The ‘Wax Flower Display’, c.1890 by Eliza McMahon is located within the Botany section of the Bond Store Gallery in the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery. Only days prior to my visit to the museum I had returned from a 5-day trek in the wilderness of Port Davey, south-west Tasmania where the stunning landscape and flora greatly inspired me personally and as a visual artist. I was initially drawn to this object in the museum because it contained representations of wildflowers which I had been admiring on my recent trek. After further observation and drawing the formal elements of the object, the materiality of the 133-year-old handmade wax flowers and fruit piqued my curiosity. Additionally, the subject and composition of the display of incongruous species of flowers, fruit and insects in the glass dome reminded me of Dutch vanitas, in particular, the still life painting by Rachel Ruysch entitled ‘Flowers in a Glass Vase’, 1704. I felt compelled to research and understand the historical and cultural relevance of the object and to respond to the object through a still life painting in a contemporary context.
The exterior of the object is a glass dome approximately 52cm(h) x 24cm(w) sitting on a round black timber base covered with a blue velvet lining. Inside the dome is small ornate silver vase displaying an arrangement of British flowers (rose and dahlia) and Tasmanian wildflowers (christmas bells, pandari, epacris, luecopogan, acacia, clematis, and purple apple berry). The flowers and leaves are hand-made from wax and on close inspection the wire and silk fixings are visible. The flower arrangement features tones of white and pink underpinned by analogous tones of apricot and yellow. The arrangement is of greater proportion in height to the vase with the prominent flowers almost touching the top of the dome. The heads of flowers are turned so that their many aspects can be seen from all viewpoints. Nestled amongst the flowers are 3 preserved green beetles and sitting on the base around the vase are four wax fruits including a reddish-white strawberry, a reddish-green apple with natural brown markings, and what appears to be two white onions revealing the mould marking around the centre. The object is displayed within the Botany curiosity cabinet along with colonial microscopes, rare plant specimens and samples of Tasmanian wood. However, little information was available in the museum and extensive research was required to understand the object.
The object, or ‘parlour dome’, had widespread popularity amongst the upper middle class in Victorian England in the nineteenth-century. The Victorian era was obsessed with nature, exploration, mass produced goods, consumption and social status. It was considered most fashionable for the parlour in the home to be crowded with acquisitions, specimens, and imitations of specimens from the natural world in such excess that it resembled a personal museum. The parlour was a significant space in the home for socialising, particularly for women, and the mass of decorations announced the occupant’s knowledge, creativity, social status and wealth. The variety of nature, fruit, rich fabrics, and the use of the colour blue were used to denote wealth and as such the object of this essay would have been highly regarded in Tasmania which was a British colony until 1901. The wax arrangements allowed for the display of incongruous varieties of flowers during all seasons as the wax flowers and fruit would not fade or decay. The glass domes protected the delicate wax arrangements from dust, touch, wood and coal fires inside and the industrial air outside the home. Further, Victorian culture prohibited outright social entanglements between people and flowers had become a popular means of conveying messages as flowers carried layers of silent meaning that embrace botany, art, moral significance, feelings and emotions.
A confluence of historical events gave rise to the popularity of the parlour dome in Victorian England. Influentially, in 1840 Queen Victoria commissioned 10,000 wax white roses for her wedding. In 1845 the glass tax was repealed and the market was flooded with mass produced glass products. Prior to the window tax being repealed in 1851, homes had been designed with few windows, and only the rich could afford to keep a plant alive inside the home. After the Great Exhibition in 1851, which contained 14 exhibits of parlour domes, there was a momentous shift in design and decoration with the middle classes eager to consume and display mass produced goods. Importantly, the domestic ideology preferred home rental over home ownership, and with home design being similar in layout, the Victorians became obsessed with decorating the ideal parlour to display their social status. Women had the most important role, that is, wax modelling was promoted as a suitable accomplishment for women of leisure and women spent the most time in the parlour. Being a practice predominantly by women, it was not considered high art and little research is available. There are no primary sources documenting the artist Eliza McMahon or the context of this object in Tasmania, Australia. It is only through researching Victorian England and the culture of the era, that the object can be understood.
