An Autobiography

A brisk and amusing 1922 autobiography by the military painter Elizabeth Butler, illustrated with her own sketches.

Elizabeth Butler (Author)

9781108081283, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 27 April 2015

380 pages, 15 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.1 cm, 0.48 kg

The young Elizabeth Butler (née Thompson, 1846–1933) and her sister, the poet Alice Meynell, were educated at home by their wealthy father, and much of their childhood was spent in Italy. Elizabeth began to train as an artist at the Female School of Art, South Kensington, in 1866. She became famous for her work in the genre (unusual for a woman) of military art, one of her best known paintings being The Roll Call, an imagined incident from the Crimea. She took great trouble to ensure the accuracy of the detail of regimental uniform, and her depiction of the bravery and stoicism of the 'ordinary British soldier' was much appreciated in the late nineteenth century. This brisk and amusing 1922 autobiography, illustrated with her own sketches, takes the reader from her childhood through her artistic success to her life as the wife of a soldier and the mother of five children.

Foreword
1. First impressions
2. Early youth
3. More travel
4. In the art schools
5. Study in Florence
6. Rome
7. War: battle paintings
8. 'The Roll Call'
9. Echoes of 'The Roll Call'
10. More work and play
11. To Florence and back
12. Again in Italy
13. A soldier's wife
14. Queen Victoria
15. Official life: the east
16. To the east
17. More of the east
18. The last of Egypt
19. Aldershot
20. Italy again
21. The Dover command
22. The Cape and Devonport
23. A new reign
24. Mostly a Roman diary
25. The Great War
Index.

Subject Areas: The arts: general issues [AB]