Barr Estate Gardens

New Ipswich Historical Society

Anyone know what kind of plant is growing on the trellis?

On this day - April 29, 1898

29 APR 1898

Petit Vernissage at the Salons.  This is the real "varnishing day" at the Salons when the artists actually go to varnish their works and go to see how they have been hung.  Both Salons are under one roof this year owing to the destruction of all the other exposition buildings where they were formerly separately held.  This year in the huge Palais des Machines they are kept apart only by the dividing partitions.  Only one admission will be charged.  The galleries are well arranged and a huge space left in the centre to form a court for the sculpture.  The effect is somewhat the same as last season at both Salons.  Artists were burying around in swarms hunting from room to room to find their works.  Men with ladders were busy applying coats of shining varnish to their works.  Others hung around to take in what others had sent.  All the works were not yet hung, mine were nowhere visible as yet.  Lee had both portraits hung on the line in the New Salon, one of myself and the other of Miss Burnett.  I varnished them both to bring out the places that had dried in.  Tanner was in a stew because he could not find his "Annunciation" which was not yet hung.  Poor Barlow looked melancholy because his picture was hung so high that it was hardly possible to reach it to varnish it.  I immediately borrowed the varnish.  Men hunted in vain for their precious works which were lost among five thousand pictures.  I saw Mr. Vail, Mrs. Dearth's cousin working on a ladder.  I was not struck by his work.  Miss Shuttleworth's market picture which was the result of last summer's work at Crécy was hung so high that I would never have found it if she had not pointed it out.  The poor girl was ready to burst into tears - especially after seeing how well Miss Lufkin had her works hung.  I could not find Glover's picture.  DuMond was hustling around with his wife.  They have just returned from the south of France where Mr. DuMond was obliged to go for his health.  I saw the boys at Creuset's restaurant.  Cartwright and Logan will go to Brittany in a couple of weeks.  They want me to follow them.  All our things are stored in Logan's studio.

More war news.  War has been declared by Congress.  No attack yet in Havanna [sic].  Congress makes history backwards! and declared that war exists and has existed since April 21.  This is rather an amusing declaration for the Powers and may prove to be a bad precedent.  A nation can attack another and after a while kindly let them know that there has been war existing for some time back?  The carrying out of the resolutions were necessary at once and as it meant war it might have been declared at once without waiting for Spain to do it.  Spain did not wish to take the initiative in order to keep up her cry of being abused and insulted.  There is a vast amount of newspaper literature to read every day on the movements of the fleets, the troops, and of the defenses on land and coast.  The Asiatic Squadron left Hong Kong for a probable descent upon Phillipines [sic] and Manila.  There is a liklihood [sic] of an encounter in the Atlantic very soon.

On this day - April 29, 1909

James Roger diary entry

29th (Thursday)

Hard frost cool variable winds, cloudy threatening rain.  Dave at Travis’s.  Got letter from Alice.