PANKHURST, Sylvia.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Women's Social and Political Union side plates. A set of side plates from the tea service designed for the WSPU by Sylvia Pankhurst. She first created the "Angel of Freedom" icon for the organization's exhibition at the Prince's Skating Rink in May 1909. It featured on various merchandise and the tea service used in the popular refreshment stalls, which was sold after the event's conclusion.The "decidedly stylish" (Crawford, p. 519) plates are executed in plain white with hand-painted green rims and "Angel of Freedom" icons, which show an angel holding a trumpet, accompanied by prison bars, broken chains, flowers and a banner reading "Freedom". The icon "shows the influence of [Pankhurst's] early years in Manchester and of the art of William Morris and Walter Crane" (Harrison, p. 109). Crane and Morris shared socialist perspectives on art, and Crane held directorships at the Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art, the two institutions where Pankhurst studied. Crane's illustration "Freedom" bears a resemblance to Sylvia's icon, but she "made it the WSPU's own" (Crawford, p. 519).Pankhurst won many awards during her time at the Manchester School of Art, including a travelling studentship to study in Italy. She took the Royal College of Art entrance exam in 1904, and was not only awarded a scholarship, but came top in the entire country. She made close friends at the RCA but struggled to reconcile her life of study and painting with her growing socialist principle

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