Seashore Specimens (vii)
‘We are enjoying a most pleasant sojourn at the coast visiting one of Father’s cousins and his wife. Initially the weather was extremely blustery, but this did not deter me from my resolve to explore the seashore as soon as I was able.’
 
This is an original one-off assemblage, in a hand-painted wooden box-frame.
 
Clara has gathered together a great many little treasures from her travels into this collection:  including a handmade paper cockle shell as well as tiny pebbles and shells, a vintage shoe button and a fragment of wasps nest. She particularly liked the way the intricate nest had become patterned with stripes as the wasps had diligently built it layer by layer.
On her trip to town with cousin Cordelia, Clara bought Honiton lace for the refurbishment of her gowns. As she had a little left over, she decided to keep it with her collection as souvenir of her happy visit to the coast. With the piece of lace is also a strand of seaweed, a tiny shell and a genuine fragment of an ammonite fossil.
A photograph of Clara’s father, Professor Godfrey Knight, takes pride of place in her collection
 
I have created the painted handmade paper ‘shell’ using cotton linter pulp.
 
This work was included in A Curious Collection; my 2024 solo show at Sock Gallery Loughborough, as part of:
MISS CLARA KNIGHT’S CURIOUS COLLECTIONS: SEASHORE SPECIMENS
'Miss Clara Knight, (1823-1910), was a young lady possessed of a particularly independent nature and an avid collector of all things antiquarian. Accompanying her father, an eminent Professor of Archaeology she travelled the length and breadth of the country - as they searched for wonders of antiquity, Clara compiled treasured collections of her own.
These groups of objects were found in various places along the South Devonshire coastline when Clara and her father were staying as guests of relatives; Mr Idris Knight, and his wife, Cordelia, and their small son, William. Clara found her stay to be ‘utterly delightful’ and spent a great deal of her time happily searching along the seashore and the clifftops for fascinating finds.'
 
Frame size: 45cm x 45cm
Price £420
Free Post and Packaging (UK only)