies from the European Regional Development Fund invested in the infrastructure of Scotland. Here at Symbister, the EU provided part-funding for the ‘Berthage and Net Handling Area’.

Sign, Whalsay, Shetland (2019), Jenny Brownrigg

Sign, Whalsay, Shetland (2019), Jenny Brownrigg

EU Flag Symbister Harbour

‘EU Flag, Symbister Harbour’, (2019), Jenny Brownrigg

With only seventeen days for Parliament to assess and debate any drafted legislation before Brexit, three separate cases were lodged as to the legality of prorogation, with the Court of Session in Edinburgh ruling it unlawful. On 24th September 2019 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the prorogation be annulled.

Under the European Union, The Common Fisheries Policy sets quotas for pelagic fish such as herring and mackerel. This is under review as part of Brexit negotiations, with UK and EU to reach agreement on future fishing rights by July 2020.

Footnotes

(1) MacDiarmid in Shetland, P.43, eds Graham, L and Smith, B, published by Shetland Library, 1992.

(2) P.45, Ibid.

Europe Road, 31st January 2020

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‘Europe Road, 31 Jan 2020’, Jenny Brownrigg. Box Brownie, T-Max 400 Film
‘Europe Road, 31 Jan 2020’, Jenny Brownrigg. Box Brownie, T-Max 400 Film
‘Europe Road, 31 Jan 2020’, Jenny Brownrigg. Box Brownie, T-Max 400 Film

On ‘Brexit Day’, 31st January 2020, the day that the U.K. formally exited the European Union, I made a round trip to Europe Road, London.

Europe Road lies in the borough of Woolwich, located on the Greenwich Peninsula. The names of the multi-story flats, Sovereign House and the nearby Plantagenet House, allude to its royal past. Europe Road, running parallel to the River Thames, backs onto naval dockyards built by Henry VIII.

SONY DSC

Sovereign House, Europe Road, 31 Jan 2020, Jenny Brownrigg

What was happening on this day that the U.K. took the road away from Europe? There were no parties nor Union Jacks on Europe Road. A man came out of the flats to empty his rubbish into a bin. Another was putting tools in a joinery van. A father and son fished from the docks. A plane came into land at London City airport. Ivy wrapped itself like a boa constrictor around the tree behind the community centre at the Clock House, the old Dockyard offices on Defiance Walk.

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The old Dockyards behind Europe Road, 31 Jan 2020. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

On the 31st January, a two-cannon gun battery on the nearby Thames Path at Resolution Walk, continued to defend the river and walkway from an unseen invasion.

IMG_9974

Gun Battery, Resolution Walk, 31 Jan 2020. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

 

For more in the series, ‘From Eoropie to Europe Road’, see ‘Measuring European Union subsidy in Scotland, after William Blake’s ‘Europe: A Prophecy’ (2019), Prorogation of Parliament Announced 28th August 2019, (2020) and lecture notes from ‘In or Out? How Britain Decided’, Professor John Curtice, The Stevenson Lectures in Citizenship, University of Glasgow 28.6.16.

‘Eoropie’, (2019), Jenny Brownrigg
‘Europe Road’, (2020), Jenny Brownrigg

 

Hive Mind: Researchers of Early Twentieth Century Women Photographers and Filmmakers in Scotland

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Postcard, original photograph, Violet Banks, c. 1920s.
Postcard, original photograph, Violet Banks, c. 1920s.

In 2019, I was invited by National Trust for Scotland archivist Fiona J Mackenzie to be involved in the #CannaTweet Conference ‘The Female (or Those Identifying as Female) Photographer in Scotland & Her Archives- Contribution and Connection’ [1], which gave me the opportunity to consider the field of researchers currently working on early twentieth century filmmakers and photographers in Scotland.

Shona Main is exploring the work of Shetland film-maker Jenny Gilbertson  (1902-1990), whose archive is held by Shetland Museum and Archive. Shona is a Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities (SGSAH) supported practice-led candidate at University of Stirling and the Glasgow School of Art.

