{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1036261"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1036261/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NP9594/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NP9594/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2023NP9594","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1036261","accessionNumber":"CIRC.301-1958","objectType":"Drawing","titles":[{"title":"Mission to the Gypsies","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"","physicalDescription":"Drawing depicting a man in a smart suit and top hat surrounded by a group of mainly women and children. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"John, Augustus RA","id":"A6840"},"association":{"text":"artist","id":"AAT25103"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"ink","id":"AAT15012"},{"text":"wash","id":"AAT11051"},{"text":"paper (fiber product)","id":"AAT14109"}],"techniques":[{"text":"drawing (image making)","id":"AAT54196"},{"text":"wash technique","id":"AAT182748"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"pen and ink drawing with wash, on paper","categories":[{"text":"Drawings","id":"THES48966"},{"text":"Christianity","id":"THES48978"},{"text":"Colonialism and Empire","id":"THES253004"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"PDP","id":"THES48595"},"images":["2023NP9594"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"LVLH (VA)","id":"THES49654"},"free":"","case":"WD","shelf":"159","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"drawings","id":"AAT33973"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Ireland","id":"x32424"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"c.1916","earliest":"1911-01-01","latest":"1920-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"20","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"15","unit":"in","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"Taken from Departmental Circulation Register 1958","marksAndInscriptions":[{"content":"John","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"signed"},{"content":"Galway Period","inscriber":{"name":{"text":"","id":""},"association":{"text":"","id":""}},"date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"description":"","interpretation":"","language":"","medium":"","method":"","position":"","script":"","translation":"","transliteration":"","type":"","note":"dated"}],"objectHistory":"John made this drawing during a trip to the Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland in 1916. It may depict an event described in his autobiography: ‘[w]hen we made the passage to the North Island of Aran, we were fortunate to synchronize with a mission conducted by two Jesuit Fathers. Their departure was the occasion for a great concourse of the islanders, who gathered on the strand in their grandest clothes, to give the holy men a send off. Their cause enriched appreciably by the sale of medals, pledges, badges, scapulas, rosaries, etc., the missionaries in return rewarded the faithful with the blessing of the Pope himself[…].’ (Chiaroscuro: My Autobiography, ed. Michael Holroyd, 1975, p. 108). With a certain amount of romantic idealism for their rural lifestyle, John also described their dress, weaving, farming, and language as ‘untouched by the industrialism which was beginning to leave its unsightly mark on the mainland’.\r\n\r\nAugustus John developed a passionate interest in Gypsy, Roma, and Irish Traveller (GRT) heritage and culture around the turn of the 20th century. He met John Sampson, a librarian and scholar of Romani studies at the University of Liverpool in 1901. Sampson taught John both the English and Welsh dialects of the Romani language and introduced him to the GRT community at Cabbage Hall, near Aintree. John bought a vardo (living wagon) from Sampson which he lived in intermittently with his family. John would go on to meet members of many different GRT communities in France, Ireland, Wales, and the southwest of England, some of whom figure in his sketches and paintings which present idealised visions of a travelling lifestyle. When members of these communities were reluctant to sit for him, he would instead stage scenes with his own family in their place. John was elected President of the Gypsy Lore Society from 1937 until his death in 1961. The Society was part of a wider middle-class romanticisation of, and ethnographic interest in, GRT lifestyles in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Like most Society members, John was not part of the GRT community himself, but rather an outside observer.","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Drawing by Augustus John, 'Mission to the Gypsies', Ireland, c. 1916","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Taken from Departmental Circulation Register 1958"}],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[{"text":"missionaries","id":"AAT25764"}],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["CIRC.301-1958"],"accessionNumberNum":"301","accessionNumberPrefix":"CIRC","accessionYear":1958,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-08","recordCreationDate":"2009-06-30","availableToBook":false}}