Sketches of a Regency country life

Quite by chance, on a lovely blog called The Garden Trust, I discovered an artist I had never come across before. Diana Sperling was the daughter of a landowning family in Essex, and kept a sketchbook between 1816 and 1823, recording the daily life of her family in a quirky and charming manner. The colourful, cartoon-like sketches show how people who, while not noble, were genteel, spent their days on a country estate. A privileged, middle-class family life with its activities, fun, and annoyances.

Diana, or Di as everyone called her, was born in 1791 to a family who made had their money in the fur trade. They bought Dynes Hall, a country mansion with about 500 acres, made a lot of improvements to the house and land and soon became part of the local elite.

Di had an elder sister, a younger sister and two brothers. These, together with her parents and her elder sister’s husband and family, are the subjects of her sketches, showing the family going about its daily life. The interiors are also beautifully drawn, as are the landscapes.

Riding in a strong wind

Despite having servants, family members did various chores themselves, such as killing flies.

Mrs Sperling ‘murdering’ flies and the maid waiting to catch the dead and wounded

Sewing

Mrs Sperling sewing by an open door
Hanging wallpaper
Planting
Taking the potted plants out into the rain to rinse them off. Beautiful tiled floor.

But Di also documented their leisure, always seeing the funny side

Swimming in the pond
Ice skating on the pond in winter
A family dinner with Di feeding the dog
Some kind of wrestling game?
Playing shuttlecock
Walking to dinner with neighbours
Often in deep mud

It is interesting that the family girls rode donkeys instead of ponies

Donkeys can be ornery
The cosy couple playing chess
Dancing

Di married at 41 and thereafter made more ‘ladylike’ drawings, which were less amusing.

The drawings are collected in a book, below

I have always enjoyed and admired graphic journals, but so far have only come across ‘serious’ ones, like Maus, by Art Speilberg, Life? Or Theatre? by Charlotte Salomon, and Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi. Have you read any of those? They are well worth it. I could post about them, if anyone is interested.

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Author: M. L. Kappa

I’m an artist and writer based on a farm in Normandy, France, where we breed horses with my husband.

12 thoughts on “Sketches of a Regency country life”

  1. I love the way she drew people, a pleasing naive style that appeals to me a great deal.
    I have read ‘Persepolis’, ‘Maus’, ‘V For Vendetta’, ‘Watchmen’, and ‘From Hell’. I have also seen the live-action film adaptations of the last three.
    A feature on graphic novels would be very interesting, Marina.
    Best wishes, Pete.

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  2. Marina, what a gifted artist and I love her sense of humour and intepretation of society at the time! Pity she became more serious following her marriage. Dynes Hall is very close to where I live but I see it is owned privately! I would be interested in more about graphic books – a friend at uni wrote his disseration about the art in graphic art books so I learnt quite a bit! (Mostly forgotten!)

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