Lady Wolverton, née Edith Amelia Ward (1872-1956),
as
Britannia

Lady Wolverton, only daughter of the 1st Earl of Dudley, is seen here in the costume of Britannia which she wore to the Devonshire House Ball. From dates on the extant negatives, it is clear that Lady Wolverton went to the Lafayette studio after the Ball on two occasions to be memorialised in her spectacular costume.

In the both images, made against a painted seascape backdrop, Lady Wolverton holds a trident and wears a plumed helmet with raised laurel wreath and a cuirass of silver disks. Her sash bears the Garter motto “Honi soit qui mal y pewnse” and her double layered skirt is embroidered with the thistle of Scotland and the rose of England.

As well as removing unwanted elements from the negatives, the retouchers occasionally added items, such as the triple-masted ship and the lighthouse.

Of the five extant negatives, only the seated image of Lady Wolverton shows the triple-masted ship, the symbol of Britain’s dominion of the seas, and the lighthouse representing the safe shores of home - symbols which were added to the negative by the studio retouching department. This image which was reproduced in the Album has neither of these attributes.

These familiar attributes, usually seen behind Britannia on the British penny, had only recently been removed (1895) – an unpopular change which some thought presaged the decline of British naval power and which had elicited much discussion in the letters pages of the press.

Lady Wolverton in a classical "at home" pose, seemingly obvious to the argument being raged in the pages of The Times by the famous ornithologist WF Hudson against women's use of bird feathers as an adjunct to their beauty. Country Life, 26 March 1898