Dr Maya Darrell Hewins  is a filmmaker and film archivist with an interest in community-led archiving initiatives including Shetland Film Archive. This volunteer-run community led group collect, manage and make accessible moving image material about Shetland, including amateur film footage.

Caroline Douglas is a PhD candidate at Royal College of Art. Her project ‘Women in Early Scottish Photography’ has researched the women involved in the wider process of making early photography, focusing on those who were assistants and subjects as well as makers.

Isabel Segui (University of Aberdeen) has researched filmmaker sisters Ruby Grierson (1904-1940) and Marion Grierson (1907-1998), examining how they are documented in the Grierson Collection University of Stirling Archives. This was funded by SGSAH. Her new website is https://thegriersonwomen.wordpress.com/

Rachel Pronger and Camilla Baier are ‘archive activists’. Their ‘Invisible Women’ project seeks to re-insert forgotten women filmmakers of the 1930s and 1940s back into the story of film. This includes Kay Mander (1915-2013) and Evelyn Spice Cherry (1904-1990).

Sarah Neely (University of Glasgow), as well as her scholarship on Orcadian filmmaker Margaret Tait (1918-1999), has also written on Isobel Wylie Hutchison (1889-1982) who travelled to Greenland and the Arctic to make botanical films. Royal Scottish Geographic Society holds Hutchison’s archive.

Fiona J Mackenzie is Canna House National Trust for Scotland archivist. She has been re-interpreting Margaret Fay Shaw’s (1903-2004) images, films and words, telling the story of Shaw’s life and work. She builds on the lifework of retired Canna House archivist Magda Sagarzazu.

I spoke about Edinburgh photographer Violet Banks (1886-1985) and M.E.M. Donaldson (1876-1958). Banks travelled across the Hebrides in the 1920s. Her archive is at Historic Environment Scotland. M.E.M. Donaldson made many walks across the Highlands and Islands, using her photographs for her travel guides. The landscapes part of her archive is held by Inverness Museum and Art Gallery. Read more about these two photographers here. [2]

Rachel Boyd, currently studying MLitt History of Photography at University St Andrews, was the second speaker at #CannaTweet Conference, exploring how Margaret Fay Shaw’s 1930s’ photographs of South Uist linked both to the land and the community, arguing that ‘Shaw’s portraits were faithfully attributed with Gaelic patronymics, situating them in their ancestral heritage, attributed not just by the character of the local landscape enveloping them or their farming implements – but in relation to each other.’

Follow on Twitter: @GaelicSinger, @shonamain @SarahRNeely @RachelPronger @camillabaier @rachelwboyd @isabelgui @caddydouglas @Maya_D_H @BrownriggJenny

Footnotes

[1] #CannaTweet Conference took place 14.5.19. A Tweet conference is a method to present a paper entirely on Twitter, across an agreed number of tweets per speaker.

[2]  Hugh Cheape has written on M.E.M. Donaldson in the excellent article ‘Herself and Green Maria: the photography of M.E.M. Donaldson’, Cheape, H, ‘Studies in Photography’ (2006). Jennifer Morag Henderson is currently writing Donaldson’s biography.

Bet Low: An Active Career

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Bet Low’s (1924-2007) early work captured city scenes and people, before she turned her attention to landscape painting. Low then developed a uniquely figurative style, visually reducing landscape into key elements. Running concurrently with her artistic practice, Low’s early experience at Glasgow Unity Theatre and involvement in artist-led groups led to her co-founding the New Charing Cross Gallery (1963–8).Although she was an independent artist actively working outside any institutional context, Low did not consider herself ‘unknown’. This article therefore considers the visibility of her practice, concluding with a consideration of her critical legacy.

This essay is part of ‘Women Painting: Scottish Art 1940-1980’, (2020) a special issue for Visual Culture in Britain co-edited by Marianne Greated and Susannah Thompson.

