PANKHURST, Sylvia.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Women's Social and Political Union brooch. A brooch after a design by Sylvia Pankhurst. She created the "Angel of Freedom" icon for the WSPU's exhibition at the Prince's Skating Rink in May 1908, to be used on the various items of jewellery and household wares that were available for sale. It continued to be used afterwards on WSPU merchandise and became one of the suffrage movement's best-known emblems. Sylvia attended Manchester School of Art from 1899 to 1902, where she won many awards, including a travelling studentship to study in Italy. She took the Royal College of Art (RCA) 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 principles, and "desperately longed to find a purpose for her art" (Harrison, p. 47). The "Angel of Freedom" depicts an angel holding a trumpet facing left, accompanied by prison bars, broken chains, lilies and a banner reading "Freedom". It "shows the influence of [Sylvia's] early years in Manchester and of the art of William Morris and Walter Crane" (Harrison, p. 109). Crane was associated with Morris in the 1880s and shared his socialist perspective on art, and had directorships at the Manchester School of Art and the Royal College of Art. An illustration of his, titled "Freedom", bears a resemblance to Sylvia's emblem, but she "made it the WSPU's own" (Crawford, p. 519).Provenance:

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