Four Witches, ca. 1890

These images are taken from a half-plate, glass photo negative of ca. 1890. The seller informed me that this is one of three negatives he bought six years ago featuring the same four young women dressed as witches in the woods.

The first photo in this series he described as featuring thirteen women: four are dressed as witches—as here—and these are “sitting on the ground Indian-style with there heads on their hand”; the other nine women are standing behind the witches dressed very nicely with large hats. The woman in the middle is holding a very large and ornate parasol. Curiously, two of the women are holding teddy bears! The second photo in the series is similar to the one here, but two of the witches are sitting on the ground, one is stirring the pot and the other peeking around from behind a tree.

These descriptions, and the plate I have here, suggest a play of some description put on by a private school group. No doubt the woman in the middle holding a very large and ornate parasol is the teacher from the ladies school, the other twelve women being students. The nature of the play, the location of the school etc are all likely to remain a mystery, but I have other photos like this (see here for an indoor example I posted last year).

Unfortunately, the negative is over-exposed, the faces of the standing witches being almost entirely burnt out by the bright light behind them. The witch seated next to the cauldron is captured perfectly as is the cauldron itself, the torsos of the three standing witches and the tree-trunks in the foreground.

I have done what I can in photoshop with scans from this negative but this is one of those examples where a skilled developer can probably get better results in a darkroom than I can get on a computer. The print I have which came with this plate is excellent, but one day I will get a larger and better one. Meanwhile, these scans will have to do.

As you can see, I have given the whole plate, close-ups of the four witches, the cauldron, the face of the seated witch, and details of the fake snake wound into the corset-strings of one of the standing witches, and one set of shoes that feature fake buckles (no doubt, to make them look “ye olde”—and therefore witchy).

(For comparison, check out the snake wrapped around the hat here and the Ardern Holt costumes described here: is this not a “low level bodice” with “lizards in black velvet”?)

And can I say, I just love the high-neck shirts. Perhaps I watched Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) too often as a child. (Sara wasn’t the only one writing poetry “all about Miranda”—or all about Sara for that matter!)

Belated Burns Night Post, 1868

[Detail of Nannie, Plate 6]

Once again I forgot to prepare a Burns Night Post. Unbelievable! I really need to prepare a perpetual sexy-witchy calendar, which includes Burns Night, Easter Witches, Halloween, La Befana the Christmas Witch etc.

What is Burn’s Night? As Wikipedia explains

A Burns supper is a celebration of the life and poetry of the poet Robert Burns, author of many Scots poems. The suppers are normally held on or near the poet’s birthday, 25 January, sometimes also known as Robert Burns Day or Burns Night (Burns Nicht), although they may in principle be held at any time of the year.

I like that last bit: “in principle” I can declare this to be my Burn’s Night. So, what have I got for you on my Burn’s Night? A very strange and interesting book which I am going to cover at length (for reasons I explain below): Tam O’ Shanter. By Robert Burns. With illustrations by E. H. Miller. Photographed by Gardner. [motto] (New York: W. J. Widdleton, Publisher, 1868).

[Plate 1: Portrait of Robert Burns]

The book contains twenty leaves, including eight leaves of plates: basically, a title-leaf, a List of Illustrations, an eight-page Introduction and a leaf of text facing each of the eight plates. The original (publisher’s) cloth binding is an ornate gilt confection of gold on green, designed by John Feely (1819–78) according to D. T. Pendleton Fine & Antiquarian Books (who have a nice copy for sale for only USD175 here).

[Plate 2: Whare sits our sulky sullen dame]

As the title-page to this book explains, the illustrations are original mounted albumen photos by Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner glued down onto otherwise blank pages. Given the age of the photos (1868), and the fame of the photographer (Wikipedia entry here), the book is important enough to appear in the American History of Photography microfilm series (Reel 25, no. 265) held by the Smithsonian in the American Art Portrait Gallery.

[Plate 4: Nae man can tether time or tide]

According to D. Mark Katz, Witness To An Era: The Life and Photographs of Alexander Gardner (1999), 261:

Tam o’ Shanter

The year 1868 marked the 110th anniversary of the publication of ‘Tam o’ Shanter,’ by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, presenting Gardner with another publishing project. He conceived the idea of republishing the landmark poem with illustrations by Washington artist E. Hutchinson Miller. Gardner photographically reproduces seven of Miller’s illustrations for a leather-bound limited edition that was published in New York by W. J. Widdleton. No more than ten copies of the book are known to exist today.

