Core Record CSC - VADS: the online resource for visual arts

Core Record
Title	26 days and 25 nights of summer
Collection	Crafts Study Centre
Calligrapher	Irene Sutton (Wellington)
Description	Page 66 of a diary containing 77 written pages. The main passages are in formal black hand-writing, with side notes and headings in formal red italic.
Id Number Current Accession	C.84.29.66
Location Creation Site	Edinburgh, Scotland
Subject	calligraphy, page, diary
Measurements	30 x 24.5 centimetres - binding size, closed
Hand	formal, formal italic
Material	ink on paper
Other Materials	red paint
Ink	black
History	The diary is of a holiday which Irene and her husband took from 29 June to July 1934, from their home in Edinburgh to the south of England. Irene made notes whilst away, and then wrote out the diary while her husband was away for three weeks, as a surprise for him on his return (see letter from Irene Wellington to Hubert Wellington 23/1/43). It has often been said that it is a diary of the Suttons' honeymoon, but this is not so, as they were married in September 1930, the journey begins in Edinburgh, where Irene did not live until her after her marriage and the diary refers to 'Petworth, where we stopped on honeymoon'. It is probable however, that the diary was inspired by her honeymoon. The diary was an experiment with line spacing and column widths in an informal italic hand. Marginal notes are in a smaller, more formal italic. The book was bound by Irene and 'polished up' by the British Council (Muriel Rose). In a letter to Hubert Wellington, Irene said it took her about three weeks to do the chart, four weeks to write the whole book and four days to do the binding: a total of 53 days at �2 = �106. But she thought that it was probably worth only �50 or �60, as it was in an informal hand. Two pound per day was presumably the rate she thought a calligrapher should be earning at that time.
Rights Owner	The Irene Wellington Trust/Crafts Study Centre 2004
Style Period Period	1930s
Technique	hand-lettering