Bet Low, from CCA Glasgow archive

Bet Low, from CCA Glasgow archival holdings

Measuring European Union subsidy in Scotland, after William Blake’s ‘Europe: A Prophecy’

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Referring to William Blake’s illustration Europe: A Prophecy (1793) showing the god Urizen measuring the limits of the material world with a set of dividers, I surveyed EU subsidy to Scotland at Eoropie beach, Isle of Lewis, Scotland on 29 March 2019, the first delayed date of the UK’s exit from the European Union.

Card available; edition of 150.

‘Measuring European Union subsidy in Scotland, after William Blake’s Europe: A Prophecy‘, Jenny Brownrigg Photo: Alastair S. Macdonald

Photo: Elizabeth Shannon

Card reverse

Eoropie beach, 29 March 2019 Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Eoropie beach, 29 March 2019 Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Eoropie beach, 29 March 2019 Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Research Note 5: Around North Ballachulish, M.E.M. Donaldson

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Following on from my visit to Isle of Eigg, where I visually documented the places that M.E.M Donaldson (1876-1958) photographed, I am slowly visiting the other locations she mentioned or photographed in her travel guide ‘Wanderings in the Western Highlands and Islands’, (1921), published by Alexander Gardner Ltd, Paisley). I spent this past weekend in North Ballachulish, which lies five miles from the Corran ferry, which connects to Ardnamurchan. M.E.M. Donaldson would have taken the road through North Ballachulish numerous times, from her early visits to when she finally moved to Sanna Bay, at the tip of the Ardnamurchan peninsula in 1927. Indeed, in her travel guide she recalls,

‘When it was time for the car to start, even quicker sped the glorious journey down the shores of Loch Linnhe to Ballachulish, for all the way along, and increasingly, the scenery is a feast of good things; and whether it be the sea, the distant mountains, or the road itself, every prospect delights your heart’. (P. 269)

North Ballachulish. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

The church door to St Bride’s remained open during my days in North Ballachulish, for curious wayfarers but also, I suspect, for the swallows that were nesting in the rafters of the vestibule. Both Carnglas (also known as Rhuba Mor) and Clach a’ Charra sites are located on private farmland. Donaldson records that Carnglas was a secret outdoor location to take the sacrament; an example of worship in the 18th century when Catholicism was illegal in Scotland.  The ‘soldiers’ she refers to were the Jacobites. Donaldson also mentions earlier in the book that, ‘… in 1768 the Roman Catholic authorities… [built] a college at Buorblach, at the mouth of the Morar river. Here many a ‘heather priest’ was trained, until, in 1778, the college was transferred to Samalaman in Moidart.’ (P. 88). Another example of the ‘heather priests’ being secretly trained in Scotland is at Scalan Seminary, in the Braes of Glenlivet, Morayshire.

~

‘At North Ballachulish you may see in the summer glorious fields starred with the white and gold of ox-eyes and corncockles, and framed with the vividly bright pink of the wild rose, furrows of meadow sweet beyond the sparkling waters of the loch, and everywhere the towering mountains stretching far up through Glencoe to the wild and lonely expanse of the moor at Rannoch, and to the head of Loch Leven.’ (P. 270)

North Ballachulish, loch side, Loch Linnhe. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

‘Just about a mile short of North Ballachulish ferry, you pass at the foot of the craggy hillside the beautiful little church of S. Bride… I have been to the Three Hours’ Service on a wet Good Friday at S. Bride’s, and it has been a lesson to see the reverent intentness of a goodly congregation of Highlanders, mostly men, nearly all of whom were present throughout the devotion. (P. 271)

St Bride’s, North Ballachulish. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

St. Bride’s, North Ballachulish. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

‘At Onich… standing in a field by the shores of Loch Linnhe, is the noteworthy perforated standing stone called Clach a’ Charra, 6 feet 8 inches high and 3 feet 10 inches at its widest part. This, an irregularly-shaped monolith… has every appearance of having been obtained from the bed of some river which, aided by the action of stones, has worn part of the surface into a hollow and at two points into holes about 21/4 inches in diameter.’ (P. 269)