[Plate 5: Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire]

Well, as I said above, it was issued in cloth too, and I suspect that there are a few more than ten copies. Still, reading this I almost wish I had kept mine … (dramatic pause). Yes, I kept my copy only long enough to scan it at 1200dpi. The reason I gave it to a friendly book-binder was because the copy I bought was missing one plate (Plate 3: “The landlady and Tam grew gracious”) and had obviously lived for much of its life inside a petrol tin, or on a pile of kerosene-soaked rags, or some such. It stank so bad that I gaged when I opened the envelope it arrived in. I only removed it from that envelope long enough to scan it and then I wiped down the scanner and gave the envelope to a binder in the hope that he could wash and resize the paper (sizing as in paper treatment, not A4 vs Foolscap etc; see here) and then re-bind the book. I am not sure whether he has done this yet, but I hope so.

[Plate 6: But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd]

As for the artist, E. Hutchinson Miller (1831-1921), he was born in Shepherdstown, WV. According to the Jefferson County Historical Landmarks Commission (here), Miller’s watercolor, entitled “Moonrise and Twilight,” is apparently in the Corcoran Art Gallery in Washington, DC. There is an article on Miller (Jessie Trotter, “E. Hutchinson Miller, The Artist.” Magazine of the Jefferson County Historical Society 5 (1939): 38-40), and a few brief biographical sketches in Millard Kessler Bushong, The History of Jefferson County, West Virginia 1719-1940 (2008) and A. D. Kenamond Prominent Men of Shepherdstown During its First 200 Years (1963). Not having any of these at hand, I cannot tell you any more than this.

[Plate 7: As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd and curious]

Looking at Miller’s paintings, our heroine is not the sexiest Nannie we have seen, in fact she looks a little ferocious in this dancing scene (and even more so in the chase), but she is in the right state of déshabillé, is facing the viewer for a change, and Old Nick is brilliant! (See below.)

[Plate 8: Ae spring brought off her master hale]

Nannie also has a lot more company in this version than in the last two I compared a few weeks back (here), so the jigs and reels do look more authentic.

Unfortunately, the 1868 photographs of Miller’s paintings are a lot less pleasing to the eye than either S. Smith’s engraving of J. M. Wright’s artwork (1842) or Lumb Stocks’ engraving of John Faed’s artwork (1855). (About a century later colour photographs started replacing the artwork on pulps and paperbacks, with the same disappointing results.) Still, since the book is rare, important and practically nothing about it appears online, I thought it worth covering in detail. I hope you agree.

[Detail of Plate 7: Old Nick]

[Detail of Plate 7: Nannie's company]

[Detail of Plate 7: Nannie]

Mortensen, Preparation for the Sabbat, 1936

William Mortensen, Monsters & Madonnas. A Book of Methods (San Francisco, CA: Camera Craft Publishing Company, 1936), contains the above plate, titled “Preparation for the Sabbot” [sic].

According to this essay by Cary Loren, the book “was a distilled manifesto of [Mortensen's] thoughts and a response to the dominance of straight photography.”

Mortensen (1897–1965) championed “Pictorialism,” a photographic method that promoted retouching, hand-working negatives, using chemical washes, and adopting an artistic, painterly approach to photographic art. It was a losing battle, and Mortensen’s obscurity today is the result of the success modernist approaches captured, for me, by Max Dupain’s “Sunbaker” of 1934 (see here).

“Preparation for the Sabbot” was one of twenty photogravure reproductions of Mortensen’s work, “prepared and arranged so that they may be removed for framing without damaging the book” (as the advertisement informs us).

Also “accompanying each picture is a complete exposition of the methods used in producing the print and the artistic principles involved.” Mortensen’s Monsters & Madonnas is now an expensive book (ca. USD400), and even individual, highlight plates, such as this one, are not cheap (you can pay almost USD100 for this plate alone!).

Since I wanted a plate from the first edition, and I couldn’t afford the whole volume, I missed out on the “complete exposition of the methods …” One day I hope to get a copy of the book and when I do I’ll do a further post on the image, or update this post.

Unfortunately—putting aside the photographer’s methods—this composition is utterly conventional. The young witch being anointed by an older witch, the young witch, front and centre, illuminated against a dim and gloomy background, the peasant clothes and furniture, the soft focus. (See here and here—photo no. 2—for similar treatments.)

The only thing at all different is the “broom stick,” which is appears to be a branch from a palm tree, a hint that Mortensen worked primarily among the palms in Hollywood.

It is not that I don’t like this photograph. I love it, and I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t! The model is very pretty, she has lovely pale skin, gentle curves and a very mischievous smile—but I am very easily pleased when it comes to pictures of witches. And even I can see why Dupain’s “Sunbaker” is considered an iconic 30s image, while Mortensen’s “Preparation for the Sabbot” is not.

