Getty Museum

[Ball at Brocklesby]

Date

December 4, 1870

Medium

Albumen silver print collage

Culture

British

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Balls were a highlight of the social calendar and an essential aspect of courtship for the Victorian aristocracy and landed gentry (the land-owning class in England). In this scene, Eva Macdonald (1846/50-1930) memorialized a ball that took place on December 6, 1870, at her aunt and uncle’s Lincolnshire estate, Brocklesby Park. Macdonald was the niece of Lady Yarborough (1840-1927), the compiler of this photocollage album. Unlike other collages in _The Westmorland Album_, this design uses only brown ink. The lack of color and facial features offers evidence that the composition was a work in progress that Macdonald hoped to return to on a future visit to Brocklesby Park. She added names of attendees and gave attention to the details of the women’s fashion. The guests include Lady Filmer (1838-1903); Lady Eleanor Heneage (1845-1924); Cuthbert Larking (1842-1910), Lady Yarborough’s brother-in-law; Lady Georgina Cholmondeley (1838-1912); Lord Holmesdale (1836-1910); Lady Adela Larking (1845-1912), Lady Yarborough’s sister; the Earl of Carysfort (1824-1872); Sir M. Cholmondelay (dates unknown); and the Marchioness of Ely (1881-1890). Cuthbert Larking and Lady Filmer also appear in [another collage](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/107NCB) in this album. One of Lady Filmer’s own collage albums is now in [Harvard University’s Art Museum collection](https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/284230). It includes [photographs of the Earl and Countess of Yarborough](https://harvardartmuseums.org/collections/object/317490). Macdonald signed and dated this collage and added an apology— “(Excuse the perspective!)”—at the bottom left of the sheet. In light of her inscribed apology, Macdonald’s use of different perspectives was probably unintentional in this case. One couple in the foreground is significantly smaller than the others. However, collagists often freely used multiple perspectives in contrast to the standard one-point perspective that artists had used since the Renaissance. In this way, they were laying a path for the Cubist artists to pick up in the early twentieth century. Macdonald signed [one other collage](https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/107NBG) in this album. Most Victorian collagists saw little reason to sign their names to their works. As private objects, the albums remained at home and were not highly valued as works of art. Their makers would never have expected them to end up in a museum. Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs 2021 For more information about this album see the [extended essay](https://museum-essays.getty.edu/photographs/cpeter-westmorland-album/).

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