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Title(s):
Crystal Palace : printed in the Machinery Department.
Published/Created:
[London] : [Crystal Palace, Machinery Department], [not before 1854]
Physical Description:
1 printed handkerchief : cotton ; 59 x 69 cm.
Holdings:
Rare Books and Manuscripts
Textiles 17b
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Fund
[Request]
Copyright Status:
Copyright Not Evaluated
Classification:
Prints
Notes:
Caption continues: "Length 1608 feet, breadth 384 feet, height in centre 208 feet, grounds 200 acres."
The Crystal Palace was a cast-iron and plate-glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851 which showcased the products of many countries throughout the world. The exhibition lasted six months and the building was relocated to a property named Penge Place that had been excised from Penge Common atop Sydenham Hill. The building constructed in 1854 on Sydenham Hill (pictured in the present handkerchief), while incorporating most of the constructional parts of the Hyde Park building, was so completely different in form as to be properly considered a quite different structure --a "Beaux-arts" form in glass and metal. It was modified and enlarged so much that it extended beyond the boundary of Penge Place, which was also the boundary between Surrey and Kent.
Handkerchief bearing a panoramic image of the Crystal Palace printed in black, with a printed red and black freize depicting roller skaters. A number of printing presses were in operation in the machinery department, striking off impressions of newspapers, and novelty items such as the present handkerchief, which no doubt belonged to a visitor who paid for the priviledge to have his own printed souvenir, and witness at first hands the advances in printing on display.
Subject Terms:
Crystal Palace (Great Exhibition, 1851, London, England) -- Pictorial works.
Roller skating -- Pictorial works.
Skating -- Pictorial works.
Form/Genre:
Souvenirs.
Handkerchiefs.
Cloth prints.
Printed textile materials.
Keepsakes.
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