Box
1937 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
Oliver Messel designed this box to house the headdress he designed for Titania in Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic in 1937. It shows all Messel's characteristic style and colouring, the leaves drawn in sweeping lines and intense greens, separated by panels of dull purples and mauves, split by black and white lines, like a distorted Regency stripe. The blue hand on the lid gives a surreal touch, although the significance is not clear.
Customising storage was typical of Messel. Famously, he designed a theatrical proscenium arch, with curtain, to hide his television set.
Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
Customising storage was typical of Messel. Famously, he designed a theatrical proscenium arch, with curtain, to hide his television set.
Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Parts | This object consists of 2 parts. (Some alternative part names are also shown below)
|
| Brief description | Box painted by Oliver Messel to house the headdress he designed for Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic, 1937. |
| Production type | Design |
| Marks and inscriptions | Remains of the two headdresses / for Titania. / Midsummer Nights Dream. / Old Vic Production. / 1937. / Now very crushed. / all the cellophane stood upright / like gossamer prisms. / worn by Vivien Leigh (Written by Messel on headed notepaper: 17, Pelham Place, / S.W.7. / Kensington 0728.
Alongside 'all the cellophane ... prisms' a rough sketch of how the cellophane should look.
The note was housed in the box with the headdress.) |
| Credit line | Acquired with the support of the National Lottery Heritage Fund, Art Fund and the Friends of the V&A |
| Object history | The box was acquired and painted by Messel to house the headdress he designed for Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic in 1937. Lord Snowdon, Oliver Messel's nephew, inherited Messel's theatre designs and other designs and artefacts. The designs were briefly stored in a disused chapel in Kensington Palace before being housed at the V&A from 1981 on indefinite loan. The V&A Theatre Museum purchased the Oliver Messel collection from Lord Snowdon in 2005. |
| Production | Reason For Production: Private |
| Summary | Oliver Messel designed this box to house the headdress he designed for Titania in Shakespeare's play A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Old Vic in 1937. It shows all Messel's characteristic style and colouring, the leaves drawn in sweeping lines and intense greens, separated by panels of dull purples and mauves, split by black and white lines, like a distorted Regency stripe. The blue hand on the lid gives a surreal touch, although the significance is not clear. Customising storage was typical of Messel. Famously, he designed a theatrical proscenium arch, with curtain, to hide his television set. Oliver Messel (1904-1978) was Britain’s leading theatre designer throughout the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, mastering every aspect of entertainment - ballet, drama, film, musical, opera and revue - as well working in interior decoration and textile design. His lavish, painterly and romantic concepts were perfectly in tune with the times and earned him an international reputation. By 1960, however, that style was becoming unfashionable, and Messel gradually abandoned theatre and built a new career designing luxury homes in the Caribbean. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | S.492:1/2-2006 |
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| Record created | March 28, 2007 |
| Record URL |
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