{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O78991"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78991/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AM1908/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2006AM1908/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"high","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2006AM1908","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AM6229","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2006AD0542","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2017JU3267","copyright":"©Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":{"_iiif_pres":"https://iiif.vam.ac.uk/collections/O78991/manifest.json","_alt_iiif_pres":[]}},"record":{"systemNumber":"O78991","accessionNumber":"W.28-1946","objectType":"Fragment of a wall painting","titles":[],"summaryDescription":"<b>Object Type</b><br>This piece of plaster was part of the decorative scheme painted by an unknown artist for William Sparrow (1601-1651) at Park Farm, Hilton, Huntingdonshire.<br><br><b>Ownership & Use</b><br>The owners of  Park Farm were prosperous yeoman farmers. The decoration was done by an artist of moderate ability, who would have been more affordable than fashionable London-based artists from The Netherlands. This scheme was probably carried out in anticipation of William Sparrow's marriage to Susannah Christian of Fenstaton, Huntingdonshire in 1633.<br><br><b>Time</b><br>This is a rare example of dated English wall painting  of the period.  Houses owned by the gentry and merchants were often decorated with murals during the 16th and 17th centuries, mostly in imitation of wall hangings.  However, few figurative paintings of this middling quality survive. They were not considered worth preserving and were often overpainted, or even destroyed, during subsequent redecoration. <br><br><b>Subjects Depicted</b><br>The images of Taste and Sight were adapted from Jan Barra's series <i>The Five Senses</i>, published about 1625.  The figure on the left , holding a glass of wine and a pipe,  represents Taste. The figure on the right, holding a mirror, with an eagle at her side, represents Sight. <br><br><b>People</b><br>Jan Barra was a German engraver who settled in London in 1627 and died there in 1634. His work was sold at the shop of Thomas Jenner at the Exchange, London, and probably  also in other towns and cities in England. The prints would therefore have been easily available to the artist at Hilton.","physicalDescription":"Portion of a wall. Plaster painted with designs in colours. In the centre, against a background painted brown on cream in imitation of wood grain, a classical column in purple with a device below. On the left, within a round-headed arch in deep blue and in light green, with bases and capitals in purplish-brown, is a three-quarter length portrait, facing three-quarters left, of Mary Frith (b. 1584?, d. 1659), seated against a cream background, attired in the costume of James I, with plumed man's hat in red, bodice and skirt in cream with accessories mainly in red, and ruff and gloves in grey-green, holding in her upraised right hand a clay tobacco pipe in cream, and blowing smoke from her lips, and holding in her left hand, in her lap, by the foot a stemmed drinking-glass, in grey green. On her right is a crouching monkey, in purplish-brown. Below, in black Gothic letter, in black on cream, with scrolled fillings, the couplet: \n-Non sence is non sence, though it please my mind,\nand is not proper for this sex and kind.\nThe facetious allusion (non sence - incense) to female pipe smoking . On the right, within a similar arch, is a similar portrait of Mary Frith, attired in a broad-brimmed tufted man's hat in red, ruff and gloves in grey-green, and bodice and skirt mainly in blue and green with details in red, holding in her upraised right hand a circular hand-mirror, and in her lap, with her left hand, a cylindrical beer-glass, in red. Behind her back is perched an eagle. Below the couplet: \n-Not so quicke sighted is ye eagle for her pray\nas I new fashions spie to make mee gay.","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Unknown","id":"A1848"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"plaster","id":"AAT14922"}],"techniques":[{"text":"painting (image-making)","id":"AAT54216"}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Painted plaster","categories":[{"text":"Wall coverings","id":"THES48878"}],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"FWK","id":"THES48597"},"images":["2006AM1908","2006AM6229","2006AD0542","2017JU3267"],"imageResolution":"high","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"56E (VA)","id":"THES49241"},"free":"","case":"CA9","shelf":"","box":"18"}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"mural painting","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"Cambridgeshire","id":"x29463"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"ca. 1632","earliest":"1627-01-01","latest":"1636-12-31"},"association":{"text":"made","id":"x28654"},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[{"object":{"text":"W.27-1946","id":"O320791"},"association":"Ensemble"},{"object":{"text":"W.29-1946","id":"O322009"},"association":"Ensemble"}],"creditLine":"Given by Mr D. Garnett and Mrs A. Garnett","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"88","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"128.