Red Knot Gallery

Chimney Sweepers on May Day

May Day celebrations of the chimney sweeps. The text with the picture gives some interesting information about Jack in the Green and the Lord and Lady: "their garland is a large cone of holly and ivy framed upon hoops, which gradually diminishes in size to an apex, whereon is sometimes a floral crown, knots of ribbons, or bunches of flowers; its sides are decorated in like manner; and within it is a man who walks wholly unseen, and hence the garland has the semblance of a moving hillock of evergreens...their lord and lady are magnificent indeed; the lord is always the tallest of the party...he wears a huge cocked hat, fringed with yellow or red feathers, or laced with gold paper...his waistcoat is embroidered...his shoes are dancing pumps with large tawdry buckles; his hair is powdered...his lady is sometimes a strapping girl, though usually a boy in female attire." Date: 1826

© Mary Evans Picture Library

Butterflies, chromolithograph, published in 1897

Butterflies, left: Pine looper moth (Bupalus piniaria, or Fidonia piniaria) with caterpillar; Western larch case-bearer (Coleophora laricella) with eaten needle points of a larch; Evergestis extimalis (or Botys margaritalis) with caterpillar; Pine shoot moth (Rhyacionia buoliana, or Tortrix bouoliana) with caterpillar and pupa in a cutted twig; Pine resin-gall moth (Retinia resinella, orTortrix resinella) with bile and pupae capsule; Middle: White-spotted pinion (Cosmia diffinis); Pine beauty (Panolis flammea, or Trachea piniperda) with caterpillar; Mottled umber (Erannis defoliaria, or Hibernia defoliaria), male (1), female (2), caterpillar (3); Dotted border (Agriopis marginaria, or Hibernia aurantiaria), male (4), female (5); Winter moth (Operophtera brumata, or Laurentia brumata), male (6), female (7), caterpillar (8); Apple ermine (Yponomeuta malinellus, or Hyponomeuta malinella) cocoon with caterpillar and moth. Right: Peppered moth (Biston betularia, or Amphidasys betularia); Pupa and caterpillar of the Peppered moth; Rustic shoulder-knot (Apamea sordens, or Hadena basilinea) and caterpillar; Red underwing (Catocala nupta) and caterpillar. Chromolithograph, published in 1897

Susannah and the Elders, mid 16th Century

SBT 1993-31/315. A mid sixteenth-century painting; in oils on wooden panel; depicting a woman, hands before her in a praying position; dressed in white diaphanous gown trimmed with ermine; draped with diagonally striped robe; pearls on head; seated on stone seat. Man on left with long beard and moustache, dressed in reddish jerkin, red cloak thrown over right shoulder fastened at right side of waist, right hand resting on seat. Man on right with dark hair, trimmed bead and moustache, wearing olive jerkin over red shirt tied at waist, red material draped over right shoulder in folds behind him with left hand resting on them. In the background an Elizabethan knot-garden is shown, with a bower-walk of trained shrubs, two figures entering bower and a building and cupola tower are also shown, to right; glass goblet and rope of pearls on table; a tortoise on top of column behind woman's spews. Housed in an elaborately-moulded gilt frame. Dimensions (H, W): Panel 273mm x 405mm. Frame 440mm x 570mm

© The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust