Anon. Stanzas by Ralph Bernal MP with Yellow Geranium Flower

Regency Pictures of Remembrance: 1830s

This picture forms part of a beautiful and poignant collection of related works that we have for sale, dating from 1830-6. The collection comprises exquisite examples of Victorian friendship pictures and handwritten copperplate poetry. These works are set apart from the doodles and ditties more usually found in friendship albums in that they are of consistently high quality and meditate on various melancholic themes of great gravitas. Together, they form a collection of work in memoriam—centred, it seems, around the death of a young child named Edward.

The works include exquisite botanical paintings and portraits, and beautiful handwritten verses—many transcribed after poets such as Lord Byron, Thomas Moore, Theodor Körner and Thomas Haynes Bayly—meditating on widowhood, death, mortality and lost love. They evidence a time when the Romantics popularly revived the notion of ‘neurotic genius’, the idea that inner turmoil and anguish were driving forces behind creativity. Romantic literature indeed molded the perception of melancholia and people turned to novels and poetry to self-cure their conditions.

The various hands in the collection are unidentified, but inscriptions include the initials J.S.B. and J.E.S, names William Sheff, Florence, Sydney and Rosa, and a location ‘Lambeth’.