‘These Highlanders are in a true succession of their heroically enduring forefathers, who, despite relentless persecution, kept true to the faith of the church. For in a field near by the present Loch Leven Hotel is Carnglas, supposed to have been once the site of a Columban church, and here the forefathers of the present Faithful Remnant used to assemble secretly to receive the Blessed Sacrament. The officiating itinerant priest disguised himself in a grey suit, and a sentinel was posted on an eminence commanding the Fort William road, to give warning if any soldiers were approaching.’ (P.272)

Walking towards a photograph

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This piece of writing lay incomplete, seeking its correct form, after its beginnings on my one-week residency at Sweeney’s Bothy, Isle of Eigg in November 2016. In December 2018, I was invited by The Bothy Project, the residency host, to speak about my research on early photographer M.E.M Donaldson, and the series of photographs she had made on Eigg. I completed this text to open the presentation, endeavouring to lead myself and the audience to the point that Donaldson takes a photograph at Laig Bay, of a woman who walks along the beach. I had experienced her photography as ‘a journey into’ a landscape, so ‘Walking towards a photograph’ echoes my aims for the residency, which were to locate the exact spots on the island, where Donaldson had taken her series of images, in order to understand more about her methods. A number of her photographs of Eigg illustrate her travel book ‘Wanderings in the Western Highlands and Islands’ [Published by Paisley: Alexander Gardner Ltd, 1920].

 

The sound shifts where there is something for the air to engage with,

Flowing through the dry, florescent leaves of a cottage copse,

or carried from source at Beinn Bhuide.

The dancing water follows the gravitational pull,

slicing under the tarmac of the main road to Cleadale,

to stalk the farm road down to Laig Bay.

 

Here stranded at the the farm road’s mouth

lies a Toyota jeep with half a registration plate L878,

A blue sticker on its pushed in side window declares– YES!

Last night’s rain follows a snaking tributary down a shallow gulley,

past a Castrol Oil drum, caught in the first curve.

 

Look up!

This juncture provides an excellent platform

To see Laig Farm in the distance,

nestled by foothills then the cliffs that

surround the top of the bay.

Continuing on, the track continues to dip,

And the sea disappears

As the vegetation grows high.

 

Black and red rosehips compete with brambles

that grow through and over the orange bracken,

reaching up to trace along the lowest tree branches,

then twist across the stream

which declares itself by sound only.

 

In fact, three different sounds of water can be heard:

Behind – the louder water from the cliffs of Beinn Bhuidhe;

Beside – the small stream now lost in yellow rushes

Ahead -the distant sea waves.

 

A singular fence post, with its wire haphazard and low to the ground,

halts to demarcate nothing.

A fat rainbow sprouts up to the left of the white church

With its green wooden window frames and door.

 

My wrists are cold.

I can feel the larger gray stones under my boots.

I and my shadow circumnavigate the larger puddles,

Avoiding the soaked heads of long grass.

 

The peat brown stream as it nears the beach, flows high and deep.

An inconsequential log fords it, to connect

With the small grassy verge, lined with sheep tracks,

That disperse into the low dunes.

 

The stream, now a tributary, reflects Rùm,

cutting the beach in two, to run into the sea.

Black brain coral lies beyond

these untrustworthy depths.

 

Instead, as I am not the protagonist,

I retreat to the rise before the beach,

to locate where she once stood,

as she observed the woman who walked along Laig Bay.

 

Tracing the founding members of Glasgow Society of Lady Artists

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‘A well painted figure subject from Miss Greenlees … Study of gladiolus, artistic in drawing and good in colour is shown by Mrs Provan … Mrs Robertson sends nicely painted vases, while Madame Röhl shows to advantage in birch trees… Miss Nisbet artistic drawings of poppies and Miss Henderson, well painted lilies. Whilst there is much commendable work there is a lack of variety and a total absence of domestic subjects which might be expected in such an exhibition.’

Glasgow Herald 5 Jan 1884, p4, held in Mitchell Library Special Collections

The above quote is from a critique of an early exhibition that founding members of the Glasgow Society of Lady Artists participated in. Very little beyond a list of names from a transcribed speech in the slim volume ‘History of the Society of Lady Artists’ Club’, (1950, printed by Robert Maclehose and Company Limited) can initially be ascertained about the eight women who established this society in 1882, with its primary aim to afford due recognition and opportunity to women in the art field.

