Not currently on display at the V&A

Iolanthe

Costume Design
1932 (designed)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Iolanthe, or, The Peer and The Peri by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan was produced at the Savoy Theatre under the management of Richard D’Oyly Carte on Saturday 25th November 1882, until Tuesday 1st January 1884.

Sullivan was reluctant to be more famous for comic opera than for classical composition, but since he enjoyed the lifestyle it financed, began work on a score for Gilbert’s new libretto during the summer of 1882. Originally titled Perola and changed to Iolanthe at the last minute to maintain secrecy, Gilbert’s new libretto indulged his whimsical penchant bringing fairies to Westminster, whilst satirising the British parliamentary system, especially the House of Lords. As ever Gilbert meticulously planned the contrasting stage pictures made by his settings and characters including a fairy chorus and their Queen, a chorus of Peers, the Lord Chancellor, the banished fairy Iolanthe, and her half human son Strephon in love with the beautiful shepherdess Phyllis, the Lord Chancellor’s ward. With Sullivan’s equally contrasting pastoral and stirring music, brilliant lyrics and the added surprise of electric lights on the fairies’ foreheads, Iolanthe was another hit in London and New York, where D’Oyly Carte opened a production at the Standard Theatre the same night.

George Sheringham (1884-1937) was an eclectic and prolific artist, commercial designer and stage designer whose early childhood was spent in Tewkesbury where his father was vicar of the Abbey. After school at the King’s School, Gloucester, and eighteen months at the Slade Art School from the age of fifteen, Sheringham studied with Harry Becker from 1901 to 1904, and lived and studied in Paris in 1905 and 1906, where he was influenced by the Asian art in the Musée Guimet. After supporting himself with poster design and watercolour painting he specialised in decorative work painting fans and panels on Lyonnais silk from November 1910. In 1915 he did his first book illustration for Max Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite, and in 1917 and 1918 his first theatre designs for The Sneezing Charm produced by the private theatre club The Plough Club.

Sheringham’s work for productions by Nigel Playfair at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, starting with designs for The Duenna in 1924 led to commissions by Rupert D’Oyly Carte for redressing The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore and Patience for the 1929 season, and for new dresses for Phyllis, Strephon and the Fairies in Iolanthe in1932. He was awarded a Grand Prix at the Paris Salon in 1925 for mural and theatrical design, and although an invalid from 1932, he continued flower painting until his death in 1937, shortly before his 53rd birthday.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleIolanthe (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Watercolour and bodycolour over pencil on paper
Brief description
Costume design by George Sheringham for the Dancing Fairies in Iolanthe, Savoy Theatre, 1932
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.
Summary
Iolanthe, or, The Peer and The Peri by W.S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan was produced at the Savoy Theatre under the management of Richard D’Oyly Carte on Saturday 25th November 1882, until Tuesday 1st January 1884.

Sullivan was reluctant to be more famous for comic opera than for classical composition, but since he enjoyed the lifestyle it financed, began work on a score for Gilbert’s new libretto during the summer of 1882. Originally titled Perola and changed to Iolanthe at the last minute to maintain secrecy, Gilbert’s new libretto indulged his whimsical penchant bringing fairies to Westminster, whilst satirising the British parliamentary system, especially the House of Lords. As ever Gilbert meticulously planned the contrasting stage pictures made by his settings and characters including a fairy chorus and their Queen, a chorus of Peers, the Lord Chancellor, the banished fairy Iolanthe, and her half human son Strephon in love with the beautiful shepherdess Phyllis, the Lord Chancellor’s ward. With Sullivan’s equally contrasting pastoral and stirring music, brilliant lyrics and the added surprise of electric lights on the fairies’ foreheads, Iolanthe was another hit in London and New York, where D’Oyly Carte opened a production at the Standard Theatre the same night.

George Sheringham (1884-1937) was an eclectic and prolific artist, commercial designer and stage designer whose early childhood was spent in Tewkesbury where his father was vicar of the Abbey. After school at the King’s School, Gloucester, and eighteen months at the Slade Art School from the age of fifteen, Sheringham studied with Harry Becker from 1901 to 1904, and lived and studied in Paris in 1905 and 1906, where he was influenced by the Asian art in the Musée Guimet. After supporting himself with poster design and watercolour painting he specialised in decorative work painting fans and panels on Lyonnais silk from November 1910. In 1915 he did his first book illustration for Max Beerbohm’s The Happy Hypocrite, and in 1917 and 1918 his first theatre designs for The Sneezing Charm produced by the private theatre club The Plough Club.

Sheringham’s work for productions by Nigel Playfair at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, starting with designs for The Duenna in 1924 led to commissions by Rupert D’Oyly Carte for redressing The Pirates of Penzance, H.M.S. Pinafore and Patience for the 1929 season, and for new dresses for Phyllis, Strephon and the Fairies in Iolanthe in1932. He was awarded a Grand Prix at the Paris Salon in 1925 for mural and theatrical design, and although an invalid from 1932, he continued flower painting until his death in 1937, shortly before his 53rd birthday.
Collection
Accession number
S.2366-2015

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Record createdMarch 22, 2016
Record URL
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