Not currently on display at the V&A

H.M.S. Pinafore

Costume Design
ca.1879 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

HMS Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor 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.

Delighted with The Sorcerer, 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 Black Eye’d Susan. Gilbert had featured nautical folk and language in his Bab Ballads, and developed them in H.M.S. Pinafore, 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.

After 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.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleH.M.S. Pinafore (generic title)
Materials and techniques
watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on tracing paper
Brief description
Costume design by Elinor Pugh for unidentified character from a production of H.M.S. Pinafore, ca. 1879
Physical description
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on tracing paper. The design features a female figure wearing a purple dress with brown bows throughout.
Dimensions
  • Height: 20cm
  • Width: 12cm (Note: At widest point)
Credit line
Given by Dame Bridget D'Oyly Carte.
The 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.
Production
Possibly for a production of H.M.S. Pinafore. Could possibly be for a production of Patience.
Summary
HMS Pinafore, or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor 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.

Delighted with The Sorcerer, 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 Black Eye’d Susan. Gilbert had featured nautical folk and language in his Bab Ballads, and developed them in H.M.S. Pinafore, 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.

After 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.
Collection
Accession number
S.2673-2015

About this object record

Explore the Collections contains over a million catalogue records, and over half a million images. It is a working database that includes information compiled over the life of the museum. Some of our records may contain offensive and discriminatory language, or reflect outdated ideas, practice and analysis. We are committed to addressing these issues, and to review and update our records accordingly.

You can write to us to suggest improvements to the record.

Suggest feedback

Record createdFebruary 4, 2016
Record URL
Download as: JSONIIIF Manifest