MANDOLINE

BY CHARLES CONDER

The wood engraving from a water colour drawing is presented in landscape orientation. A single-lined rectangular border outlines a scene filled with six people in a forest. In the foreground is a curved line that looks like a tree root crossing from the left to the right side of the image with flowers budding intermittently. A tree grows up the left side of the image, half in view of the frame. In the mid-ground appear the six people. Immediately to the right of the tree on the left side of the page is a man standing and playing the mandoline, plainly clothed in a long-sleeve shirt, breeches, and bare feet. To the right of him are a man and a woman facing and holding one another while seated on the ground. The man appears to be shirtless, with the rest of his body blocked by the woman who leans forward in a long dress, with her back to the viewer. On the right side of them is a man leaned back on his right elbow looking at a book with his legs sprawled out. The last two figures are to the right of the reader. A man with only his head peeking out is behind a bench on which a woman is seated. She sits in a long white dress with a dark overcoat and hair flowing down around a hairpiece. She has a fan opened in her left hand and is poised to wave it. A small, black dog to the right of the woman looks up at her fan. In the background of the woman and dog on the far right of the page is a parthenon-style building with a female statue seated on the flat roof. A tree sprouts up behind and mid-ground bushes partially obstruct the right side of the building from view. In the central background and taking up the top third of the page is the faint outline of a mountainous landscape and a swirling, cloudy sky. The artist’s signature appears in the bottom right corner of the piece as: “Charles Conder” on a diagonal aiming down to the right. The text: “95” appears underneath the name but aligned to the right.

MLA citation:

Conder, Charles. “Mandoline.” The Savoy, vol. 1, January 1896, p. 43. The Savoy Digital Edition, edited by Christopher Keep and Lorraine Janzen Kooistra 2018-2019. Yellow Nineties 2.0, Ryerson University Centre for Digital Humanities, 2019, https://1890s.ca/savoyv1_conder_mandoline

magazine_images The Savoy 1 Mandoline Charles Conder Wood engraving from a water-colour drawing Paul Naumann

“Charles Conder” “95”

Southern Europe Statue, Fan, Dress, Mandoline, and Hairpiece Human Figure, Female Figure/ Woman, Male Figure/ Man, Musician, Reader, and Dog Day, Outdoor setting, Outside, Cloud, Nature, Woods/ forest, Clearing, and Pantheon-style building