This essay for the publication ‘Raoul Reynolds: A Retrospective’ (Poursuite Editions, 2018, ed. Zappia, F and TANK Art Space Marseille) roves between non-fiction and fiction, gathering through press cuttings, archival holdings, online marriage registers and existing scholarly work more information about Miss Greenlees, Miss Patrick, Mrs Robertson, Miss Nisbet, Mrs Agnew, Mme Röhl, Mrs Provan and Miss Katherine Henderson; whilst introducing the fictional character of Henriette Aliès-Reynolds, an early feminist and artist who went to the Glasgow School of Art at the end of the 19th century. Aliès-Reynolds is part of the collective fiction of the life of Raoul Reynolds, created by Francesca Zappia (independent curator, Glasgow) and TANK Art Space (Marseille) as part of their curated group exhibition ‘Raoul Reynolds: A Retrospective’ (2016) [1].

 

[EXTRACT]

‘…The studios became the site of the annual exhibition. The stairs at 136 Wellington Street are described by two critics. In the Lady’s Pictorial (1890):

In a miniature gallery perched atop of an excruciating number of stairs winding up to one of the high-lands of Wellington Street, which traverses the heart of the local artist colony.

The Stirling Journal and Advertiser (March 27, 1891): ‘I climbed the interminable stairs and found myself in the eyrie’.

In standing outside Wellington Street, one must still strain one’s neck in order to see the line of small windows in the top floor…’

Present day, 136 Wellington Street, Glasgow (2018) Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Present day, 136 Wellington Street, Glasgow (2018) Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Footnotes

[1] The publication is linked to the exhibition ‘Raoul Reynolds: a Retrospective’ (2016), curated by Zappia and Tank Art Space (Marseille) at Scotland Street Museum, Glasgow, as part of Glasgow International Festival of Visual Art; and La Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille (2016).’ Raoul Reynolds: A Retrospective’ was the result of a collective and collaborative exhibition made by twelve artists and a curator. It aimed to further develop the existing cultural exchange that forms part of the cooperation and twinning agreements between the two cities of Glasgow and Marseille. Thus, the twelve artists – Stéphanie Cherpin, Helen de Main, Sandro della Noce, Guillaume Gattier, Amandine Guruceaga, Benjamin Marianne, James McLardy, Douglas Morland, Philippe Murphy, Emilie Perotto, Bobby Niven and Alys Owen – represent the emergent artistic, and notably sculptural, scenes of the two cities. Together, they have collaborated and signed their works under the name of Raoul Reynolds.

[2] The book editors are Francesca Zappia (independent curator, Glasgow) and Amandine Guruceaga (TANK Art Space, Marseille). The four other publication contributors are Éric Mangion (Director of Exhibitions at the Villa Arson, Nice, France), curator and art critic Thimothé Chaillou and art historian Anna Dezeuze (L’école supérieure d’art & de design Marseille-Méditerranée). The publisher is Poursuite Editions, a french-based publisher focused on photography and related topics.

A Psychic Conversation with The Big Grey Man

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‘A Psychic Conversation with The Big Grey Man’ was my contribution to Alan Grieve’s ‘Dry Your Eyes, Big Man’ at Workspace, Dunfermline (7.7.18). The one night show and event brought together responses to The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui. Haunting Scotland’s second highest mountain, this legend or ‘strange phenomena’ engenders terror in those that experience its presence, with some hearing footsteps, others seeing a huge figure in the mist. Wendy Wood describes her own encounter in her book ‘The Secret of Spey’ (published by Robert Grant & Son, 1930):

‘It was on a dull day, with light snow lying, and I had no further intention than to wander to the mouth of the Lairig…I stopped to enjoy these surroundings, the uprush of the cliffs of Creag a’ Leth-choin, too steep to hold the snow, and the shadowed side of Sron na Lairig, and as I turned to retrace my steps I heard a voice of gigantic resonance. It spoke with the harsh consonants and full vowels of the Gaelic, but it issued so close to me that I was too startled, and I suppose I might as well confess, too scared, to unravel or even remember the sound of the words’.

