What are Trumps. Maull & Polyblank, photographer (British, founded 1854, dissolved 1865) Southwell Brothers, photographer (English, founded 1862, dissolved 1878) Eva Macdonald (English, born 1846 / 1850) Unknown December 1868 Two collages in The Westmorland Album bear the signature of Eva Macdonald (1846/50-1930), the young niece of Lady Yarborough (1840-1927), the album’s compiler. These compositions commemorate the people Macdonald encountered and the social events that took place during her visits to her aunt and uncle’s Lincolnshire estate, Brocklesby Park. Macdonald’s photographic likenes
What are Trumps. Maull & Polyblank, photographer (British, founded 1854, dissolved 1865) Southwell Brothers, photographer (English, founded 1862, dissolved 1878) Eva Macdonald (English, born 1846 / 1850) Unknown December 1868 Two collages in The Westmorland Album bear the signature of Eva Macdonald (1846/50-1930), the young niece of Lady Yarborough (1840-1927), the album’s compiler. These compositions commemorate the people Macdonald encountered and the social events that took place during her visits to her aunt and uncle’s Lincolnshire estate, Brocklesby Park. Macdonald’s photographic likeness is found in the form of a gambling chip at the bottom left of the collage. Her signature and the date the drawing was made encircle the portrait. In this composition, five cartes-de-visite are fanned out like a hand of playing cards. The people portrayed were part of Lord and Lady Yarborough’s social circle—Christopher Sykes (an English politician) (1831-1898), Sybil Mary (née Grey), Duchess of St Albans (1848-1871), Captain Elmhirst (possibly William Augustus Elmhirst), the Honorable Oliver Montagu (1844-1893), and Montague John Guest (an English politician) (1839-1909). Through Macdonald’s imagination, they become pieces in a game of gambling, flirtation, and social status. In the minute circular portrait of Macdonald at the bottom left, she holds something rectangular in her hand. It might be a stack of playing cards suggesting that Macdonald was playing the role of dealer. Macdonald married her first husband, Henry Algernon Langham, in 1873; he was dead by the next year. She went on to marry her second husband, the Scotsman Robert William Napier of Magdala, 2nd Baron (1845-1921), in 1885. Perhaps her artistic talents, honed early on in her photocollage work, played a role in both her courtships. She exhibited paintings at the Royal Academy’s annual exhibitions in 1889, 1896, and 1898 and published novels and short stories such as Fiona (1909), How She Playe
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Photo credit: © piemags/GB24 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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