As a final observation, the parlour dome is an intricately rendered sculpture of imitations of nature perfectly sealed in glass. In effect, it is a fantastical virtual world of incongruous specimens created by women to decorate one’s home and to gloat to other women. Contemporary culture has not changed in the past 120 years for women (and men) in modern society are still obsessed with creating the perfect home, buying mass produced goods, conspicuous consumerism and showing off to others in the home and behind glass on social media. Indeed, the need to gloat and express social status on social media has become pervasive in all groups in modern society. I have not been immune to this culture, as I have decorated and socialised in opulent homes which were worthy of being featured in Vogue Living magazines. Ultimately, I found no personal fulfilment in such materialistic displays, and I sold my household possessions to minimalize and to escape excessive consumerism. Researching and understanding the parlour dome affected me emotionally and I am deeply interested in responding to the parlour dome through a still life painting with a modern play on Dutch vanitas by focusing on materiality, composition and symbolism. I wish to comment on how excessive consumption and ostentatious displays are fleeting and ultimately unfulfilling.
Rachel Wolfe
26 April 2023
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY:
● Keys, G, Kuretsky, S, Ruger, A, Wheelock, A 2004, Masters of Dutch Painting, The Detroit Institute of Arts, London
Keyes, Ruger and Wheelock are curators and Kuretsky is a professor of art. The book is a collection of 100 Dutch paintings with supporting commentary, technical analysis and endnotes. The book provides no information about the object or art in the Victorian era. Rather, the book provides information about an historical artist, Rachel Ruysch, and her oil vanitas ‘Flowers in a Glass Vase’, 1704 which is of a similar subject and composition to the flower display inside the parlour dome. Understanding the composition of the painting, symbolism, and the artist’s process helped me to consider how I would respond to the object in a contemporary context.
● Logan, T 2001, The Victorian Parlour, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom, viewed 02 April 2023,
<https://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/samples/cam031/00050237.pdf>
Thad Logan is a Lecturer in English and Humanities at William Marsh Rice University and the book is an ideological and material study of the Victorian English parlour. Chapter 1 (House and home: the parlour in context) examines the parlour in an historical and cultural context and assisted my research with explaining the Victorian’s preoccupation with creating the ideal parlour with excessive decorations (such as glass, representations of flora and superfluity). The text also explains the interchangeable use of the term ‘parlour’ and ‘drawing room’ which was relevant to my understanding and referencing the movie, The Age of Innocence.
● The Age of Innocence 1993, Apple TV, Columbia Pictures, United States of America, director Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese is an Award-winning film director and the movie received many awards including an Academy Award for Best Costume Design. The movie is a period drama set in New York in the Victorian era. Whilst the cluttered movie sets did not include a parlour dome within the mass of decorations, the movie revealed the importance of the drawing room in the middle class, especially for women. Also, the main characters had to hide their true feelings which they expressed through the symbolism of flowers. The movie assisted my research with understanding the culture of the middle-class society in the Victorian era.
● Scott, M 1924, ‘Wax Flower Making in Victorian Times’, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, vol. 72, no. 3748, pp.764-765
Published in 1924, the article was written by Mary Scott who lived during the Victorian era and had owned a wax flower maker’s box. The writer recounts events in history and the conditions of life which contributed to wax flowers becoming highly popular. She addresses the twentieth-century contempt for wax flower making and explains the process and artistic ability and botanical accuracy required. The recount aided my understanding of the object from the perspective of a person who lived in the Victorian era and challenged my understanding of the object as a work of art rather than a mere decoration or women’s work.
● Shteir, A 2007, ‘Facsimiles of Nature’, Victorian Literature and Culture, vol. 35, no. 2, pp.649-661
Ann Shteir is a Professor of Humanities and Women's Studies and the article is peer reviewed. The article examines the practice of wax flower modelling in mid-nineteenth-century England which brought together the worlds of art, natural history, gender, and commerce. The article explains the gender role in this accepted practice for women of social standing and their desire to fill each available place in the parlour with imitations of the flower garden. The article was relevant to my research because it explained the confluence of historical events which gave rise to the popularity of the parlour dome in Victorian England.
Rachel Wolfe is an emerging artist based in Hobart, Tasmania, currently pursuing a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Tasmania. With a diverse and evolving practice, Rachel explores various mediums and techniques to create captivating and thought-provoking works of art. To explore Rachel's latest projects and artistic journey, visit her website www.rachelwolfe.com.au or follow her on social media.
The Parlour Dome: a virtual World of Gazing and Gloating was written for Assessment, Bachelor of Visual Arts, University of Tasmania, Subject: FSA115 Critical Practices in Art : Encounters, AT2 –Annotated Bibliography and Essay
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