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Add MS 89138
- Record Id:
- 032-002879645
- Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:
- 032-002879645
- MDARK:
- ark:/81055/vdc_100023816002.0x000001
- LARK:
- SLARK:
- Format:
- ISAD(G)
- Reference (shelfmark):
- Add MS 89138
- Title:
- Locket containing a lock of Shelley's hair and a miniature of Beatrice Cenci
- Scope & Content:
- Alma Murray played Cenci in the first ever performance of Percy Bysshe Shelley's The Cenci, at the Grand Theatre, Islington, 7 May 1886. As a token of her appreciation, Lady Jane Shelley, wife of Sir Percy Florence Shelley, 3rd Bart., P. B. Shelley's son, gave Murray a locket containing a lock of P. B. Shelley's hair and a miniature of Guido Reni's portrait of Cenci.
- Collection Area:
- Western Manuscripts
- Project / Collection:
- Additional Manuscripts
- Hierarchy Tree:
- [{ "id" : "032-002879645", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Add MS 89138: Locket containing a lock of Shelley's hair and a miniature of Beatrice Cenci" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]
- Hierarchy Record Ids:
- 032-002879645
- Is part of:
- not applicable
- Hierarchy:
- 032-002879645
- Container:
- not applicable
- Record Type (Level):
- Fonds
- Extent:
- 1 item
- Digitised Content:
- Languages:
- English
- Scripts:
- Latin
- Start Date:
- 1886
- End Date:
- 1886
- Date Range:
- 1886
- Era:
- CE
- Access:
- Restrictions to access apply please consult British Library staff
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- User Conditions:
- Physical Characteristics:
- Locket with chain in a custom made case with 'To Alma Murray in record of the first performance of The Cenci May 7th 1886. From J. Shelley' tooled on the lid.
- Custodial History:
- Alma Murray was a correspondent of T. J. Wise, creator of the Ashley Collection. She married Alfred Forman, the brother of Wise's collaborator H. Buxton Forman. Given these connections there is a strong possibility that the locket was once part of the Ashley Collection. However, it does not appear in Wise's catalogue of the collection. It may have come in with the Ashley Collection when it was acquired by the British Museum after Wise's death in 1937, but it was not catalogued with the collection.
- Publications:
- The locket is referred to in Newman I. White, 'Shelley's Debt to Alma Murray', Modern Language Notes, vol. 37, no. 7, p. 414, Nov 1922. In Alma Murray Portrait as Beatrice Cenci (London: Elkin Matthews, 1891), p. 6, the lock of hair is described as "the single lock of Shelley's hair which [Lady Shelley] possessed, and of which, up to that time, she had never parted with a particle to anyone."
- Material Type:
- Artefacts
- Legal Status:
- Not Public Record(s)
- Names:
- Cenci, Beatrice, Italian noblewoman, daughter of Francesco Cenci, 1577-1599
Forman, Alma, née Murray, actress, wife of Alfred Forman, 1854-1945
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, poet, 1792-1822 - Related Archive Descriptions:
- Ashley MS A4154, A4155, B4156, B4184