Not currently on display at the V&A

Mrs Mountain as Fidelia

Print
1792 (published)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Rosemond Mountain (ca.1768-1841) née Wilkinson and sometimes called Rosomon or Rose, was the daughter of the slackwire and tightrope performer Wilkinson and the wife of the Irish violinist, pianist and viola player John Mountain (b.1766) who came to Liverpool around 1785 when he was about nineteen, and where he met Miss Wilkinson. According to The Morning Chronicle they married on 5th June 1787.

In his Dramatic Register (1825) Oxberry gives Rose Wilkinson's first professional stage appearance as Madame Hazard in the burletta Mount Parnassus at The Royal Circus, 4th November 1782. The composer Charles Dibdin noted in his Memoirs: 'Miss Decamp, Mrs. Mountain and Mrs. Bland are deservedly favourites as singers, merely because I took care they should be taught nothing more than correctness of expression, and an unaffected pronunciation of the words; the infallible and only way to perfect a singer.' From 1784 she was engaged by Tate Wilkinson with whom she worked regularly on the Yorkshire circuit.

She was, according to the fellow actor Francis Waldron: 'a pretty singer with an engaging regularity of features and easy deportment', and by 1794 she began singing at Vauxhall Gardens where her husband had been regularly employed in the band every season since 1790, and where she became a featured attraction.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleMrs Mountain as Fidelia (published title)
Materials and techniques
Engraving on paper
Brief description
Mrs Mountain (c.1768-1841) as Fidelia in The Foundling, engraved by Trotter, published by John Bell, London, 8th August 1792. Harry Beard Collection
Physical description
Engraving of Mrs. Mountain as Fidelia in Act I, scene 2 of The Foundling.
Dimensions
  • Height: 14cm
  • Width: 8.3cm
Credit line
Harry R. Beard Collection, given by Isobel Beard.
Subject depicted
Summary
Rosemond Mountain (ca.1768-1841) née Wilkinson and sometimes called Rosomon or Rose, was the daughter of the slackwire and tightrope performer Wilkinson and the wife of the Irish violinist, pianist and viola player John Mountain (b.1766) who came to Liverpool around 1785 when he was about nineteen, and where he met Miss Wilkinson. According to The Morning Chronicle they married on 5th June 1787.

In his Dramatic Register (1825) Oxberry gives Rose Wilkinson's first professional stage appearance as Madame Hazard in the burletta Mount Parnassus at The Royal Circus, 4th November 1782. The composer Charles Dibdin noted in his Memoirs: 'Miss Decamp, Mrs. Mountain and Mrs. Bland are deservedly favourites as singers, merely because I took care they should be taught nothing more than correctness of expression, and an unaffected pronunciation of the words; the infallible and only way to perfect a singer.' From 1784 she was engaged by Tate Wilkinson with whom she worked regularly on the Yorkshire circuit.

She was, according to the fellow actor Francis Waldron: 'a pretty singer with an engaging regularity of features and easy deportment', and by 1794 she began singing at Vauxhall Gardens where her husband had been regularly employed in the band every season since 1790, and where she became a featured attraction.
Other number
Collection
Accession number
S.1650-2013

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Record createdMay 8, 2013
Record URL
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