Magic Lantern Slide: Flower Studies - Canterbury Bell (slide)
Licence: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
Descriptions
This photographic slide by William Weaver Baker shows a specimen of the plant commonly known as Canterbury Bell. The flowers are bell-shaped and violet blue in colour, while the stem is reddish-brown with bristles. This slide is unusual as a large area is missing, and seems to have been damaged, or an attempt to edit the image in some way. Weaver Baker was a keen amateur photographer and produced sets of slides on different themes, this slide being part of a set of 52 flower images.
This object is not on display.
Inscription
front (under cover glass) handwritten handwritten slide title on mount
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Can you spot the magic lantern slide of a Canterbury Bell? This slide by William Weaver Baker shows a flower specimen renowned for its bell-shaped, violet-blue colour. Baker was a keen photographer and produced many collections of slides with different themes throughout his lifetime, with this slide being one of fifty-two floral images.
Historically, purple flowers such as violets have been linked to the poetry of Sappho (c.610-570 BCE), a Greek poet who lived on the island of Lesbos. She is believed to be the first woman to openly express loving another woman, and her legacy resulted in the word ‘lesbian’ as we commonly use it today. Although only fragments of her poetry remain, many of them describe her idyllic island life and deep love of nature, as seen in the following fragment:
Rejoice, go and
remember me. For you know how we cherished you.
But if not, I want
to remind you
[…] and beautiful times we had.
For many crowns of violets
and roses
[…] at my side you put on’
– Fragment 94, Sappho in translation by Anne Carson
There are also many other notable instances of violets appearing in connection with the LGBTQ+ community, in both colour and floral form. In the play The Captive of 1926, one female character gave another a bouquet of violets, creating sapphic undertones. This led to public uproar, resulting in the New York City district attorney’s office shutting down the Broadway production in 1927. Across America, the link between violets with lesbianism led to a lack of violet sales in florists. However, in Parisian showings, many lesbian and bisexual women began to wear violets on their lapels in solidarity with one another.
The colour violet went on to appear on the original rainbow flag, which was created to celebrate LGBTQ+ love, life, and pride in 1978. Taking inspiration from this, The Violet Quill group of gay male writers would often meet to critique each other’s work in New York City, from 1980 to 1981.
What colour do you associate with love?
To read more blog posts from the Out and About: Queering the Museum project, please visit the project website