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"10.5","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"estimated","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"90 max estimated by JT\nDimensions checked: Measured; 31/05/2000 by KB\n\nwidth of frame is 4.5cm.  display dims measured.","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"Based on prints designed by J. Barra of 'The Five Senses' (published about 1625)Painted by an unidentified artist for William Sparrow of Park Farm, Hilton, Huntingdonshire (1601-1651).\r\n\r\nPainted plaster, 1946 gift of David Garnett of Hilton Hall\r\n\r\nThe panels were removed from a wall in Park Farm, Hilton, Huntingdonshire in 1946 by V & A carpenters at the request of Mr Garnett, who purchased Park Farm with the hope of saving it from ruin.\r\n\r\n13th  August 1945 letter Angelica Garnett to Leigh Ashton\r\nreports the discovery of painted chambers from the early 17th century.  This includes the Prince of Wales feathers dated 1632 (W.29-1946) painted on plaster on Norfolk reed in an \"upstairs\" room and a room \"downstairs\" with \"three figures and the remains of a fourth\".  She describes the figures, some inscriptions and the condition of the room.  As the house is near collapse, she suggests that the V & A might be interested in the paintings.\r\n\r\n24th September 1945, letter Daniel Garnett to Leigh Ashton\r\nexplains that two of the three figures are of Mary Frith, the heroine of Dekker's 1611 play, Bearing Girl.\r\n\r\nFurther 1945-46 correspondence\r\nrelates to the removal of the plaster panels and arrangements to have the V & A mount and return 4 panels to Garnett.  One coat of arms to be hung in the village church.\r\n\r\n15th November 1946, letter to R Edwards\r\nreports that the woman in the paintings is also represented in an engraving of Moll Culpurse (aka Mary Firth) at the National Portrait Gallery.\r\n\r\n1946, minute papers\r\nrelate to the proposed display of these objects.\r\n\r\n14th July 1946, letter Garnett to Thorpe\r\nqueries him re the identity of the woman playing the lute and repeats his view that the other two are Moll Cutpurse.  \"We identified the one with the eagle - from the catalogue of engravings at Stowe\".   He reports that the room they came from had originally been panelled in oak half way up and the paintings were above.\r\n\r\n1956, letter V & A to George Price (in catalogue & registered description -- not in R.P.)\r\nexplains that the Mary Frith identification was somewhat erroneous and the source for the painting was instead \"The Senses\" engraved at 1625 by J Barra (letter attached)\r\n\r\n1982, letter Richard Garnett to V & A\r\nreports that V & A has wrongly labelled these objects as from Hilton Hall when they are in fact from Park Farm.  He encloses info about Park Farm (that info. On file in the catalogue - not in R.P.)","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Fragment of a wall painting from Park Farm, Hilton, Cambridgeshire, ca. 1632. Decorated with two women, smoking a pipe and holding a mirror, representing Taste and Sight","bibliographicReferences":[{"reference":{"text":"","id":""},"details":"","free":"Nancy Mohrlock Bunker, Feminine and Fashionable: regendering the iconologies of Mary Frith's 'Notorious reputation', in EIRC (Explorations in Renaissance Culture), Winter 2005 (31.2), pp.211-57"}],"production":"Based on prints designed by J. Barra of 'The Five Senses'","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"British Galleries:\nThese images represent the senses of Taste and Sight.   They also illustrate fashion of the early 1630s.  The wide-brimmed beaver hat trimmed with a feather, the falling ruff and linen cuffs and modestly trimmed fabrics are characteristic of middle-class women's dress.","date":{"text":"27/03/2003","earliest":"2003-03-27","latest":"2003-03-27"}}],"partNumbers":["W.28-1946"],"accessionNumberNum":"28","accessionNumberPrefix":"W","accessionYear":1946,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":["2019LP4492","2019LP3688","2019LU4535","2019LV5996"],"recordModificationDate":"2025-04-25","recordCreationDate":"2003-03-27","availableToBook":false}}