{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1331230"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1331230/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2016HY7125/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2016HY7125/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2016HY7125","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O1331230/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1331230","accessionNumber":"S.2685-2015","objectType":"Costume design","titles":[{"title":"H.M.S. Pinafore","type":"generic title"}],"summaryDescription":"<i>HMS Pinafore</i>, or, <i>The Lass That Loved a Sailor</i> by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan was produced at the Opera Comique Theatre under the management of the Comedy Opera Company, on Saturday 25th May 1878 until 24 December and from Saturday 1st until Thursday 20th February 1879.\r\n\r\nDelighted with <i>The Sorcerer</i>, D’Oyly Carte commissioned a new work from Gilbert and Sullivan in December 1877. Britain was a seafaring nation, and Gilbert’s new libretto satirised the popular nautical melodramas of his youth such as Douglas Jerrold’s <i>Black Eye’d Susa</i>n. Gilbert had featured nautical folk and language in his <i>Bab Ballads</i>, and developed them in <i>H.M.S. Pinafore</i>, a shipboard opera that opened in May 1878 featuring the considerate Captain Corcoran, his gallant crew, the dastardly Dick Deadeye, the First Lord of the Admiralty Sir Joseph Porter (a thinly-veiled portrait of the bookseller turned politician W.H. Smith), his sisters, cousins and aunts, and Buttercup the Bumboat woman.\r\n\r\nAfter a slow start due to a summer heatwave, the opera was a hit by August after Sullivan included its sparkling tunes in a Covent Garden concert. Angered by a host of unauthorised American productions starting with one in Boston in November 1878, Carte planned its first authorised American production which opened the following year at New York’s Fifth Avenue Theatre in December 1879, with Sullivan conducting.\r\n\nWilhelm was the pseudonym of William John Charles Pitcher (1858-1925), born in Northfleet, Kent, the eldest child of the ship builder and designer Henry Sotheby Pitcher. Passionate about theatre but self-trained as an artist, his earliest costume designs were accepted in 1877 by the manager of Drury Lane Frederick Chatterton for <i>Harlequin and the White Cat</i> when Wilhelm was nineteen and was introduced to Chatterton by E.L. Blanchard who recalled him in his memoirs as ‘the clever young artist Wilhelm’. The costume designer Faustin was Wilhelm’s first employer.\r\n\r\nAfter working at Drury Lane for pantomimes produced by Augustus Harris who took over the theatre in 1879 Wilhelm was employed by the Alhambra and the Adelphi, and during his immensely productive career his work was much in demand. From 1887 until 1915 he was principally attached to the Empire Theatre Leicester Square where he designed costumes, wrote scenarios and supervised productions.","physicalDescription":"Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on paper. The design features a female figure wearing an orange and white striped bodice with a white jacket. She is wearing a matching white skirt with oragne stripes along the bottom and is waving a handkerchief. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Wilhelm","id":"A4703"},"association":{"text":"designers","id":"AAT25190"},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"pencil","id":"x30347"},{"text":"paper","id":"x30308"},{"text":"watercolour","id":"x33202"},{"text":"bodycolour","id":"x34671"}],"techniques":[{"text":"designing","id":"THES268626"},{"text":"drawing (image-making)","id":"AAT54196"},{"text":"painting (image-making)","id":"AAT54216"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on paper","categories":[{"text":"Entertainment & Leisure","id":"THES48959"},{"text":"Theatre","id":"THES250537"},{"text":"Designs","id":"THES48968"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"T&P","id":"THES48602"},"images":["2016HY7125"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"004","id":"THES356607"},"free":"","case":"","shelf":"","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"costume design","id":"AAT163423"}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x29338"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"1893","earliest":"1893-01-01","latest":"1893-12-31"},"association":{"text":"designed","id":"x29338"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Given by Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte. \r\nThe V&A wishes to acknowledge the generous support given by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, which facilitated the cataloguing of the D’Oyly Carte Archive designs in 2015/16.","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"25","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"18","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Costume design by Wilhelm for Female Dancers from a production of <i>H.M.S. Pinafore</i>, 1893","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[],"partNumbers":["S.2685-2015"],"accessionNumberNum":"2685","accessionNumberPrefix":"S","accessionYear":2015,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-05-08","recordCreationDate":"2016-02-04","availableToBook":true}}