Edwardian Friendship Pictures
<p>This picture is one of a delightful collection of Edwardian friendship pictures that we have for sale. The artworks, often small in scale, represent the Edwardian art of collecting original artworks as mementoes of friendship and exchange. Their subjects and themes reflect much about the Edwardian era—the period during the reign of King Edward VII (1901–10).</p><p>These years, sandwiched between two more momentous historical eras (the Victorian era and World War One), are often considered hard to define, and are characterised by a number of contradictions and tensions. It was a time of increasing social and political unrest, of the questioning of society, growing female emancipation and shaking off the shackles of the Victorian era. There were tensions between new mass society and the old guard aristocracy; between technological advances such as electrification, the motor car and cinema, and a nostalgia for rural traditions; and between fine art and the developing decorative arts, principally Art Nouveau. As a result, the arts of the period combine reassuring references to the past with elements of the strikingly new and modern.</p><p>The collection of pictures from which this artwork derives were compiled by a Gladys E. Martin of Hermon Hill, Wanstead, East London. Subjects within the collection include Edwardian ladies in opulent ostrich feathers or flowing Grecian dress, and monocled society gentlemen; ocean liners; still lifes with Art Nouveau jugs; literary subjects including Shakespeare and Longfellow; and humorous cartoons, featuring feminist elements or satirising high society. The pictures also include a touching sketch by a boy who was to be killed but a decade later in World War One.</p>