P.26, ‘The Secret of Spey’, Wendy Wood

Lurcher’s Crag, Lairig Ghru, Cairngorms. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg

Affleck Grey’s ‘The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui: Myth or Monster?’ (Lochar Publishing, 1989) brings together the evidence of those who have seen or heard him. During World War 2, on mountain rescue duty, Peter Densham and Richard Frere found themselves in a conversation with the Big Grey Man- on what subject, they were unable to recall:

‘I was surprised after a little to hear Frere apparently talking to himself. Then I had the impression that he was talking to someone on the other side of the cairn. I went around and found myself joining in the conversation. It was a strange experience which seemed to have a psychic aspect. We talked to someone invisible for some time, and it seemed we had carried on this conversation for some little time, when we suddenly realised that there was no-one there but ourselves. Afterwards, neither of us, strangely, could recall the purport of this extraordinary conversation’.

P.7, ‘The Big Grey Man of Ben MacDhui: Myth or Monster?’, Affleck Gray

‘A Psychic Conversation with The Big Grey Man’ imagines such a conversation taking place, and seeks to re-imagine the Grey Man’s purpose of haunting these particular slopes and his approach to hill walkers. The text is laid out in the shape of his spectral silhouette.

Installation at ‘Dry Yer Eyes, Big Man’, Workspace Dunfermline, 2018. Photo: Alan Grieve

‘Dry Yer Eyes, Big Man’, Alan Grieve, Workspace Dunfermline, 2018. Photo courtesy the artist

‘I gladly strained my eyes to follow you’, Pollok House: Sally Salisbury portrait

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I gladly strained my eyes to follow you was devised by Shauna McMullan. It took the form of a 45min guided tour of National Trust for Scotland’s Pollok House, focusing on a selection of female portraits from the House’s art collection. [1] It was part of a group residency and exhibition, Cabinet Interventions (2018).

McMullan invited a number of writers, artists, academics and Pollok House staff to consider a particular portrait she had selected for each person. McMullan sent no details of the work, allowing for each respondent to consider how they would approach their task. The content of the tour, delivered by the Pollok House tour guides, was made up from short texts written specially for each work. The full piece I submitted, can be read here.

‘Mrs Salisbury’ (1724) by Michael Dahl (1656/9-1743), Pollok House, Glasgow, National Trust for Scotland

The painting that McMullan invited me to consider was ‘Mrs Salisbury’ (1724) by Michael Dahl (1656/9-1743). Her name gave enough for an internet search. The first image I find is of a mezzotint. It is a half length portrait in an oval, with the inscription under it reading ‘Mrs Sally Salisbury’. The curator notes in the British Museum catalogue entry, that ‘… both the engraver and the original artist suppressed their names from the print due to the character of the personage.’ [2]

Detail, ‘Mrs Salisbury’ (1724) by Michael Dahl (1656/9-1743), Pollok House, Glasgow. National Trust for Scotland

I first visit this painting at Glasgow Museum Resource Centre in Feb 2018. The work had been temporarily re-located to this store whilst building work was taking place in several of the rooms at Pollok House. I don’t want to miss any detail in this first meeting with her. Accompanied by the two museum curators who facilitate this visit, they stand aside whilst I look at the painting. I then examine the slim folder that accompanies it. There are no biographical details; the index only includes a curator entry on the condition of the painting. The gold relief frame, complete with heart and cherubs, seems at odds with the considered portrait within. The museum curators ask me if I wish for the painting to be turned over. The back is marked with a hand-painted inscription: ‘Mrs Salisbury or Priddon. Dahl Pinxt’.

