Depravities of Decoration in The Golden Bowl

Abstract

The brief Edwardian period opened exuberantly on a new century; but with the shadows of World War I gathering at its close, it has lent itself to wistful images of long garden parties and Indian summers: a commentator on Edwardian portraiture calls it ‘a period in which wealthy socialites enjoyed unparalleled luxury, and were bathed in the sunlight of an eternal summer’,¹ the social historian, Hebe Dorsey refers to the belle epoque as ‘the last act of an operetta whose actors did not know the end was in sight’.² In keeping with this general air of carpe diem, Edwardian fashions were both outrageously extravagant and touchingly fragile: ‘Summer muslin dresses printed or painted, with immense chiffon fichus, huge frothy parasols, tea-gowns with long “angel sleeves” of chiffon, evening confections quivering with chiffon and lace — in such a guise the fashions of the 1900s floated serenely towards the Niagara of 1914.’³ James Laver considered it ‘probably the last period in history when the fortunate thought they could give pleasure to others by displaying their good fortune before them’ and he composed an ode to its memory, visualising

The men, frock-coated, tall and proud,

The women in a silken cloud.⁴