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Mixed Pickles. Unknown about 1864 This fantastical collage is part of The Westmorland Album, an album probably compiled by Victoria Alexandrina Hare, Countess of Yarborough (also known as Lady Yarborough, 1840-1927), who was the goddaughter and namesake of Queen Victoria. Lady Yarborough may have created this photocollage, however we are not certain. The image is a play on the parlor game Mixed Pickles, a social activity that foreshadows the Surrealist drawing game of chance Exquisite Corpse. In Mixed Pickles, words are written on bits of paper and tossed in a jar. They are randomly pulled out

Mixed Pickles. Unknown about 1864 This fantastical collage is part of The Westmorland Album, an album probably compiled by Victoria Alexandrina Hare, Countess of Yarborough (also known as Lady Yarborough, 1840-1927), who was the goddaughter and namesake of Queen Victoria. Lady Yarborough may have created this photocollage, however we are not certain. The image is a play on the parlor game Mixed Pickles, a social activity that foreshadows the Surrealist drawing game of chance Exquisite Corpse. In Mixed Pickles, words are written on bits of paper and tossed in a jar. They are randomly pulled out Stock Photo
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Contributor:

piemags/GB24 / Alamy Stock Photo

Image ID:

2WT10GN

File size:

40 MB (1.4 MB Compressed download)

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Dimensions:

3286 x 4253 px | 27.8 x 36 cm | 11 x 14.2 inches | 300dpi

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This image could have imperfections as it’s either historical or reportage.

Mixed Pickles. Unknown about 1864 This fantastical collage is part of The Westmorland Album, an album probably compiled by Victoria Alexandrina Hare, Countess of Yarborough (also known as Lady Yarborough, 1840-1927), who was the goddaughter and namesake of Queen Victoria. Lady Yarborough may have created this photocollage, however we are not certain. The image is a play on the parlor game Mixed Pickles, a social activity that foreshadows the Surrealist drawing game of chance Exquisite Corpse. In Mixed Pickles, words are written on bits of paper and tossed in a jar. They are randomly pulled out and players are challenged to make amusing sentences out of them. For this collage, the artist replaced the slivers of paper with colorful figures with montaged photographic heads. Lord Yarborough (1835-1875), the countess’s husband, plunges a pickle fork into the bottle to retrieve some familiar characters—Lady Yarborough, her brother-in-law Cuthbert Larking (1842-1910), and the popular socialite Lady Filmer (1838-1903). One of Lady Filmer’s own albums is now in Harvard University’s Art Museum collection. Through her reinterpretation of conventional photographic portraits in this whimsical parody, the artist (Lady Yarborough or an associate) transformed the truthfulness of the photographs into an imagined fantasy, reminding her social circle of the roles she and her husband played as welcoming hosts and matchmakers who had many a trick up their sleeve. Lord and Lady Yarborough are depicted in other photographs and photocollages throughout the album (84.XD.1283.14, 84.XD.1283.15, 84.XD.1283.33, 84.XD.1283.50, 84.XD.1283.60, 84.XD.1283.87, 84.XD.1283.88, 84.XD.1283.154, 84.XD.1283.160). Lady Filmer also appears on at least one other page of the Westmorland album (84.XD.1283.98). Carolyn Peter, J. Paul Getty Museum, Department of Photographs, 2021 For more information about this album see the extended essay.