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| Snuff box painted by Samuel Raven c. 1832-1843. V&A Collection. |
Object Focus: A japanned papier mâché snuffbox, made in Birmingham c. 1832-1843, depicting the actress Mrs. Honey. Boxes depicting actresses in dramatic roles were popular throughout the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries. The box itself was probably produced by Henry Clay, then bought and painted by Samuel Raven (signed).
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| Mrs. Honey as Lurline, 1834. Embossed 'tinsel' print with metallic finishing. |
Mrs. Honey (Laura Honey, c. 1816-1842) was the daughter of another actress, Mrs. Young, and was described as the 'charming Mrs. Honey, beautiful as an houri, and the throat of a nightingale'.* She married at age 16, her husband being William Honey, but the couple later separated, Honey having a child with both her husband and within a later relationship. Honey performed at the Adelphi as Psyche in a burlesque entitled Cupid in 1833 (image below, and possibly the role depicted on the box) and as Lurline in about 1834 (image above). She was also later at the Olympic under Madam Vestris. By 1827 she was managing the City of London Theatre playing several roles. Honey died aged 26 in 1843 at Regent's Park, London.** Her obituary stated that she had 'beauty, liveliness, and natural gifts of voice and other qualities'.*3*
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| Lithograph print of Mrs. Honey as Psyche, c. 1833. Made by G. E. Madeley. British Museum Collection. |
Historian Tracy Davis outlines the eroticised nature of actresses at this time, which objects such as Raven's box may have played into.*4* Honey, though, was admired throughout society and was seen in her role as Lurline by the Princess Victoria, who wrote in her journal in January 1834 that Mrs. Honey's second dress 'was also very pretty. A breastplate of silver, a petticoat of blue embroidered and fringed with silver, short sleeves and a helmet with a red plume. She looked quite lovely in both [dresses]'.*5*
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| Print of Mrs. Honey 'The Influential Star', c. 1832-1843. Engraved by D. Thompson from a painting by John Frederick Taylor. V&A Collection. |
The Victoria and Albert Museum have several other prints depicting Mrs. Honey, see them here.
NOTES
* Henry Barton Baker, History of the London Stage and Its Famous Players (London: G. Routledge and Sons, 1904), p. 460.
** Joseph Knight and J. Gilliland, 'Laura Martha Honey', Dictionary of National Biography, (2008).
*3* Sylvanus Urban, The Gentleman's Magazine (no printer's details, 1843), XX, p. 102.
*4* Tracy C. Davis, Actresses as Working Women: Their Social Identity in Victorian Culture (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 108.
*5* Diary of Princess Victoria, 24 January 1834, quoted on the Royal Collection Trust.