Dahl paints this portrait of Mrs Sally Salisbury, in 1724, the year that she dies. She is thirty-two, whilst he is sixty-five. He lives to be eighty-four. In her short life, she has sold lace and oranges as a child; as a young runaway been forced into prostitution; then tried for stabbing a lover, whose misdemeanour had been to give two theatre tickets to her sister rather than to her. She subsequently dies of ill health in Newgate jail. In the year before her death, her story and likenesses are heavily circulated as she has become notorious. There are two separate volumes of her life created during the year of her trail, with further mezzotints from the accompanying illustrations sold. The two books are ‘Authentic Memoirs of the Life, Intrigues and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury’, 1723, by Capt. Charles Walker and ‘The Genuine History of Mrs Sarah Prydden, Usually Called, Sally Salisbury, and Her Gallants. Regularly Containing, the real Story of her Life’, printed for Andrew Moor, 1723.

Michael Dahl, a Swedish painter, was highly regarded in his field, regularly gaining major commissions from the ruling classes, as James Mulraine notes, in the period 1690s-1710s:

…regiments of [his] sitters line the walls of Royal and country house collections of the period. All this changed in 1714, when Queen Anne was succeeded by King George I.

Who commissioned Dahl to paint Sally Salisbury or did he choose to do so himself? Did she sit for him or like the ‘genuine’ and ‘authentic’ memoirs purporting to know her, is his portrait of her a real likeness or fabrication? As he moves from court sitter to ‘courtesan’ as subject, is he aligning his fading trajectory with that of her rising one in a bid to rekindle his own publicity? Or is he merely freed in 1714 from court patronage and able to draw on a wider repertoire?

It can only be noted that Dahl’s portrait of Salisbury is sympathetic in nature. She does not appear out of place in Pollock House in the company she keeps with royal and privileged women.

The painting in situ, Pollok House, Glasgow

The subsequent piece that I submit for the Pollok House tour, mirrors the brevity of her life by selecting the succinct, at most six word commentaries that describe each stage of her life, taken from the margins of the memoirs that circulated about her. The piece begins and concludes with two longer quotes that capture her trajectory:

[EXCERPT:

Sarah Pridden or Priddon,

alias Mrs Salisbury or Sally Salisbury,

(b. Shrewsbury, d. London. c.1692-1724)

The Drawing Room, Pollock House.

‘Many are the reports spread abroad, celebrating that Piece of Contradiction, SALLY SALISBURY’. [6]

 

‘Her Birth,

Parentage,

and earliest

Years.

 

Her first

Elopement

and Re-

turn.

 

She is put

to a Seam-

stress.

 

The Acci-

dent that

made her

run away

from thence.

 

Of her sel-

ling Oran-

ges, about

the Play-

house.

 

The Vul-

gar Report

of

her sel-

ling Pears,

selling

Matches,

contradicted.

 

Falls in

Love with

a Colonel…../

 

/…. She allures a

noble

Youth.

 

Clouds ri-

sing about

her.

 

Her la-

mentable

Downfall.’ [5]

‘But, like a’ Comet, her blaze was Bright, but of no continuance; Scare had she appear’d like the Sun; before she disappears like a Meteor…’ [6]]

Footnotes:

[1] The Pollok House collection was amassed by Sir William Stirling Maxwell (1818-1878). The tour was part of ‘Cabinet Interventions’, an exhibition at Pollok House, Pollock Country Park, Glasgow. (April-May 2018) https://cabinetinterventions.org/

[2] http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1659383&partId=1

[3] James Mulraine https://jamesmulraine.com/2017/02/16/the-painter-by-himself-a-late-self-portrait-by-michael-dahl/

[4] p.3, ‘Authentic Memoirs of the Life, Intrigues and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury’, 1723, by Capt. Charles Walker.

[5] Comments from the side margins, ‘The Genuine History of Mrs Sarah Prydden, Usually Called, Sally Salisbury, and Her Gallants. Regularly Containing, the real Story of her Life’, printed for Andrew Moor, 1723. Reproduction from British Library, Gale ECCO Print Editions.

[6] P41, Ibid.

‘I gladly strained my eyes to follow you’ publication. A guided tour of Pollok House, Shauna McMullan (2018)

Pollok House, Glasgow. National Trust for Scotland. Photo: Jenny Brownrigg