Still, this is not a bad thing for us, because if Mortensen’s photograph was valued as highly as Dupain’s I would never have been able to buy a copy and you would never have got to see it in such detail!

Apparently, I am Fantastically Frightening

Hayes, at Hayes Hudson’s House of Horror has offered me a FANTASTICALLY FRIGHTENING award (which, as he comments, is “the best looking award yet”!)

Gosh! What can I say, but thanks Hayes.

The award started recently; looking at the list of recipients here, here and here I am afraid I can only add The Groovy Age of Horror to the list of worthy recipients, because I would also have given the prize to Love Train for the Tenebrous Empire (chosen by every other recipient) and Day of the Woman (who started it all!).

Not a Disney Witch, 2008

In Jordi Català Amat’s photostream on Flickr is “Blancanieves,” a series of sixteen photos from August and September 2008 about Snow White, a Witch with a red apple, and a Prince!

Above and below are eight from this series. For the rest, go here.

Here comes the Prince!

Notice anything about the Prince?

Sailor Witch, 1943

The Log 33:4 (29 October 1943) was published by The United States Naval Academy.

As you can see, the “Halloween Issue” features a witch in fantasy Naval uniform. During WW2, US and other military uniforms for women were actually below-the-knee skirts but pin-up images almost always employ fantasy uniforms. (See here and here for detailed discussions of the uniforms worn and here and here for a variety of WW2 uniforms for women.)

As Wikipedia informs us here, Among The Log’s usual features were … “Company Cuties,” photos of male midshipmen’s girlfriends.” The magazine also features amateur artwork by midshipmen. This cover being an (unsigned) example.

Nannie’s Dance, 1842

Here is another depiction of Nannie’s Dance. (Nannie is, of course, the “winsome wench” in Robert Burn’s Tam O’Shanter (1792). She is the central figure—”plump and strapping in [her] teens”—wearing a “cutty sark” (short shirt) while “merrily footing it round” with a group of witches in a ruined church.)

The artwork is by J. M. Wright, it is titled “The Witch’s Dance In, Tam-O’Shanter” and it appeared in the Complete Works of Roberts Burns, Illustrated (London, George Virtue, 1842). The engraver is S. Smith.

Although Nannie’s negligee is described by Burns as “considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress” (i.e. to cover her backside) most illustrators have provided her with a “sark” just as long and substantial as those on the “wither’d beldams, auld and droll” that she is dancing with. This is certainly true of the most famous illustrations, those by John Faed (below), which were published in 1855 and frequently reprinted.

Wright’s “The Witch’s Dance” appeared thirteen years before Faed’s. As you can see below Nannie’s “sark” is shorter and thinner than those of her companions, as it should be, and her left arm is free of her sleeve, exposing half of her torso. Both her companions and the viewer are blessed with a sight of Nannie’s left arm, shoulder and breast. How very risqué for 1842!

[Wright's Nannie]

[Faed's Nannie]

Faed (below) followed Burn’s description of the group as comprising “Warlocks and witches in a dance.” He depicts ten(?) figures dancing “hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels” in pairs. Most, but not all, of the pairs seem to be one male and one female, but because all of the dancers are not clearly visible, and many are not facing the viewer Nannie is the only female clearly visible. (Of the five other figures who are clearly visible, four are males who are facing the viewer and one is a female who is facing away from the viewer.) The impression given is of Nannie as the sole witch dancing among a group of Warlocks.

[Faed's dancers]

Wright (below) also has ten figures, five female and five male; the six figures seen at length are also equally divided: three female and three male. The central, and the best illuminated, figure is Nannie. She is the focus of the dance, the others dance around her, and although all the female figures have their heads covered, Nannie is the only one wearing a witch’s hat. The impression given is of Nannie as the most important witch dancing among a mixed group of witches and warlocks.

[Wright's dancers]

Although the Faed composition is better engraved, and Faed may have been the better artist, I prefer Wright’s composition—certainly as far as Nannie and her fellow warlocks and witches are concerned. When it comes to gothic detail it is a closer contest. Both depict “Auld Nick,” but Faed’s devil is a little easier to see. Faed also includes a sarcophagus and skeleton, whereas Wright only has a spirit appearing from above. Faed’s composition is beautifully and convincingly illuminated by candles (look at the shadows they cast), but it is not at all clear how Wright’s scene is illuminated. So, like I say, all credit goes to Faed as an artist, but Wright’s composition is the winner.