Handel Festival

(wreath which reads: 'Sacred Harmonic Society')
Crystal Palace, June 1862

Reference Number:- Darby Number:- Godden Number:-
sb 868 116 463
 

Bookmark with words and image of wreath surrounding words and harp
image acknowledged to Eric
Quayle's book
"The Collector's Book
of Books"
 
Words:
 
 
 

HANDEL
FESTIVAL

 
 
 

image of
gold laurel leaf wreath
surrounding ribbon with words:

SACRED HARMONIC SOCIETY

which itself surrounds image
of lyre

 
 

CRYSTAL
PALACE

JUNE
1862

 
 

additional images of the same ribbons, all woven in different coloured silk:
 
same bookmark with green background colour
same bookmark with blue background colour
this image was reproduced
from the Stevengraph
Collectors Association
newsletter
same bookmark with burgandy background colour
same bookmark with grey background colour
Bookmark with words and image of wreath surrounding words and harp
copyright to this image
acknowledged to the
© Victoria And Albert Museum
London
 
Size of Silk:
13.0cm long by 3.2cm wide
Alternative back-ground colours:
Blue
Green
Red
Grey
Burgandy
White
 
Comments:

Signed:
T.STEVENS MANF=R
COVENTRY
on back at top turnover, which makes this one of the earliest bookmarks made.

Stevens logo on the reverse top turn-over of this bookmark
Stevens logo on the reverse top turn-over of this bookmark

From research conducted by a member of the Stevengraph Collectors Association it was believed that the organisers of the Festival contracted Stevens to produce five different coloured "Badges" to be worn by the singers. The individual colours denoted the different singers, i.e. one for the Bass, one for the Tenors etc..
In the images above, it can be seen there are so far recorded six different colours. I have been unable to find any details of which colours were allocated to which singers, and it is also possible one of more colour related to other non-singers.

As well as individual badges for each singer, the stewards also had a badge, with slightly different design, and these are recorded as sb872 on this site.



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This page was created on 28 November 2004
image of green bookmark added 3 June 2007, and blue image 23 February 2016. Grey background image added 24 August 2017.
Blue image replaced, and burgandy image added 30 January 2018. Burgandy image replaced with improved version 2 June 2020. White image added 1 January 2021

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