the Brontë Sisters: Curatorial intern Mari Elliott resets the dining room

dinsdag 28 januari 2014

Curatorial intern Mari Elliott resets the dining room

See, Charlotte's portrait is hanging again on his place

And we can see the new wallpaper. Do you like it?

Bronte Parsonage Museum

Curatorial intern Mari Elliott resets the dining room during our closed period under the watchful lens of a visiting photographer.

7 opmerkingen:

Anne29 januari 2014 om 08:10
See, Charlotte's portrait is hanging again on its place

Oh thank goodness!

If I was visiting the Parsonage, and for many it's an once in a life time event, that's what I would want to see over the fire place..

I think the dining room looks super...but it looks very green outside the windows...when were these photos taken? They could have been awhile ago

They are doing a nice job of making the table look as if CB just left it for a moment.

It's fascinating how Charlotte liked the color red when decorating and yet whenever she was criticizing Rome, the word " crimson" , as a negative usually made an appearance when describing the priest's robes .

Charlotte was brought up to honor Evangelical plainness in such things in her upper world life ...but in her underworld life Charlotte adored such richness. The color crimson denotes power there...along with the black locks and the ivory brows , it's a strongly colored world.

When she became famous, Charlotte was able to bring her two worlds together somewhat. She certainly did not grow up with crimson curtains
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Geri Meftah Art29 januari 2014 om 18:42
You are a kind of a Sherlock Holmes, Anne. You are right. It is green outside. I wonder when these pictures were taken. I thougt after the expositie of Charlotte Cory, but that cannot be, now I am realising.
Yes, I agree with you. Suppose you go for one time in your life to the Parsonage and then you see all

kind of things from Charlotte Cory instead of Charlotte Bronte.. ........how disappointing.

No Charlotte didn't grew up surrounded with crimson colours. I always understood the walls where dove.coloured,
Greetings from Geri
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Anne30 januari 2014 om 09:14
You are a kind of a Sherlock Holmes, Anne.

Geri, that comes from also being a Romanov fan...one learns to study photos carefully lol

My understanding is the dog collages are going elsewhere...a gallery in London? I'm hoping to visit the Parsonage ( Finally! ) in Oct. Thankfully the dogs will be else where by then ;)

Dove colored! I thought CB put up paper in the early 1850's....oh you mean while growing up...that would fit in with their simplicity ( and poverty)
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Geri Meftah Art30 januari 2014 om 14:10
That is great that you will visit the Parsonage in oktober!!!!!!
I hope you take a lot of pictures and tell us beautiful stories!!!!!
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Anne30 januari 2014 om 23:18
If I get there, assuredly :)

Have you been here Geri? Seems not as far from Holland

I bet this the dining room photo was taken while photos for the new guide book were snapped ...
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Geri Meftah Art31 januari 2014 om 10:49
Yes, I visited the Parsonage twice in the 80-th. I have slides of this visit. In that time it was very modern. I wished they were fotographes. I often think I must search again where they are and let real photographes made of them. It is on my list to do things for years. :-).
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Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte

Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.

O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.

Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.

There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

-- Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.